Similar differences: like unambiguous traces-signs present but dissimilar, detached yet performing, each individual print denotes individuality and identity. Luciana Gianello fixes her indelible mark and writes our stories: the intertwining essense of our everyday lives with the remote past, they are the detailed interweaving of cosmic themes and sacred language in writing the fascination of symbols as phenomenal emblems of nature. In her work, calligraphic variations of letters and handwriting find space like eternal concepts of unity immutible signs of the affinity of man and universe. They are like lifegiving and magical ties between the energy and vitality that govern creation. From the existential questions on the relationship between nearness and remoteness from one’s own self and others comes work like Impronte (2003), which is a collection of fingerprints enlarged on plexiglass. The individual and "different" Impronte of fingerprints are made precious with the nuance of lifegiving gold, a color as coveted as the individuality they represent. The color gold gives promise of a possible meeting and relationship over and above the barriers of separation and/or recognition the Impronte define us as separate from others but also as part of the numerous human species each one similar and yet different from ourselves. They help us to understand the specific boundaries of the self but also to confuse them. If, as Philippe Soffers reminds us, handwriting, the mark of subjectivity and personality, is no more than something detached that weaves itself on the surface of the materials with which we interact; then we can find in the artist’s work, that ‘system of signs’, through which a true inquiry into the concepts of identity and alteration can be undertaken which are afterall the most intimate and true results of her voyage.In the many forms and profound sensitivity of Luciana Gianello’s work we find the color and materials which accentuate time for comtemplation by playing with visual and spacial perception and offer us the experience of participation. From the personalized realization of fiberart inspired by the veneto “taiado-taiuzado” of the 500’s to recent work like  Blues (2000) done in old, transparent photographer’s paper and cloth, dyed a deep and transparent azure a color tied to that of water and air, we have in the color and it’s effect on the material the essential components for reflection on the difference between enigma and etymology and dissimilar cultural interpretations which prompt us to make an assiduous inquiry on man and on his writing.

Stefania Portinari

 

MINIARTEXTIL 2007

[...]

Once the selection of all the works had ended, the Jury reconsidered the admitted works for the awarding of the Antonio Ratti Prize, which was unanimously confered to the work “Footprints…fragments of a route” by Luciana Gianello for the following reasons:

“In her work made with iron wire, hemp and hand-made coloured paper, the artist Luciana Costa Gianello gave body to intense contents and reasons with extreme formal and even autobiographical synthesis.

Made with poor materials, a pair of worn out clogs realizes the memory of real and existential paths, both accomplished and interrupted.

These paths are able to elevate themselves to superindividual conditions from personal experiences, in a reflection upon the passing and wearing of time, that walking and therefore the clogs concretely and even symbolically recall, reminding not only physical routes and efforts.

In their humble bareness, these clogs realistically trasmit multiple and universal sensations, with accents of suffering and solitude, justifying a reading from a philosophical viewpoint and of an immanent spirituality.

 

Como, 26 May 2007

Chiara Buss
Luciano Caramel
Beatrijs Sterk