Sylvan Reliquary

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Novalis Art Design is delighted to present Sylvan Reliquary, a solo photography exhibition by Italian artist Costanza Gastaldi (b. 1993). This will be her second solo exhibition in Asia.

According to visual artist Costanza Gastaldi, optics is not restricted to just photography as its only proof of knowledge. In her new series “Sylvan Reliquary” she expresses and reinforces her statement through the power of imagination, the real touchstone between capturing reality (proving it) and experiencing it.

This new photographic series is the continuation of “Géographie Sentimentale”, 2013 and “Loto Nero”, 2018. It comprises fifteen shots articulated through a lush verdant scenery meeting halfway between the fantasized landscapes and the one journeyed in. In such a quest for the existential, the wandering of the artist puts forward on one hand the archetype of creation and death and on another, melancholia.

These inseparable themes found in art history form a bridge between the photographer and the viewer. It is by projecting her own imagination that she seeks to entice the visitor and offers to this viewer, at the end of his journey, through the work, the possibility to acquire autonomy and position himself freely to these mysteries that she offers:

“The light falls. The Silent Forest is full of emotions… Protected by the darkness, the ‘tree-bodies’ take cramped positions. Halfway between the craft of suffering and positions of love, they mingle, intertwine, overlap to finally unite as if in an aid to resistance. In this marvellous intrigue, in this abandonment, emerges the will to mix, this pursuit for exchange, that keeps persisting despite the reality of finitude.”

In her work, Costanza Gastaldi explores “our own sentimental geography”. Between darkness and light, she sculpts with prowess the landscapes of the mind’s spirit. Oneirism and reality converse and highlight the complexities of our emotions.

In this new monographic exhibition, the artist invites us once again to move away painstakingly from the modest and adulterated tones to bewitch us in richness in a world teeming with details. The smoky nuances entice us and transform the artworks into true objects of desire. It is in a vast grayscale field of the noble black that the most significant elements in her craft materialize.

Her work not only pushes us into self-reflection but also opens vast trails of exploration around broad subjects on aesthetics, politics and metaphysics linked to the relationship that man has with nature.