Collaboration with Ivan Tresoldi
Curated by CasermArcheologica as part of the project “Narrazioni” involving three other artists.
Date: September 2018 – Size approximately 20×5 meters – Located in Sansepolcro (Italy)
Medium: water based wall paint
The work
Realised in collaboration with Ivan Tresoldi from Artkademy as part of the project “NarrAzioni” produced by CasermArcheologica and paid by Anas.
This was my first ever large scale mural and my biggest ever collab with another artist, quite an exciting project indeed.
It was spring 2018 and I was in touch with CasermArcheologica asking for advice on how to do public art in Sansepolcro, my hometown. At the time they were in the early stages of producing and curating a project, that later was named “NarrAzioni”. Three artists painting two big walls below the freeway’s overpass, the “threshold” that any visitor of Sansepolcro would have to go through upon arrival by car.
So they decided to invite me to be the fourth artist and to collaborate with Ivan Tresoldi on one of the walls.
The collaboration with Ivan went smoothly from the beginning, he chose to let me come up with the main concept. His specialties are calligraphy, lettering and words, he was willing to let me lead the project.
I wanted this mural to be about the relationship between nature and human, with nature in the focal point and the human element on a secondary level.
In order achieve this I chose as protagonist an oak tree next to a wheat field. Far in the distance we see the Appennini mountains. The composition is an imperfect symmetry, divided in three sections: the middle panel contains the scene described above, while the two side panels contain more graphical representations of an acorn and an oak leaf, each embraced by a platonic solid, perfect geometric structures. A third platonic solid, the cube, is surrounding the oak, without being able to fully enclose it.
A man accompanied by a dog, probably a pilgrim walking the camino of San Francesco, stops for a moment and looks up, wondering while the lettering of Ivan Tresoldi gives dynamism, movement and depth to the whole composition.
Making of video with interviews (in Italian)
The project is documented in the following video made by Low Party Production:, the artists painting the opposite wall are: Lisa Gelli and Nic – Nicola Alessandrini.
Symbology
For years I have been fascinated by the oak tree. It’s hard to explain, but the way its branches curve and twist have always attracted my eye, just like the detailed shape of its leaf, that is different for every leaf as for every tree.
The Oak tree has had important roles in pagan religions and cults, and I thought this worked well with the sense of divinity I wanted to transmit with the artwork.
I highlighted the acorn and the leaf, the first is the seed that generates new life, the other is what produces energy for the plant, which is essential, but it’s also important that it falls when the time comes.
The abstract geometries of the platonic solids are a reference to Piero della Francesca, local renaissance painter. He loved mathematics and geometry and wrote a compendium of books on the subjects, that later was translated from vulgar to Italian by his apprentice Luca Pacioli and included in “De divina proportionae”, a compendium illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci himself.
This reference to famous local renaissance men has another symbolic meaning to it: geometry as an attempt of the human mind to explain, quantify and contain nature. The result is harmonious and pleasing, but geometry cannot fully contain life and nature, therefore the branches of the oak escape the embrace of the cube.
For the ancient Greek philosophers these shapes were associated with the elements of nature, and here I chose the elements that better represent the Tiber Valley, where Sansepolcro is located: air, water and earth, with the latter as the most prominent one, symbolized by the cube and giving the work its title: “Terra” is earth in Italian.
Color palette
Blue and yellow are often connected with Sansepolcro. Colors associated with divinity in christian iconography.They are among the hue combinations decorating the renaissance costumes and uniforms of the “Sbandieratori”: travelling acrobats that juggle with flags.
Blue and yellow are also a reference to the “Via Francigena”, a quite popular camino that passes by Sansepolcro. It’s meant to trace the steps of San Francis on his way from Florence to Assisi. The camino is marked with a blue and yellow sign on trees and stones along the way.
Although I have never walked the camino myself I had deep and life changing encounters with some of the pilgrims.
Ivan’s secret language
As Ivan was contributing with his letters to the mural I kept looking at them and wonder what was he writing.
Towards the end he gave me sort of a decryption key: he pointed at a word and said “there it says ‘terra’, there it says ‘chus’, do you see it now?”
Some of the letters are slightly twisted, but once you learn that it becomes pretty easy to read the words. They are all inspired by the artwork, by nature, by the idea of collaboration and friendship, adding further layers of meaning to the painting.
Work in progress photos
