Nicole Voltan - Cielo

Published: Thursday, November 14 2013 09:00

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BY NICOLE VOLTAN

For each successful attempt, there is the impression of figuring out the entire world and geometries, schemes, diagrams that illustrate our acquired knowledge. In truth at the same time, we know that a protective curtain felt on us, and after all, we are even more helpless. Understanding Nature generates also sadness, because in this way the myth and the illusion are decreasing.
I find this wonderful contradiction in the art works of Nicole Voltan.
She observes nature in a scientistic way, but her art is rather full of darkness and uncertainty and reminds us that, even knowing the nature and the cosmos, our happiness will be far from being achieved. Thus, the scheme of the universe, instead of giving us beatitude, is presented as an optical spiderweb [...] full of anxiety instead of the triumph of knowledge [...]. (P.Aita)

Planning the nature of the things

Space, as Einstein declared, is not fixed and unchangeable, is not static or immovable, but it is a fluctuating entity, a plastic and elastic body. I would dare to say that the space almost behave as a living creature: it proceeds, grows and contorts, it harmonizes with the changes, but it is also a being full of deformity and incongruities, just like galaxies, that if it is seen under a microscope, appears to us as the first seed of the great celestial architecture today known. These deformities are what make this continuous expansion in the universe so charming to us, such as beauty spots in a too much perfect skin.

Araneide

Araneide represents the map of our sky and our universe, where the areas of the constellations, drawn concentrically on a white silk canvas, intersect each other, in a scheme that reminds of the architecture of a spiderweb. In fact, exactly like in a spiderweb, where every single line is connected to the others in a complex network, the Universe contains our knowledge, a knowledge which is expanding everyday, like the Universe itself. The constellations go on with this movement. They change place in the big drawing, they intertwine each other and with the other areas.
This work tries to captures the viewer, as the Araneide does (a spider which produce a silk filament to built his home, the shelter and the trap for their prey and visitors), dragging him to a timeless but elastic dimension, where Astronomy, Mythology, Literature, Religion is connected together in a single space, or better in 88, as the number of the constellations. And 8 is the symbol for the infinite ∞

Araneide
Installation – 2013 – Silk, thread, white Led strip lights, wood – Cm 260 x 230 – h 10 cm
88 Trame – personal exhibition – 23 jan / 28 feb 2013 – Whitecubealpigneto Gallery

88 Trame

88 Trame is a video documentation filmed secretly by the artist, during the vernissage of the same exhibition name. A hidden camera observes Araneide, the major work of the show, but the continuous and rhythmical movement of the visitors interrupts casually the view.
They enter in the scene, they rise from the black space, walking in the white silk for then disappear in a chaotic movement. The thread of Araneide sew together the artwork with the people, reflecting the fundamental concept of the work: movement and consequent deformation of a space, view by a hidden perspective.

88 Trame
Video full HD
5 minutes e 49 seconds
2013

Link:
https://vimeo.com/59141008

This art project was exposed at:
Essere io non ha misura – collective exhibition – 30 sept / 14 oct 2013 – Factory, Ex Mattatoio, Macro Testaccio, Rome.

Araneide#1

Araneide#1
Wall Drawing – 2013 – graphite – cm 500 x 400
Essere io non ha misura – collective exhibition – 30 sept / 14 october 2013 – Factory, Ex Mattatoio, Macro Testaccio, Rome.

Araneide & Co

Araneide & Co
Wall Drawing – 2013 – graphite, wall engraving, silk, needles, thread and Cube#1 – Cm 305 x 330
Scala C / Open studios, gardens and houses – collective exhibition – 22 / 30 jul 2013 – Studio Hauser&Voltan, P.zza Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome.