"Art is something real; yet, it isn’t there"

About me

SIt all starts with a pencil in your hand, then a paintbrush... and little by little you end up following the complex architecture of chiaroscuros, perspective and all the diverse art techniques.
Turning a squiggle into a painting is an intricate process; you come across powerful enigmas such as the phenomena of the matter and the spirit - so similar and so complex at the same time – the duality of an individual, and the search for the objective as opposed to the imposition of the subjective.
When reviewing my different states of mind, I feel each state contains, in its own way, both an invitation to act and a simultaneous authorization to wait and even to remain inert.

Taking a closer look, I spot movements initiated but not yet completed; a relatively constructive decision is suggested, and yet there is no constriction that excludes other choices.

Consistent with Freud, I fit into the representation of the artist as someone who escapes from himself and the others by creating fiction, an extended lie for the next, so that the creative act is eternalized. By rejoicing with the beauty of the work he creates, he’s flattered into believing he has received an earthly divinization.
When the artist understands the meaning and the substance of his search though, lie can no longer be a part of him if not as a kind of stylistic mechanism: art strips bare of its mere narcissistic game to embrace man in his most intimate nature.
I am struggling to find truth in myself and in my creativity.  I’m not keen on using the term "art" referring to myself; it’s a rather challenging word to be frequented very cautiously, with the same awe we sense in front of anything mysterious.
Yet, with respect to my interest in creativity I encountered the concept of "constriction excluding a choice" and this absolves me when I am doubtful. It’s actually a voluntary constriction!
Though accepted with intolerance, even rage at times, this never fails to lead me to new findings about myself, the art observer’s enjoyment, the pleasure of studying, along with my being a "craftswoman".
Art is indeed tormented research (entailing decisions and choices to be made, and taking on responsibilities), which also implies complete involvement, as it triggers those energies that urge to become manifest. As to the specific value of art, only the surrounding consensus and the stakeholders will be able to determine it, yet it cannot be the final objective.
Making a portrait that reflects the feelings of the subject has always been beguiling and the approval used to fill me with pride, but what really captured me was realizing a grooved, living colour layer, which was never missing. On a small area, one that was definitely non-significant in the context of the work, only a small background that nobody observed, or a piece of fabric: that was the meaning of it all.
During my research process, I went through a very ‘material’ oil painting period, which I made even more consistent by including lava sand, pumice, and rusty shreds of metal sheet …
I have now got rid of the paintbrush and have chosen to work directly with metallic materials.  I turn delicate silk works into solid sculptures imprisoned inside resin, while paper incisions become  "other", unveiled as they are through their "alter ego" of solid plexiglas.

I wish I could set free the energetic quality and expressive power of copper, a live material that interacts with fire, air and water.....and highlight the energetic quality and the power of the painting matter, with no more descriptive references: just turning to essence,  modulations, and rhythms that convert directly into emotion.
It’s nice to have a dialogue with it, to let instinct loose by focusing on rhythms rather than on the image surface (direction, skidding, curling, mutual contamination in simple or complex textures, at times completed by interactive elements): an encouragement to listen to the resonances and the changes produced by colour, movement, shape, matter, light.

I have always tried to compose works where something spontaneous - possibly automatic - comes to the surface. In other words, I don’t engage in ‘painting’ because I already know what I’m going to do; I almost always wait for my mental and physical state to suggest colours to bring alive an "interior space", which will then turn into actual artwork.

A space where light reaches out, filtered by the material nature of solid objects, slipping among the corrosion grooves etched through the acids.  Metal, resins and acids call to mind the alchemical processes; vestiges of a past that still gusts in the eternal ‘present’ we live in.

To quote Simone Weil (1909-1943,  French philosopher): "Art is an attempt to convey an image of the infinite beauty of the entire universe into a finite quantity of matter, shaped by a human hand. Such attempt is successful if that portion of matter does not hide the universe, but actually unveils the reality surrounding it".

The "matter" is seen as a sort of "stage curtain" behind which lies the expressive force of spirit and memory. Energy is my table, my canvas, the metal that becomes "other" under my hands, my thought, and my feelings.

Copper, zinc, lead: not a mere material support.  For sure, these resources are turned into ‘object’, namely ‘material’, when I use and manipulate them.

They still preserve a memory of themselves as subjects, and as an added value they encompass the memory of me as I recall in them memories, stories and hints of life.

My work is practice through different languages; innovations are created to be conveyed into engraving,  then return disguised as "other" in the body of my work.

The beauty I see in corroded matter! Wood whitened by the sea is the most supreme of sculptures, a piece of metal sheet rusted by time and weather conditions has got a colour rendering that no human art can reproduce. A cuttlefish bone unveils the inner matter; its laminated texture evokes almost magical forms.

The inevitable alteration process, which would lead to an end, is revitalized instead.
The cracks and the lacerations I cannot help inflicting upon the materials, be it ceramic, canvas or metal, are windows through which I look out with eyes full of infantile wonder (who am I and where am I?),  yearning to investigate that spiritual mystery that is beyond everything.

At the base of it all is life, with all its visible scars and its variety of emotions - positive and negative ones - that push us beyond our limits.

It’s not surprising that I work on cuts, on the "underlying" substance and its finishing, trying to restore all of the expressive and communicative force intrinsic to the material.

Art is about acting in life to get to know life better; it’s about giving it a meaning and a purpose.
It’s about probing deeper beyond the outer appearance, about investigating hidden meanings by hinting at another realm that is more significant. In the end, it’s about better living.  

Nowadays we live in a virtual culture, with an ever-growing loss of ‘humus’ to the advantage of a standardized, homogenized, ready-made product.

Visual, literary or musical art should always trigger a progressive de-materialization of perception, through which we cross over the tangible matter, which carries us (trans-portare) beyond our own senses and allows us to see beyond (‘trans-videre’) the matter; this results in endless continuity - with neither diaphragms nor knots nor tangles - between the mental and the physical, between our inner and outer space.

Perhaps the ‘significant’ is research for its own sake, and the target aimed at is always (and must always be) a few steps forward.


Daniela Domenichini