9 – 30. septembar
Vis eius integra est, si versa fuerit in terram.
Tabula Smaragdina
Its power is complete if turned towards to earth.
The Emerald Tablet
Sun Beneath is the title of an exhibition by Matilde Romagnoli, a young artist, whose works take us to a world of chthonic concepts, human nature, self-reflection, allegory, hermeticism, but also theatrical and dramatic presentations. She draws inspiration from myriad sources: the island and the volcano of the same name—Stromboli; the 1950 Roberto Rossellini’s film Stromboli, Land of God; the 1984 film Under the Volcano directed by John Huston based on Malcom Lowry’s 1947 novel of the same name; the true events that occurred on Alicudi Island between 1903-1905, when the inhabitants consumed rye bread contaminated with ergot fungus, which caused hallucinations that were powerfully reflected in all aspects of the little isolated island’ life (the main ingredient obtained from ergot fungus was subsequently used to synthesize the hallucinogenic drug LSD). On the other hand, the creative processes at the Academy of Fine Arts and an art foundry in Munich, the stay in Belgrade and the work she did in a Balkan Cinema workshop, as well as the trip to Sicily that engendered a series of drawings, sketches, and a short-format art video titled Sun Beneath, should not be overlooked. A three-dimensional ensemble emerges from a whirlwind of ideas, impressions and reflections –a form of installation in the Balkan Cinema space that conceals a deeper symbolism in its many layers and drives the viewer to personal self-reflection.
Matilda Romagnoli’s art is daring, provocative, playful and contemplative. The bronze sculptures that constitute his ensemble attest to her outstanding technical skill in mastering the material in the context of a traditional figural sculpture, with a virile strength of endurance and precision in execution. The work demonstrates an investigative, introspective process concerned with themes and motives that raise questions about human nature, its determinism, the inner world, the world facing the Other, the expressiveness and voluminosity, as wells as accurateness in the presentation of portrayed psychological traits, which unravels the essence of one’s being and translates it into form.
The work Twice Me (Zweimal Ich) was created between 2021 and 2023 and conveys a strong expressive charge reflected in its size (height: 240 cm) and a formally delicate but structurally robust composite assembly that combines two sensual female figural representations in a statically demanding sculptural solution. The two naked bronze figures are the focal point and the central spot of a mise-en-scene perfectly designed to emulate the burning volcano Stromboli, onto which they are perched. From this accentuated vertical group consisting of the two female figures, where one stands and holds the other on her shoulders, the visitor identifies the facial features of one and the same person—the artist herself. To understand the dynamic interaction between the figures, we can rely on Matilda Romagnoli’s own interpretation: “They’re like a double self-portrait…because every one of us has a dual image of ourselves.” Within the deeper, conceptual layer of the composition, we also find the concepts of Jung’s “collective unconscious”, but we can also observe them in cultural matrixes defined through religion, mythology, art, psychology, or philosophy. In the amalgam of eternal ideas of duality such as light and darkness, spirit and origin, Heaven (Nuit) and Earth (Geb), Ego and Id, conscious and unconscious or transcendental and sensory world, it appears as if the “twins” emerge from a “theurgical” workshop intertwined, supporting and completing each other in unity. At the same time, we see in them the symbolism of man’s primordial nature whose life path alternates between alertness and sleep, reality and fantasy, reason and emotion, active and static state, work and rest, and other dualities.
The composition is characterized by a precise impression of sensibility, as seen in the modelling of the form, with allusions to the lightness of a physical body, openness of plans, and the suggestion of movement of the composite volumes, as well as a delicate bronze patination achieved through the meticulous application of a thin layer of sulphur and water. The artist attempts to transpose an element of the female nature, its sensuality, lightness, and subtlety, with a clear reference to contemplation evoked by the portrait of a seated figure with closed eyes, which could be associated with a state of rest, meditation, or some kind of surrender, in contrast to the standing figure with open eyes, looking ahead with vigilance.
A clandestine radial movement of projected invisible axes is woven inside the “dialogue” between the standing and the seated form, extending from the legs slightly apart towards the ground, over the open right palm of the standing figure, creating a balance for the left hand, which supports the left knee. In the seated figure above, the multiple invisible movement axes conflate in the outstretched index finger pointing to the upper right, as well as in the head bowed to the left. All of this is completed by the prominent parallel axes, which move from the seated figure’s knees and serve as “anchoring points”. Although this figural group appears rather static, it creates the impression of focused strength, while also conveying an allusion of expansion and subtle tension through the series of movement lines that connect and spread radially.
The two sensual female figures stand firmly in the centre of the volcano’s crater and defiantly, in a manner typical of youth, confront extraneous forces, determined to remain free and who they are in expressing their vital and creative will. The active volcano’s erupting lava can be viewed as a metaphor for creative chaos from which forms emerge with the help of red-hot molten magma, similar to how red-hot bronze finds its way into the casting process. The volcano also symbolizes the underground world, Chaos, the unconscious, the abyss, Hell, and fear, but the fire also has a transforming, purifying force, which, like the alchemical process of transmutation and turning lead into gold, leads to the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps this is one of the ways we can read the ensemble that stares at us elevated and with the accentuated self-reflexive component.
The figurative group Twice Me is complemented by a series of about 40 white plaster plates (40 x 40 cm) with spontaneously engraved inscriptions that are references to the artist’s thoughts but also those of her friends, of people she has met and movie quotes, creating a path towards the volcano. The brief sentences on the plates embody the following thoughts: Reality shifted in various ways; The floor is lava; Kiss my automobile; Are you sleeping? No, I’m tending to my plants… In an unpretentious and amusing way, the inscriptions reflect the whirlpool of everyday ideas that change swiftly and whose significance fades over time and eventually slips into oblivion, which is conveyed by some of the plates purposefully shattered. At the same time, they demonstrate the flow of thought, which perpetually slips away, wanders, and multiplies, losing its wholeness due to its instability. Could these plates be a metaphor for the fragility of any concept, idea, representation, belief, identity, and even consciousness itself?
As a clear counterpoint to the plates’ whiteness, there is a group of smaller bronze figures (about 20 centimetre-high), which take different positions on some of the plates. These figures with red propellers on their backs draw on the tradition of twentieth-century assemblage, which stood out (not only in painting but also in modern sculpture) as an innovative concept of combining different materials in order to incorporate objects of mass production by creating a new field for experimentation, often resulting in a more aggressive three-dimensional expression that far exceeds the traditional framework, both in terms of materials and techniques. Finally, these pieces, which employ a variety of materials, recall early twentieth-century assemblages such as Pablo Picasso’s 1951 work Baboon and Young, in which the baboon’s head is actually a toy car.
Furthermore, it should be noted that Matilde Romagnoli brings these images to life in a technically accurate manner by varying body positions (lying, sitting, or reclining). When compared to the Twice Me figures, they have a coarser texture and fewer features, but the merging of clearly defined curves and the addition of red propellers, emphasizes their difference, changed “nature,” as well as the suggestion of movement and dynamic energy, in an invisible rotating motion. Precisely in this plastic composition we recognize the metaphor of inner movement, of all that pushes us to rise up and resist the static state, the life’s force and inner power originating from creation and existence itself.
The piece Tomos, which is similarly done in the assemblage technique, stands “as opposed” to this series of small-format figures. We recognize the metal shell of a neutral beige boat engine to which an aluminum arm is attached. This structural “machine” appears to be at rest; it lacks an engine or a propeller, as do figures with propellers, suggesting no movement. We could assume that this piece serves as a silent “observer.”
In addition to figures with propellers and Tomos, Matilde Romagnoli introduces into her volcanic environment another group of small-scale figurines with leaves. Stylized leaves attached to carefully crafted structures, such as thin stems, are most typically found between two figures. They represent the people who live at the volcano’s foot, while the leaves they carry shield them from ash, stones, lava and other outside forces. This phantasmagoric realm illustrates the collaboration between the world of people and environment. They are not at odds, but rather in harmony, with the acceptance of mutually distinct natures that fundamentally impact and transform each other through time. Can we observe in this piece the exaltation of nature’s forces and its potential to protect mankind if people obey its laws?
Drawings, sketches, digital prints and a video work of the same name as the exhibition are also part of the Matilda Romagnoli show. In addition to the sculptural works placed in the constructed volcanic environment, the artist approaches the life of Sicilians through charcoal drawings done during her visit to the island in the style of swiftly executed sketches. The drawings are reminiscent of stills from black-and-white Italian neorealism films made in the 1940s and 1950s, depicting the scenes from streets and everyday life. The drawings are accompanied by a short video shot on the Aeolian Islands archipelago, which is inspired by the hallucinatory experience of Alicudi residents after eating contaminated rye bread. The video features the artist walking near the volcano crater, eating bread and hallucinating. Could it be that what is unbridled and unpredictable in this constellation does not necessarily have to be an impediment, but rather a force that transforms the body and mind, and serves as a power that purifies, crystallizes, and solidifies the idea as a result of an internal process?
Matilda Romagnoli’s Sun Beneath is a three-dimensional metaphor of human transformation, the influence of the world and circumstances on our lives, the protruding of the imagination’s content (lava) from the depths of our own being (Earth), rising from the unconscious, hypnotic, concealed, the purification from everything superfluous, static and ephemeral, but also overcoming one’s opposites and dual natures in order to permeate and integrate all aspects of one’s psyche, which leads to equilibrium. The artist’s sublime, emotional, and philosophical poetics is evident in her ideas, while her expressive power is transferred to a form on the edge of refinement and expressiveness, intense in its sub-textual potential, introducing the mind into a state of alertness and questioning. The exhibition’s title can be interpreted as a personal initiation process, unveiling the secret corners of the psyche, inner movement, both mechanical and spiritual going forward, which is precisely what all of these images remind us of. In the domain of thoughts and ideas, we move closer to our own character, which we form despite personal or external challenges. That personal process within dominant social-cultural-historical contexts and in the eternal juxtaposition of new and old ideas and sensations, is known as the mystery of life that shapes us, or as Barbara Hepworth said: “Body experience…is the center of creation”. Similarly, space, movement and the illusion of time are required for Matilda Romagnoli’s symbolic Sun to shine from “the depths below,” in which the thin line between what is now and what was yesterday constantly runs and intertwines through the senses and mind of the artist, and then observers.
Dejan Vučetić, art historian
