Sacred Conversation

SOLO EXIBITHION by TIZIANA CONTINO

I created the Sacred Conversation series with the aim of approaching a theme that is both classic and contemporary: the spiritual, observed and perceived in its expressive freedom. “Spiritual” derives from the Latin word “spiritus,” meaning “breath,” a term that well expresses the lightness of painting suggesting transcendence. As in classical sacred conversations, spiritual themes merge with matter, ethereal elements share a physical space where abstraction takes shape, directing its gaze towards the viewer, who becomes an interlocutor in the conversation. The purity of white and the preciousness of gold specifically evoke these two material/immaterial elements, highlighting their points of contact, elective affinities, and their intrinsic dualism.

The new series of works by Tiziana Contino tests the challenging attempt to make perceptible the theme of the sacred within the contemporary dimension of the digital image. Nor does it result in a sort of digital sublime that reconnects to the indirect reference of Renaissance classics. The visual intuition is very simple and effective: a fusion of cosmic painting, stemming from a long artistic tradition, from the Futurist Prampolini (who also linked it to the Sacred) to Fontana, using the sacredness of gold. Another resilient and inventive effect is the preservation of vast abstract masses that contain and merge with iconography of sacred paintings. This level of incorporation between abstraction and subject actually has a long history, from Balla’s Futurism (the abstract-analogical reconstruction of the universe) to the “simulacrist” dimension of the 1980s, albeit in a critical key to postmodernity. Here, however, the possible conceptuality of the operation leaves more space for the visual and aesthetic impact, which seems to me to carry a positive sumptuousness. In truth, the theme of the cosmos could and should convey that sidereal distance, that “terror” of the romantic sublime. And even more so if this theme of the Cosmos is joined and confused with that of the Sacred, and therefore of a cosmic transcendence. But the artist, I repeat, had the fortunate intuition of reinterpreting the tradition of gold backgrounds, which is a wholly human and earthly tradition, so that this sidereal distance is in some way humanized and familiarized by the tradition of Art. The 2024 series once again relies on a formal architecture – also of semi-transparent colors – aimed at a positive aesthetic impact. In Transcendental Landscape 02 – 03 – 04, for example, the perspective could even seem from bottom to top toward this frame of differently colored skies – here already an intuition, different skies, not clouds. And this perspective, even if for a moment it might seem constricting, appears rather as an “embrace” of skies that are not human – perhaps divine – so that what is so earthly at the top left is not a vanishing point: the sacred skies are below, already on Earth.

critic txt Giancarlo Carpi

Holy Conversation

Classic Dark Words

SOLO EXIBITHION by TIZIANA CONTINO

I called this series of watercolors “Classic dark words”, elaborating a bodily coding of the gesture/alphabet. The work is part of a larger project called “Typo Wo-Man” elaborating a bodily coding of the gesture/alphabet that I propose as an act/dance performance of a story that only the body can express in a glossary of terms that can be enriched by the participants in the performance through an app I prototyped. Through the app, participants in the performance can interact by introducing new words that I’m going to perform with my body. This alphabet was created entirely with my body which has become a typographic sign of expression, sensation of an inner feeling, of moods of a body. One of the peculiarities of this series of watercolors is that the overall meaning of the work is restored thanks to the marks produced with invisible ink which complete and expand the work.These marks will be activated and displayed only by those who come into possession of the work and who choose whether to make them visible or hide them forever.

Hidden/obscure words are ritual, magical words that are part of a shared and personal dictionary at the same time. It’s about your own personal feeling that enters into relationship with other bodies and thoughts. It represents the very entity of the work through which one wants to enter into conversation with others. Memorable words mark our existence and accompany us in the repetition of signs that become a personification of ourselves.