AWB Blog Special Blog Items ASTROArts Blog AstroArtist of the Month - Federico Delfrati (1 of 4) 
- Published: Wednesday, February 03 2016 02:34
Hello, my name is Federico Delfrati and I'm an italian visual artist currently living and working in Munich. I started as a graphic designer in Milano but after completing a BA in communication design I decided to shift my studies towards the Fine Arts. This decision led me to the Brera Fine Art Academy of Milano in which I focused on printmaking. After one year I applied for the Fine Art Academy of Munich as an erasmus exchange student and never moved back. Here, i began to specialize my approach towards Lithography and soon after with third dimentional works. In 2015 i graduated in sculpture from the class of Hermann Pitz. I am currently developing and experimenting with equal enthusiasm on both sides of my artistic approach: lithography and artist's books on the one hand and installations on the other.
My research begins with a finished system of images that pops into my mind. These images arise from my interest in physical sciences and I often have to read up on physical theories in order to transform my ideas into functioning installations. As I am not a physical scientist, I often adopt a trial and error strategy in order to make my art works viable.
My projects are about the act of trying despite all the known shortcomings. They project an image of humanity in the face of nature that is vulnerable, manipulative and brave.
My passion for astronomy can be dated a long time back but only since one year ago was i capable of directly implementing it within my artistic production.
The moment i bought my first telescope, the object itself, its meaning and its functionality turned into a source of new ideas to play with.
The actual invention of the telescope and first attempts to observe the sky in the late 16th , early 17th century reshaped our understanding of the ground we and our ideas stand on.
My last artwork takes its roots from this perspective: looking from earth outwards.
If we imagine and map the universe we see as a sphere, we find earth (our only point from where we observe the sky) at the center having coordinates 0°0’0”.
For this work entitled 'Coming down next (or: a Reverse Astronomy study)' I reversed the optical tube of my telescope and I provided it with a ‘drawing arm’. As the telescope’s motor rotated (by being programmed to track the movement of specific stars in the sky), the arm drew their ‘negative’ paths on the ground with indian ink and graphite. After several different paths have been drawn I scanned the lines of ink, zoomed in the image and reprinted them.
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The final result is a serie of observations that resemble astronomical objects. Paper fibers and ink traces catalogued with the name of the celestial body that the telescope was focused on. The micro merges with the macro.
This work tries to mirror the standard concept of astronomy by looking from somewhere else towards earth. The project reverses the point from where we look by moving it out to a fixed point in outer space: earth becomes the subject of a multilayered observation with its new coordinates and a new ‘ground-chart’.
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