ATELIER PIEROBON
31, rue droite - 06100 NICE (Vieux Nice) - France
THE EXHIBITIONS
I have always been an avid reader, devourer of historical books with particular reference to the subjects of the Cathars and Templars, and studying the history of the Way of St. James and the "saddlebag and broadsword" was the premise for coming to discover the Via Francigena and its thousand-year history.
When years ago it was proposed to me to exhibit my canvases in the Castle of Tau, the place of the Hospitallers I had read about many years before, I immediately accepted and even seemed to see already made and hung on the wall my works that I obviously still had to create. So I decided to devote all my work of that period to the feelings I had received in approaching the places of the Via Francigena, trying to actualize its discourse with a secular vision and much, much imagination.
THE EXHIBITIONS
My painting technique is abstract and by choice I prefer to give indications of color, movement, matter and form, rather than making what I paint explicit and immediately decipherable. I leave it up to the viewer to choose and understand, if he or she wishes, my feelings and emotions that I brought back to the canvas at the moment of creation. Or, alternatively, to create their own. Consequently, in "Paths of Light," there are no realistic representations of what the pilgrim's journey, his story, was. Instead, there are all my emotions experienced during visits to different historical places along the way and in the various readings.
However, I try to guide the visitor to discover the Francigena world, sometimes titling a painting with phrases taken from books that "tell" the journey of medieval pilgrims, as, for example, the two works titled "The Way - The ways of earth" and "The Way - The ways of heaven" where I imagine a multitude of people intent on reaching a spiritual goal but also a physical place, a kind of imaginary journey, or "Di palma cinto" painting with a strong green color component, which quotes a passage from the Divine Comedy, where Dante tells us about the palmieri, the pilgrims who returned from the Holy Land with a blessed olive branch as a testimony to the journey they had just made.
My goal, also through my works, is to try to make visitors reflect on issues related to travel, spiritual and physical, eminently secular, with the intention of seeking a dialogue between different European cultures.
Fiorella Pierobon