TECHNIQUE: Bas-relief sculpture In okumé wood.
Total Dimensions: 191 cm x 80 cm (internal bas-relief: 155 cm X 45 cm).
Local Symbols: Guglia di Raimondello, Matteo Tafuri, grifone, sole, ulivo.
Universal Symbols: theater, masks of comedy and tragedy.
Introduction to the Sculptural Work
This work is born from the desire to create a representation that reflects the soul and historical charm of its hometown (Soleto).
The intent was to represent a dynamic scene, a space where everything is in motion, as if animated by something magical… the very same magic that characterizes the history of this town…
Discourse on the Opera
The sculpture presents itself as a view of a scene in which everything is animated and something mysterious is happening.
On the right, a large, gnarled olive tree extends two abnormally large buds, which, drawn by an invisible force, bend in a specific direction…
At the top left, the imposing Spire of Raimondello also appears curved, drawn toward the same direction…
Curving trails, as if they were air currents, cross the space and converge exactly on a point at the horizon, where even the ground, curving, seems to be sucked into it.
The sixteen-rayed sun, emblem of Soleto, watches quietly, smiling. It is precisely there, where its vertical axis meets the plane of the horizon, that as if by magic a strange force seems to draw everything around it…
In this theater of events, the euphoric and amused mask of Comedy enjoys the scene from above, while below, that of Tragedy, terrified, flees, leaving behind what is happening.
On an intermediate plane between the work and the viewer, behind a stage curtain, Matteo Tafuri, with one of those four griffins beside him (missing from the fourth level of the spire…), turns his gaze to that point on the horizon, where this magical something is happening…
