SOUND AND MATTER

“Ancient civilizations considered the power of sound as a primary substance of all universal forces” (Marius Schneider)

Sound and matter, the mystery of the origin of forms and the legends of the birth of Music, of Poetry.
Inexplicable realities that echo with extraordinary fascination and power from the works of Vincenzo Scolamiero.

Earth dances, homages to Harrison Birtwistler; In some part of the earth, homages to Louise Glück; Returning memories, homages to Piero Bigongiari, are the titles of three of Scolamiero’s most beautiful works. In Earth dances it seems as if somehow Birtwistler’s notes have penetrated into the depths of the earth, brushing against forces that, from inaccessible depths, raise and push white leaves. Pages like vanished music scores that invite us to rewrite that which was once composed upon them. In In some part of the earth we see remerge fragments of tree trunks with ancient flowers and remote clods of soil soaked with sound that, through the golden flecks of the painting, become visible matter on the surface. In Returning memories one gets the impression that the power of feelings have excavated a passage, penetrating stratifications of immobile worlds through time. As if breathed through by an eternal breath, delicate vibrant strata of light and sound rebound, flutter, unfold and expand like messengers of new auspices.

The artist translates vibrations and perceptions of sounds and words in his pictorial lexicon, realising paintings of such intensity they seem to access invisible forces. Music, poetry and painting are paths to knowing in which every element is a living and sensitive movement. Scolamiero concentrates on his canvass the energies he perceives and creates vast and profound visions in which time and space merge as a single thing. His innate sensitivity and attentive observation of the elements of nature, together with the multiple resonations and vibrations and broad range of his compositions and lights, have allowed him to interpret the widest range of entities and translate them into his extraordinary canvasses, where it becomes possible to ‘see’ the substance of music and to ‘feel’ matter permeated by sound, consonances and melodic lines, like strata of light and colour, where harmonies and vibrations are rendered tangible.

“On Silence and Transparency” is the title the artist has given to his show in Sienna. Before attending to his work, Scolamiero listens to music and reads poetry in order to silence mental chatter and open himself to multiple suggestions. He prepares everything with great care, even inventing his own instruments of work. He makes his own paintbrushes, constructing them in larger sizes that allow him broader strokes of colour, or uses old and extremely thin brush heads, which he sometimes inserts into twigs that he collects, tying them into place with shredded bristles. The long, broad space of his studio is littered with small vases and bowls filled with powders of all kinds, including the metallic ones of gold, bronze and copper used in his most recent works. Arranged on walls and tables are dry sticks and twigs, moss, leaves, stones and fragments of natural objects that he collects when he senses in them some form of belonging. He looks after them, removing them from their profane condition and elevating them to necessary elements of his creations. And these fragments become a kind of mediator between the here and the beyond, with which Scolamiero’s extraordinary painting knows how to communicate.