The Grottoes series investigates the ancestral ideas of the sacred and eroticism. These figures, which still inhabit the unconscious of the mankind, admonish us that there is something else beyond the common sights imposed by society. Before the Modern era, architecture bridged eroticism. As paintings and sculptures were permanently unified with the space, architecture was a human narrative. The grottoes-chambers celebrate the eroticism concealed in the act of the construction. Unveiled by the act of the wildly plaster casted walls and the vault created by the masons’ trowel; they suggest a sensual dominance of the void. They appear semi-concealed as the nymph-house of a Renaissance or Picturesque garden. Nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature. Thus nymph-house conveys the idea of the unfolding of the senses. It symbolises the place where human feelings are more connected to the earth and where the senses are amplified. Pozzolana, also known as pozzolanic ash, is the mineral dust which is what the rough plaster is mainly composed of. First carved from the volcano Vesuvius of Naples, and mixed two-to-one with lime, this ancient concrete was widely used by Romans for building the largest constructions of the Late Antiquity. The most famous example is the dome of the Pantheon in Rome. Thus, beholding alternate realities, the Grottoes series explores planes of existence, anthropological significances and labyrinths of senses encased by the unconscious.

Specus Corallii

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Trapani, 27 August 2016

The coral cave

Colour as a Narrative

Illuminum Fragrance, London, 26 April 2015

A volcanic topography

Crepuscular Green

Mondrian Suite, Rome, 29 April 2014

From the depths of the river

House of Dust

Rome, 16 April 2013

Craving for caverns

Bibliography

2021–2013

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