2018 Mantra
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Mantra
Ferruccio Ascari here returns to using the technique of fresco transferred to canvas, typical of his painted works. But there is an element of innovation: the element of writing, previously used episodically in the fabric of his works, becomes the key element of this work, which is also a text.[read more=”Read More”less=”Read Less”]The range of colours is limited to just two: a very dark green for the almost-black background, and gold for the words of the text flowing across twenty-seven canvases, hung not in a line but in a pattern that recalls a musical score. At first glance, the text seems unfathomable, but as the title suggests, it is a fragment of a mantra of Vedic tradition. The text is a threshold to cross, an enigma to decipher in order to reveal its content of truth. Mantra is part of a cycle of compositions the artist has been working on since 2017. They all fall within the same province: a spiritual tension, a questioning of the sense of our being in the world in this historical period of radical transformations. The sense of these works that refer to different religious traditions lies in their quest for a common core, able to preserve us from hate and intolerance. The message contained in Mantra goes in this direction, but not only. The artist’s formal choices are in themselves a declaration of intent: the drastic reduction in figurative elements as well as the gold and the dark green make this work an object of meditation with a contemporary slant and with an implicit reference – also via Malevich’s Black Square – to the icon and its theological as well as artistic significance, its being a ‘presence’ and not just a simple artistic depiction.
2017 Ex Voto
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Ex voto
Ex-voto 1, Ex-voto 2, Ex-voto 3, the three works located in the church of San Bernardino alle Ossa in the context of the personal exhibition of Ferruccio Ascari “Silenzio”, recall the authentic ex-voto offerings covering the walls in front of the ossuary. Here, the intentional choice of the artist has been to integrate these “soft voiced” works in continuity with this “special” place.[read more=”Read More”less=”Read Less”]This also permitted to avoid any overlap with the mood coming from this place. The three works intertwine a dialogue with the authentic ex-votos, thus suggesting to think about the likeness, but also on the difference, between the two: apart from a certain formal reference with those artifacts, which don’t pretend to be anything else than signs of devotion for some received blessing, these three works are situated in a different horizon, that of art as an interrogation, as the search for a sense and also as creation of a space further than that of the daily existence.[/read]
Ex Voto I. Perforated alcantara paper, approx. 40×48 cm, 2017
Ex Voto II. Plate of perforated graphite, approx. 17×28 cm, 2017
Ex Voto III. Foil of perforated rubber, approx. 38×58 cm, 2017
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