Not long ago I was watching Monty Don, the English gardening guru, as he
wandered among and expatiated about the fabulous water features of the Villa
d'Este in Italy, during a segment of his television series on great Italian
gardens. When he sauntered by the three ducts of Le Cento Fontane (The Hundred
Fountains), out of which dozens of gargoyles spouted streams of water on
the lowest level, I kept seeing the face of Adamo Macri's distinctive portrait,
Dust Roe. Given its peculiarities, such a face could well have been sculpted and
secured to a brick wall for the sole purpose of pouring crystalline waters
out of the conch shell replacing its mouth. Art and water enjoy long and
varied history around the world in which masterpieces abound: Botticelli's
Birth of Venus, Monet's water lilies, Dufy's Baie des Anges (a favourite of mine),
Hokusai's Great Wave, and paintings by Turner, Homer, to name a few. The list is
endless and must also include the art of photographers, filmmakers and writers.
Moby Dick anyone? Whether it's a turbulent ocean or a still pond, a lake
or fountain, water with its energies, complexities of colour and depths of
meaning has always attracted the artist, and everyone else as well. We are drawn
to it, yearn for it, praise, fear it, and damn it.
It washes through our erotic dreams, and symbolically imbues Macri's exquisite
Dust Roe. I don't wish to digress into theories of evolution here, but our
attraction might have something to do with our origins in the primeval sea.
Although no water is specifically depicted in Macri's Dust Roe, there is
delicate aquamarine, and there is the combination of shells attached to, or
emerging from the face. I have returned to this portrait many times in a state
of dry quandary. It was only during Monty Don's charming stroll through the
waterworks of the Villa d'Este that the pressure of wish and wonder burst
like a broken main, and I experienced a silent flooding of ideas and feelings,
all related to the implicit waters of Macri's Dust Roe. I was submerged, and
would not come up for air until I had done, even at the risk of drowning in
confusion. In Dust Roe, Macri is either immersed in implications, or I am
changing my view of it as often as Proteus changes shape. Speaking of that
slippery god, who assumes any number of identities to avoid foretelling the
future if we try to grasp him between our hands, I must also mention the sea's
mutability. By its very nature, water changes and flows, gives and takes, just
as a Macri portrait assumes the various meanings we shape around it, then seeps
away, leaving us neck deep in our speculations. Somewhere in his writing (no,
I don't have a footnote here), Jung suggests that Proteus is an apt symbol
of the unconscious, but I wont wade in that murky sea. You see where a
prolonged study of Dust Roe has led me, over my head in dangerous water. Dust Roe
is complex it's strange and lovely; it is also brilliant. Throwing adjectives at a
work of art however never helps me understand why I find it so compelling.
Yes, yes, I know: one need only feel and not think too much. So they say. I do not.
Feeling and nothing but feeling leaves me floundering like, dare I say, a
flounder out of water. I need to connect feeling with the hard ground of thought,
even as I immerse myself in the destructive element if I may be allowed
to use Conrad's famous bit of dialogue from his novel Lord Jim a novel of the
sea. Actually, what Stein, a character in the novel, says to Jim bears repeating
because it reflects Macri's own conception: …man that is born falls into a
dream like a man who falls into the sea. if he tries to climb out into the air as
inexperienced people endeavor to do, he drowns—nicht wahr?... No! I tell you! The way
is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions
of your hands and feet in the water make the deep deep sea keep you up.
Destruction here, as in Macri's vision evident throughout his artistic oeuvre,
means re-creation and transformation, a kind of wisdom born of experience and
knowledge derived from the recognition of the deep and necessary nature of
change and energy. We remain vital and alert in sensuous immediacy and in the
creative eroticism of life in the midst of decay. Nicht wahr? Isn't that true? One
doesn't necessarily drown after all, although I recall Macri's haunting
portrait, Memento Mori, which shares features with Dust Roe, a
portrait rich with allusions to mortality of which Macri is acutely
aware. Still there is that living seemingly roving eye the other one
buried in the invisible depths of a shell protruding from the socket: one
visible eye, singular, dark, peering upwards, and therefore emphatic. What does
it portend: a fish eye, the Masonic eye, a spiritual eye, or the malocchio of
Italian folklore? I don't think we need to nail it down to one meaning. Suffice
it to say that the presence of the eye in a face covered with shells of various
sizes, attached to each other and forming a remarkable mask, directs me to look
where it's looking. And seeing what precisely? It's puzzling, a response
perhaps Macri symbolizes by the placement of a flat white puzzle piece
on the right cheek. I marvel at the silk-washed skin as smooth as marble; garlands
of sea weed, shells and crystals in aquamarine; black hair so flattened as to
form a tight-fitting cap; a loose undershirt reflecting the colours of the
portrait; an opaque, sandy backdrop, a cord or string of bleached coral around the
neck; and subtle shadows as if light is flickering beneath the surface of a calm
sea. The carefully chosen elements of this portrait connect seamlessly, the
consequence of Adamo Macri's subtle, multi-faceted artistry. I
did not at first notice, for example, that the garland seems to grow out of an ear,
and there's a trace of a beard beneath the mollusk shells. And I was led by the
colour, details and implications of this portrait to similarities in Macri's
stunning Hinterland portrait. Is it a mask or some inner force that emerges
from the face of Dust Roe, a transformation of identity in the sea?
Macri has long been fascinated with cellular changes and the slow breaking
down of shape and structures in both organic life and inorganic matter
Moreover, he often merges human and inhuman in his art, a cross-fertilization
of seeds from different species, if you will, as in the Epizoochory series. That
phenomenon remains a perennially fascinating aspect of his art, the
endless mutability of it, which eliminates rigid definitions and
embraces change and fluidity. By the way, he has recently posted portraits called
Coral Bleach, a nice play on words, and I can't help but think that flesh is
nibbled away by fish and bones ultimately are bleached white by the
salty sea. What of the title, Dust Roe? Why does he draw attention to fish eggs? On
board a small, less than luxurious ship cruising the Volga in Russia several
years ago, I lathered orange and black caviar on blinis for breakfast, eaten
along with cucumbers, mushrooms, eggs, and shots of vodka sans orange juice. Dust
is not so appetizing: an earthly reminder perhaps, almost Biblical and funereal,
as in ash to ash, dust to dust. In Dust Roe there is indeed a suggestion of
earthiness, or the sea floor beyond the reach of sunlight. Given Macri's ironic
propensities in his portraits (you don't really stand on terra firma with this
artist), I believe in the fundamental truths of his art: the mystery of
beginnings; the relentless passage of time and consequent entropy;
the transformation of inner selves and external reality; the incorporation of
mythic elements to in our contemporary, digital fantasies; the playful shifting
of identities; and, not least, the ultimate absurdity of insisting on one point of
view to the exclusion of all others. Both dust and roe, therefore, make sense: out
of something, call it an egg, and I can't help at this moment but allude to
Brancusi's sensuous, egg-shaped sculpture entitled Beginning of the
World. We develop parallel identities even as we also break down into
something far from the original, at least in outward appearance. Beyond this point
I do not wish to go at the moment. Adamo Macri often leads me (and I can't be
alone) along the mysterious paths of a complex, otherworldly garden and into
sea changes caused by speculation and wonder. As long as my imagination is
awash with his unique portraits and other works of art, I remain in a
a condition of change in a sea of alternatives. My swimming gets stronger,
even as the clock keeps ticking to the end. As Macri himself has said: I love the
concept of mystery because it's reflective of life it holds the essence
of newness because it doesn't ever fully reveal itself.
There isn't anything more intriguing, elusive and ambiguous than the idea of
time. Change can be significantly drastic, the shift in transformations become
unrecognizable. The outer surface reinvents itself as the internal remains
constant. These measures play with the concept of
time, commonly understood as a gradual process. I'm known for being a masked
artist in a constant state of flux.
For more infomation >> Monster Hunter 3U | Wii U | Village #40 (Gameplay) - Uragaan - Duration: 46:07. 
No comments:
Post a Comment