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Federica Luzzi
Please, wait for the image to be loaded! Federica Luzzi
1. FEDERICA LUZZI Italy

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(…) I present my artworks in a dimensional installation as though they were a fragment of a galaxy: macrocosm and microcosm together; disseminations, the sowing of fragile bodies aggregated magnetically and arranged in constellations or in an unknown writing. I have always considered the use of the vertical loom similar to the process of the growth of a plant: slow, from low to high, in all directions. The shapes are created organically from inside. (…)

      In the creative process, every phase of the elaboration and realisation of the work must necessarily be executed by the same person in every fold of the weave. Every detail, fold, and fissure is an intimate expression of this process and a sort of personal dialogue between the artist and the material: every accident or incidental event during the weaving can become a process of inner identification. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty said: “Since the things and my body are made of the same material, you need that the vision takes place someway in them”.

      In the case of the part that I selected from the classical Brussels tapestry, I made associations with a series of themes recurring regularly in my own research into the area of earth under the Sign of Capricorn (the Goat), with attention to Leonardo da Vinci’s ideas on using the interpretation of vague drawings in the gauging of an individual’s personality, ideas later systematised by Hermann Rorschach in his inkblot test. I brought my thoughts into connection firstly with the image of Mother Earth and secondly with the areas of earth visible under the Sign of Capricorn, i.e. with the winter solstice, i.e. with that period when vegetation is almost lifeless; when nature is colourless, bare, and quiet; when cold and ice rule; and when seeds are hidden under the snow and soil, waiting for the far-off summer solstice to germinate them and bring forth their fruit. This is a metaphor for the eternal alternation of the expanding and contracting cosmos, as well as for such opposites as soft and hard, hot and cold, and young and old. At the same time, Bacchus/Dionysus, the ‘twice-born’, represents fertility-giving energy; this idea extends to the nymphs also, to whom he was entrusted, and whom Jupiter/Zeus rewarded for their work by putting them in the firmament as the star cluster Hyades, a sisterhood bringing rain. The goat image can be brought into connection with hard-skinned (armoured) animals such as the scaly crocodile which has smooth skin as well as armoured skin with horny structures – scuta – similarly to a protective shield, one on which sense organs can be found. The cult of Semele, which was probably Thracian-Phrygian in origin, can be linked to Khtonia, an underworld deity embodying seismic and volcanic forces. In the Mayans’ body of beliefs, the earth rests on an enormous crocodile swimming in water, and that when the crocodile makes a movement, earthquakes take place. For me, the multiple meanings of the Brussels tapestry call to mind a primeval animal and at the same time tragic events of the present age.