SONIA SQUILLACI
Broderies | Fabio Belloni
First of all, let's talk about your subject: a single theme, repeated obsessively.
You can paint nudes, landscapes, still lives. From a still life with vegetables I extrapolated the eggplant. It's the emblem of my current research, and it's true, it's something of an obsession. I'm attracted to its shape, I'm struck by its color. I instinctively reject linear, geometric shapes, and I abhor mathematic precision. Instead I love rounded, irregular shapes. Also, since the eggplant is such a part of the cuisine of the southern regions of Europe, I thought it could pay homage to my Sicilian roots.
In your works it almost seems like the projection of something else...
Yes, sort of. My paternal grandmother, who was born in Palermo, plays a very important role in my spirituality. I identify her with the ancestral idea of mother, of fertility, of generosity. She was always submissive, passive, compliant, very pious and very giving. She accepted everything that fate threw her way. She bore and raised five children, and once they were grown up she took care of her grandchildren, including myself. My aunt had five children too, who also lived in my grandmother's home. In other words, my grandmother raised or helped raise sixteen children, without batting an eye: she was constantly busy in the kitchen and trying to organize everybody's life. This image is very strong and deeply rooted in me: it's the primordial, archetypal image of woman, whose sole purpose in life is that of procreating and preserving the species. A woman who sacrifices herself, her ego, who empties herself of subjectivity to have the capacity to be filled by something else, to dedicate herself entirely to her children. I see the eggplant as a symbol of this way of being: it is a generous, good-natured vegetable, as round as a pregnant belly. It has multiple uses in cooking, and can feed several hungry mouths.
In other words, what is important for you is to conceal a meaning...
Certainly. But the important thing is to notice the eggplant, this common vegetable that might also be seen in a fruit basket in the summer. It needs to be observed, weighed in one's hand, smelled, I would even venture to say to be listened to... In other words it must be experienced, despite the fact that it is only a thing, an ordinary thing. This is precisely what I'm interested in, depicting an ordinary thing. And I also wonder: are those who look at one of my works sure that they have already seen the thing I'm showing? A period of time goes by before one realizes that what might seem like an animal, a stain, a monster, or any other invented thing, is in the end only a very common and ordinary eggplant. And usually this
discovery makes people smile. But are they sure it is really just a silly, ordinary eggplant? Or might it not be the projection, the reflection of what they think is in that image or what they want to see in it?
Another thing that is striking, in addition to your focusing on a single theme, is your fixation with black and white...
Black and white, which I've used a great deal, is strictly connected to traditional engraving techniques, in particular to carborundum printmaking, which gives you very deep and smooth blacks. In this way I obtain prints on paper and then I also frame the inked matrix, making it a separate work that stands on its own. I think this is the best way to show how from a single Mater, a matrix, I obtain many copies that are all the same and yet all different: after all, this is what happens in procreation. All of which makes me think of a Zen proverb: "Everything the same; everything distinct".
Yet in recent times you introduced colors in your work, very bright colors...
Yes, I recently introduced color next to the black and white, and I work with both simultaneously, one does not exclude the other – I instinctively need to work with both. Currently I am also working with fabric that I apply to the canvas, using a wide variety of ornamental textiles: I'm interested in a decorative image, a happy image, because after all I'm living an optimistic, happy and serene life. Color is always tied to an emotional dimension, and the pursuit of happiness means that happiness is already innate in us. It is our task to discover it and awaken it.
And then, from the two-dimensional surface of paper or canvas, you switched to working in three dimensions.
In my case, turning to sculpture came from the necessity to experiment with techniques. I don't create sculptures following Michelangelo's concept of removing excess material, or the process of modeling clay. Rather, my sculptures are the development of a two-dimensional drawing to which I add the third dimension of depth: I proceed by stratification and in the end I obtain a kind of high-relief. Following the contour of a drawing, I make a metal core, and then envelop it in metal netting; finally, I apply a coating of cellulose and acrylic resin that hardens as it dries. The process is analogous to the one for papier-mâché, but I use cellulose instead of paper because it doesn't contain any glues the way ordinary paper does. The final outcome is a sculpture with a stone-like effect, which looks very heavy but in reality is extremely light, and a candid white color. Sometimes I add some pure black pigment, which confers an interesting effect since the color absorbs light and creates a velvet-like surface.
The works your are showing on this occasion, which are your most recent, mark a further step forward in your work.
The works are serigraphs resulting from a complex process that blends monotype and flocking technique. They are derived from two originals on canvas, which in turn are textile collage mixed-media works. The theme is inevitably the same as always. But now everything is very colorful. The fabric I use has flower and arabesque patterns, which recall Matisse, Bonnard, but also 1960s pop art. These works need to be exhibited together, and one next to the other, with no gap between
them. If they are shown this way, the repetition of the theme and the charged background colors create an aura of estrangement that is somewhat hypnotic.