Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass. Three Graces. is an installation made of three white boxes hung to the wall, each 20 x 20 x 25 (depth) cm. A peephole in the center of each box invites the observer to get the sight inside the object. Looking in, you can see three different representations of little flying girls’ shapes, engraved on a magnolia leaf and backlit by LED light. The three visions, changeable and different to each other, appear to the observer like three Graces: incorporeal and ethereal, evocative and symbolic, they emerge from the soft intimacy of the box inside and from the illuminated surface of the leaves. Their appearance recalls, according to the spot structure, the shape of a constellation.
Using a symbolic language typical of the artist’s poetic research, the installation recalls in its title the poetry collection “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman, and it focuses over duality themes: of the space in/out, open/closed; of the color light/dark, presence/absence; of the vision unitary/framed. The idea of dichotomy alludes to the presence of both a macrocosm and a microcosm and to the passage from one condition to the other. The white boxes aseptic macrocosm drives to the private microcosm of the three leaves, and returns back to a cosmic vision of the spots.