CELESTIAL GRAMMAR
CELESTIAL GRAMMAR
Curated by Stefania Carrozzini
Opening Reception: Saturday March 18, 6.00 – 8.00 pm
March 18 – 30, 2023
Matteo Abbondanza
Frances Clarke
Sandra Duran Wilson
Nicola Golea
Hideto Imai
Irene Lislien
Layla Moody
Barbara Morea
Serena Nono
Midori McCabe
Mala Says
Marion Schmidtke
Karen Scally
Susan Weber Lehrfeld
GRAMMATICHE CELESTI / CELESTIAL GRAMMAR
As a specular exhibition and second chapter of “Grammatiche Terrestri” Stefania Carrozzini Gallery is pleased to announce in Venice “Celestial Grammar” an exhibition featured fourteen artists from different countries participate, and launches a challenge to artists who intend to measure themselves with the non-earthly dimension, probing astrophysical and metaphysical parameters.
Celestial is used to describe things relating to heaven or to the sky, and has a wide range of symbolic references. It is linked to a system of signs encoded in a language where the sky is not intended only as a physical body made of nitrogen and oxygen, the sky plowed by airplanes and rockets, but as an ethereal place, a symbol of boundless freedom and sublime emptiness where the stars shine like sparks of consciousness in the vastness of the unconscious.
For human beings forced to struggle in the chaos of the world, reading the movement of the stars and planets is the desire to draw an understandable design of an infinite space which by its nature is impossible to decipher. The pure clarity of the sky is a metaphor for the enlightened mind, where the celestial landscapes are the landscapes of the soul, bridges between past and future, history and spirituality, life and death. With its power, art fights all energies contrary to life and releases the sparks of light buried in the earth to make them ascend to the sky.
Since ancient times man has observed the firmament with wonder and desire to penetrate its darkest mysteries. Equally ancient is the need to reproduce its beauty in an artistic form, not only to enhance its charm, but also to seek out and express deeper meanings. The representation of the starry sky dates back to the mists of time: an example is the famous starry vault of Nefertari’s tomb. Subsequently, artists of all ages and ages were inspired by the beauties of the firmament in their works and it is obvious to mention Van Gogh’s famous starry sky in this context.
Art and astrophotography have many elements in common: it happens to observe with amazement astronomical images and think that they look like paintings by an author, reveal a moving beauty that seems work of an artistic genius, not just a set of clouds, gas, dust and stars. In the end light is the common nature that is found in every body, both celestial and terrestrial, and is the principle of all beauty.
