research - valeria luccioni
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Art is for me intimately linked to Philosophy,it is a way of seeing that is also and above all a way of thinking.
The series conception is to me strictly connected to progression,implicating a relation between reiteration and movement,that is time and space.
I privilege the series because I can go deep into my research through the imaginary world created a priori by the title and by the matter chosen for the investigation.
Besides that,by means of the series I can underline the implicit and essential connection between Image and Language,being an articulated structure whose every element can be considered a declension.
Since te concept of flesh is linked to the Image beyond the representation of the naked human body, my research goes from figurative representation to Corporeality interpreted in a broad sense and therefore in an abstract way.
These works of mine are a personal representation of the human body according to an expressionistic rather than realistic aspect of the figure.
The body is simplified and deformed and is perceived no longer as flesh but as something substantially spiritual spreading a personal and unknown energy vaguely performable.
My vision of the human body is linked to the Greek philosophy preceding Platon,according to which the "true man" is the one identifiable in his body rather than in his soul.
Therefore the observer should perceive the vital force of the representation as well as my own espressiveness.
Every part of the body,whose proportions are distorted,is considered important in itself and is not subdued to the "powerful mind",as it was in Cartesian philosophy.
Setting aside the dualistic distinction between a spiritual subject and a biological object,my purpose is to represent the vital force of the matter according to Bergson's ideas as I am convinced that the body has got a constant spirituality that is the clearest evidence of life.
On the other hand the real nakedness that one can perceive observing a figurative representation doesn't consist in the naked figure,on the contrary it is displayed by the sign that is the key of the whole composition,its innermost detail.
BEYOND ANATOMY:THE BODY AS AN ORIGINARY OPENING
In these works the gesture is not only represented from the anatomical point of view but as the objectivation of inner dynamics above all.
In "Phénoménologie de la perception" the French existencialist philosopher Merleau-Ponty writes of the body as an originary opening to the world towards which it doesn't stop directing itself:consequently the body changes in its image which means that the first meaning of the world things arises from the ascertainment of the body possibilities.
The subject of this experience isn't the Cartesian "pure intellect" but the "embodied intellect" that doesn't live in the world as "I think" but as "I move"the world objects.
From the existential point of view the body reveals the objects it touches and therefore it is soon out of itself,open to the world.
A gesture interpreted as potentiality makes the body the origin of every transcendency.
The gesture considered as something spiritual is interpreted like a thick web of possible movements which marks the importance of human freedom continuously choosing among infinite possible gestures.
The space of the representation becomes the set of a continuous unfolding of inexhaustible potentiality and consequently of a solitude full of soothing liberty.
Besides that,I interpret the nakednesses as a sign synthetizing all the dynamic tensions of the representation,being itself its peak.
My personal landscape views are not to be interpreted as a set for human acting but as a living nature which shares an originary sympathy with mankind.
The substantial connection between Man and Nature is actually "mutual poetry".
According to the neoplatonic originary sympathy between natural macrocosm and human microcosm,the representation is a continuous return of signs and expressions between Man and Nature:in my case it is a passage from the expressiveness as an artist to Nature.
As a consequence of what has been so far explained both human and natural gesture is so important and powerful for its involved lyric poetry:the capacity of perceiving the conceiled signs of the natural world is propaedeutic to the human expressiveness and to Man's typical capability of producing signs.
The link between Man and Nature is included in the gestural analysis and synthesis;the result is a lively representation in a continuous movement.
CONCEILED ANATOMY: PAREIDOLIA
When I say "flesh sculptures" I mean the peculiar analogy between body anatomy and natural elements.
These works underline how strong is the connection between the human flesh and the natural elements in a union of oneiric and ambiguous visions.
The representation ambiguity emphasizes how matter can confuse the spectator of the vision and combine antithetic realities.
The vision aims at being organic and the sign suggests different perspectives and consequently different possible realities.
The "flesh sculpture"sets out to be an unusual figurative form that,in a total ambiguity,turns into an indefinite and permanent abstraction,with a symbolic feature.
My implicit purpose is to supress the distinction between figurative and abstract art.
ICONS
In this series my purpose is to underline,through the gold presence, how abstract and figurative art are mutually connected.
Abstraction should not be considered a deduction from figurative art but an induction,or rather, a development in the complexity of his derived birth.
The gold ground reminds of the ancient icons,that is of the indistinct background of which the holy figure loomed out.
Besides that in ancient Greek the word "icon" named the image first of all.
THE MEANING OF NAKEDNESS,TRACES
In these works,depht is not the opposite of surface,but it is a necessary quality to express every detail of the picture.
Depht comes out like a visible trace on the surface,nearly confused with it to emphasize that there is no fragmentariness in the totality of the vision,but a moltitude of imperceptible variations of matter depht.
On the other hand I always give a great importance to the concept of "nakedness"in my productions:what I am most interested in is to reveal the meaning of nakedness which doesn't only concern the figurative field but also the abstract one.
To a larger extent the word "naked"means everything shown to the world and therefore defenceless as well as everything deprived of the appearence which doesn't regard its essence:we can consequently identify the nakedness with the essence,with the depht of the picture,with his secret aspect both hidden and scantly appeared.
Since I want to go beyond the limits of the word nakedness as a simple exposition of the naked human body,I try to rely it to the Greek word "αλήθεια",which means "revealing",that is to point out the most significant element,the detail which may explain the meaning of the whole composition.
The landscape is seen both as a projection of one's subjectivity and as an expression of one's identity.
Analysis and representation therefore coincide with the modality through which to communicate interiority and with the symbol by which to underline one's peculiarities; something therefore changeable, depending on the momentary state of mind, but at the same time essential because it constitutes the person.
The work therefore becomes the "genius loci" of the author.
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