Saturday 14 October 2017, museums and a thousand institutions
throughout Italy will open their spaces to the public free of charge to present artists and new ideas through exhibitions, workshops, events and conferences, making the event organized by AMACI the annual appointment that officially opens the art season in Italy.
In occasion of the 13° Day of Contemporary Art by AMACI (IT), the Facebook virtual space “EscArt – Art Performances” invited 36 Italian artists to share themselves, public in real time, going online live for 30″.
My friend artist Fiorella Cicardi invited me to share a chat about art as nourishment.
Video by Fiorella Cicardi and Domitilla Biondi on EscArt, h 13.30
Fiorella Cicardi and Domitilla Biondi share a chat about Art as Nourishment. from Domitilla Biondi on Vimeo.
English translation:
Voice Over:
Let’s start the live streaming. On air.
FIORELLA:
Let’s begin introducing ourselves… Good morning everybody, I’m Fiorella Cicardi, artist and this is my friend…
DOMITILLA:
Hello, I’m Domitilla Biondi, artist and therapist.
F:
So, considered that today is AMACI’s day, and the theme of this celebration decided by Liliana Moro is “Bread”, I’d start from there.
I immediately linked it up with this image, the UTERE FELIX. It is a ancient roman wording that people in the past used to put on bread to eat this food with joy… to eat this food to be happy… they used it as a blessing… It can then be considered the same as a “good luck / happiness wish”… and this is the thought that join me and my friend Domitilla concerning Art… I think we could start from this.
I wish (I could live on my) being an artist – and I do practice it – and my message is: let’s try to do joyful positive things, and that can be related to Beauty instead to the struggling of the artist oneself, or to negative themes.
I’m convinced that in the near future, Humanity’s evolution will turn very positive, even if nowadays it seems difficult to perceive it.
I’ll start presenting this old work: it’s called LOSHU.
I work dealing with Sacred Geometry and all those theories related to Spirituality and Quantum Physics that are usually of some sort of shared interest by we artists that like to create Beauty, and everything nesting “something more” but only matter… something that can communicate with/about the soul.
My friend Domitilla… I leave to her the presentation of herself.
D:
I can identify myself into Fiorella’s artistic path.
I actually arrived to mine completely accidentally, meanwhile I was studying to become a therapist. When I was working on healing myself in order to be able to heal others, this artistic expression flourished, and that made me consider the meaning of Art in a person’s life.
For what I’m concerned about, I’d say that Art is a “State of Being” in which you are in a state of Connection through which you can receive a peculiar energy that, by flowing through the person who become a channel, it goes to imprint the matter… and the artwork borns, and that turns, in reality, to be a message of happiness to the world.
So like the roman seal put on the bread, art itself becomes food: the artistic practice for the artist becomes his/her nourishment and the artwork becomes the seal of wish for happiness to those ready to receive it.
So in my personal path, Fiorella’s research about Sacred Geometry and spirituality, even without studying it, I manifest it anyway… because my art is inspired and totally related to the expression of harmonic frequencies, then mathematic and Sacred Geometry.
My personal research is to investigate how the state of human body’s vibrations – treated with very down-to-earth practices like diet, physical activities, thoughts/thinking… everything that can be considered nourishment for the being in its whole – from corporeal to subtle – this goes to influence the output of what I channel, and then the higher my vibrations are, the more the aesthetic becomes spiral and get closer to the logarithmic spiral, which is the visual form of Equilibrium and Perfection … like Fiorella’s research demonstrate, too.
F:
This is an old artwork of mine… a Metatron’s Cube showed at Palazzo delle Stelline (Milan) … it recalls my memory about my mother who always put, during thunderstorms, some blessed olive tree leaves into a bag and in the garden, to ask for protection against negative energies. So I offered the same good wish from the exhibition, but adding the Sacred Geometry of the Metatron, because I resonate with it better than the Catholic iconography.
D:
Yes.. maybe it works better (into people) than a suffering cross! 🙂
F:
This is another artwork made 2 years ago: the four elements are sculpted into marble and put on a masonic circle quadrature.
This is a long study I did about 7+7.
My Teacher – a very powerful spychic – says that 7 and 7 form a square shape, which is the basis of Human Being, and the 7+7 forms this rhombus shape that is inclined to become a perfect square, but I doesn’t manage, because if it would success in becoming Perfection, Life would stop… and for this reason it keeps going in this continuous pulsing/breathing back and fro… like Life is, indeed: tireless pulsation.
D:
You know you’re telling me a wonderful thing? For 2 reasons: first because my first exhibition, last year, it has alway been accompanied by number 7… from the airplane’s seat until the page on the catalogue, there was always the presence of the 7 accompanying me.. so to know that it would had “guided” my path… I dunno… And the other very curious thing – most recent (in May), concerning my path as healer – it’s that when I do “something” on my chakras… I still don’t know appropriately… sort of “recharging” them… my hands take exactly this position: the rhombus shape which opens/closes depending on situations… and I was wondering the meaning of it.
It’s this, the thing that you’re talking about.
F:
See? You do it by instinct.
D:
Thanks for giving me the answer.
And the last beautiful anecdote is: few days ago I was with other therapists preparing a set, and one girl apologized for the scene not being perfect. And I candidly replied “Don’t you know that Perfection is the ensemble of all possible imperfections come together?”
And if you think about it, it exactly concerns that pulsation you were explaining about Life… because Perfection IS mathematic.
F:
Let’s go on.. this is the 7+7 inscribed into a Vescica Piscis.
This other is an installation for a group show at Nosedo’s cleaner place – where many artists of us that are doing today’s live streaming have exhibited – , which is a big place that is art curated by association Arte da Mangiare Mangiare Arte, offering to many artists the possibility to exhibit very big artworks also, like 10×10 mt. Mine is smaller, but it’s 2 mt tall, anyway.
D:
What does it represent?
F:
It’s called AZOTH and it’s a column made of copper – which represent the feminine principle – intersected in Golden Section by this iron wire – representing the male principle – and where they touch themselves, there are these bands created with acid. This wants to recall the expression of Nature itself.
D:
You mean that when Feminine and Masculine get united, a Transformation becomes possible.
F:
Exactly. In fact it represents the natural way of Growth… and that’s why I wanted to put it outdoors, by the trees, to recall the same momentum.
This is called 72… which in Sacred Geometry is such an important number that I’m not going to explain it…
D: No, please, do tell me something about it!
F: Nooo, there are SO many… Each pentagon has angles related to number 72, which recalls the 72 angelic ranks, etc… The 72 has so many relations that I cannot tell them all! It’s an esoteric number representing really many things.
D: The 72 rocks!
F: This is an artwork from a solo exhibition, showed in March. It’s called WASHING FIRE + BURNING WATER. It’s composed of these 3 bowls made of carbon fibre; because the human body is made of carbon I wanted to use this material: half made of carbon fibre and the other half of glass fiber, because I wanted to represent duality. They are posed on a structure calculated with Golden Section from a Vesica Piscis that, for me, it represents Light. Vesica Piscis is the Beginning: when One becomes Two (circles) it contains this Vesica Piscis shape in the middle, that it’s usually the position where, in churches, the figure of Christ is positioned: it’s because it represents Pure Light… I think it’s the precise moment when/where Light becomes Matter, I mean… it’s the basis of the Matter… for this reason there’s Fire at the center (the Light) surrounded by the 3 bowls (the Trinity).
These are fews symbols that I’m working on as, at the moment, I’m investigating the Alphabet.
This is another artwork made, again, with the Vesica Piscis form. A friend invited me to a group show entitled DARSI (offering oneself) that I interpreted in the Saint Augustin’s concept of “what’s Above is Below too”… so, for me, this offering was to be intended to become a “pure channel” that could connect the opposites, both the Matter and the Spirit… This is why there’s a lead wire – representing the Masculine principle – touching on the water – the feminine – inside the Vesica Piscis shaped bowls, on the floor.
This artworks has been reason of joy for this kid that has played with it for the whole soirée!
D:
She came to honor your artwork 🙂
F: Yes, exactly! 😀
Then I finish with this last artwork made for a group exhibition related to Satie, few month ago in Como. Satie was a great esoteric… From his brother’s letters we know that Satie was used to get into meditative state inside Notre Dame cathedral in order to compose ogives shapes. I wanted to recall those ogives, by making them emerging from the Vesica Piscis, form of Light.
And now it’s your turn to speak about your work.
D:
Yes, my work is summarized by seeing it.
My path is a research less intellectual because I’ve been struggling with these lectures for a long time but then, suddenly, I quitted them unawares, during the time when I concentrated more on my personal path as therapist… And so, disconnecting the brain, it happened that, instead… something happened! It happens that if you manage to make emptiness inside and let this energy flows through you … mmhm… ‘cause I also went searching the meaning of art, and I found it in the etymology of the word itself: in Sanskrit language the root “ar-” means “joined”… so this explains clearly what happens: the artist is the figure that permits this connection between the Above and the Below – like Saint Augustin said too, you teach me – and this makes possible that when you’re connected, you “receive stuff”… things of whom you are just a viewer… a privileged viewer.
So my research is, first of all, about this incredible experience of being artist – because at the end of the day it’s just an Experience. From that, my investigation about how the human body’s vibrations are influenced by thoughts, rather than environment or people, started… So I’m creating different series, each one related to one variable. This one, in particular, is related to places: I test how the environment can influence the vibrational quality of the body, so depending of the quantity of harmonic frequencies that I embody the output changes: the higher is the quantity of harmonics the more the aesthetic gets ordered and logarithmic.
In this other one it’s more clearly visible… (I use a scalpel to carve paper, this is my technique)… For example here is clearly visible what I mentioned: this experiment was made in Milan, here in my house: every day I carved a part and, here, this represents the average of my body’s energetic condition when I’m here… sort of chaotic…
F:
… I’d say very beautiful, indeed …
D:
… yep, in the chaos there’s sort of beauty as well …
… But, after a session of sound therapy, from which I quit with my body very refilled with harmonic frequencies, I started carving and… the result is this thing: look what a Beauty.
F:
Perfection.
This means that, for real, the more harmonic are the frequencies the more ordered is the output in the form of a perfect logarithmic spiral, because it’s the shape that Nature uses to manifests Order and Equilibrium… And this has been a marvelous discovery because I told myself that if this was the visible condition of my body’s state in that moment, so the same had happened inside the body of my patient: because the body is made of water, it means that molecules must have received a great re-balancing in terms of harmonic equilibrium.
And this is a gorgeous consideration if you think about it. Especially because, during my studies, recalling my Teacher’s statement that Sound can re-order the matter, I remember that I was wary because it sounded very hearsay… But no, now I can state that it is true!
Look! Sound re-order it for real!
That’s why I think your research about mathematics is wonderful because, at the end of the day, what we are both doing is to try to switch on a little flame inside people’s awareness about how important is the knowledge of oneself – in terms of their own numbers, sound, frequencies etc. – because it helps to reach this Connection which is the daily food (bread) which is the real nourishment… Because there’s plenty of energies, above and below…
F:
So what can we do? We can just keep going…
D:
Yes, art is a personal journey.
F:
Yes, to me too: forms and materials arrive, somehow… you wake up one morning and you have received that form. Then, I need time to study and deepen.. You gave up to that phase but I still enjoy it.
D:
Yes, everyone has to find his/hers way of research.
F:
Yes, I really love to deepen.
D:
Can I ask you a question? When your creation has been composed, other than being very beautiful to be seen, it also contains a deep research and preparation, focused energies and intention… After having given the initiation to the exhibition, what happens in the following days? Do you feel inside some sort of change in your inner self… or differences in your everyday life? If I think about it, the exhibition is like the bloom at the end of the whole process of elaboration which ends into giving birth to the artwork at the exhibition… What happen afterwords, do you feel it, somehow?
F:
I’d say I can feel it before, in the phase when forms start arriving and I begin the research. For me, when it’s the exhibition time, my mind it’s already on an another project, and then for me the show is sort of the conclusion… I like shows and I want to exhibit, but for me, inside, that moment is an ending. Finished. Let’s move on.
Then, what about closing with your video?
D: Oh right. It’s about 3 minutes long…
F:
… then let’s stop here with greetings and play it; is it ok?
D:
Sorry I already launched it!… Let see the video and then regard.
(Video playing)
In the video there’s the explanation of my technique, which includes simply the use of a scalpel to carve a thick paper sheet, in a meditative state of Connection… So, it’s exactly a matter of welcoming what arrives, trying to be less present possible with the mind, but letting it flow…
Because this artistic path started for this reason: I was looking for an expression that could help me to pull out stuff from inside… I never imagined to become a professional artist… it was more like a sort of doodling practice… And now here I am, and grateful because it’s a wonderful and interesting path… very interesting in the way that having visually realistic proofs that answer to all those questions I have about myself, how the human body works, meridians etc… I’m actually studying through this practice… let’s say that instead of doing the shiatsu school like everybody, I’m doing this other thing… 🙂
F:
And you’re doing very beautiful things, let’s say it.
D:
Yes… I’d like to take all the merit, but… even if… what it arrives, indeed, it’s not me who decide! But yes, its great to be there.
F:
Take the merit because you deserve it.
Well, let’s conclude this chat together now.
D:
Yes, it has been so nice sharing a chat together. Because, in conclusion, being an artist should be just like this: a work of sharing.
F:
Let’s thank Silvia Capiluppi who made this opportunity real, and let’s hope to share it with all the other people that joined this celebration.
Greeting to everybody.
Useful links
- About AMACI – Association of Museums of Italian Contemporary Art –
- EscArt’s daily programm for 13° AMACI day
- My video on Escart’s page on Facebook (italian version without subtitles)
