black #4 Painting

Claudio Marziali is an Italian artist living in Bergamo; he senses a strong connection with the wood element, which he has always worked with , also as a specialist restorer. When still an adolescent child, he becomes passionate about art, and turns to analogue photography. His style includes naturalistic and experimental images with a strong intimate quality. Later, he turns to painting and sculpture, which will become his favourite expressive medium. Influenced by the East and by the works of architects such as Nakashima and artists like Kenjirō Azuma – as well as Louise Nevelson – he creates his last collection of wooden sculptures “Recuperi”, in which the strong connection between the artist and the natural world is obvious. Marziali opposes the adulteration and distortion of wood, opting instead for spontaneous manipulations of the shapes, and preferring gold as the best tool to highlight the areas which are most damaged and corroded by time. In accordance with the zen philosophy of kintsugi, where beauty in an object is enhanced by its breaking, and with the way of seeing things, also Japanese, of wabi-sabi – which welcomes and enhances the imperfections of time – Marziali has created works which are defined precisely by the free interpretation of the observer, who an independent ‘user’ who relies, in his readings, purely on his senses and his personal history. Each piece does not tell its story, but reveals the story of the one who is observing. “I believe that we Westerners are inclined by culture to try to dominate and tame nature and to rationally explain things. Thus, we see things as if they were rivers forced into cemented margins. I love to accept nature as it is: I take the beam or log and I wash it, I consolidate it and brush it almost with a kind of reverence, since nature and time have already done their patient work. Then I add only some color and gold to highlight their scars, which are the same as those of Man.” Claudio Marziali.