Whenever somebody asks me why paper, I suddenly feel as fragile as the light page of a book and at the same time as strong as a book of a thousand pages browsed over the centuries by hundreds of hands. Leaving aside the power of the word printed on the page, for me paper is a vibrant, ever-changing living material. Scultografia is my open investigation in and around paper, a collection of actions performed with tools unfamiliar to a sculptor, in particular blades and scissors.
In the early nineties my first creations were made from stone, wood, plaster and in ’96 in Berlin during an international workshop, I discovered and learned the methods of paper manufacturing. I experiment and mix cellulose, colours, fibres from pieces of paper varying in size and weight, which become visual and material supports for several copies of the artist’s book by Alina Kalczynska and for the art book Triptych by Wislawa Szymborska, published by Vanni Scheiwiller, the first person to become a “guardian” of one of my small paper sculptures.
Sibille,Soprani, Volumerie, Tattometrie are lamellar volumes achieved through calculated compositions, obtained by repeated and numerous cuts made manually.
The continued research and exploration of the material, also through the choice and careful selection of its constituent modules, with the reuse of scraps from different processes or materials with similar flexibility to the strip of paper, lead me to create unique pieces, limited editions, objects that present an all-round sensory experience and promote a deeper dialogue with the space, site-specific installations and scenographic systems. I have come to acquire a multitude of experiences within the fields of contemporary art and design, I have collaborated on numerous occasions with well-known fashion brands, art galleries, foundations, design and laboratory activities dedicated to the world of children, such as at the Triennale and the Muba in Milan.
In 2011, I had my first major installation Cartoframma at the Aragonese Castle on the island of Ischia, witnessing a dialogue between dance, gesture and sound. For Le Gèant de Papier, within the same year, at the Flux Laboratory in Geneva, the staging of four sets for the dance performances was created ad hoc and was my first live Paperdance. A gestural narration told through a type of “lamellar harp”, made of paper of course, which stretches and repeats on the ground until it becomes an island of shadows and reflections, and through our hands the sounds and vibrations are amplified. This same work was proposed again in 2015 during The Electric Blue Night, a small and brief artistic action at the Teatro dell’Arte in Milan. In 2018 another Ule carte visionarie project dedicated to Ischia and its Aragonese Castle with a twenty-five minute video piece that tells the memory of paper, water and ink through drawings and spots on 285 metres of lightweight coils, which were applied with ink in 2009. A complete sensory experience, between concretions of paper materials of various types and shapes, the video that flows from right to left and the sound that records actions, improvisations with paper instruments, in a multi-handed project, from those who pluck the strings of Gianni De Rosa’s viola to the hands of Renato Ferrero dedicated to editing. My hands, after thirty years, still sink into the same material that continues to produce signs, drawings and visions. Through the completely natural metamorphosis, when the material goes back to its mother, its maker: the tree, this makes me feel even stronger and grateful”.
D.P.
