Venus
 |
1992-2011 Marble 103 x 40 x 27cm |
The final sculpture as seen, and known as Venus, took Anna Chiara Spellini almost two decades to consider resolved and completed. Venus began life as a torso alluding to classical paradigms, but a visionary pursuit of how the typical, idealized classical form might be rendered in contemporary terms that modern people may appreciate as relevant to the time in which they lived. By this we mean how what appears to be a style of implied grandeur and academicism from the past, actually remains subtly and carefully, engaged with our values and living life of the present. In the early days, Anna encountered a setback with the initial carving of the neck and shoulders – causing her to abandon the work for a time in her stymie. With time however, she progressed to revisit the movement of the torso as it began to ‘live’ again under her hands. At one stage also, the assembling of the form faced collapse, before Anna began the arduous task of building it back – resulting in a richly haptic resonance through touch alone. The result is a stunning version of a female form not of classical proportion, but one that has created its own sense of balance. It is weighted from the top like a funnel of all the rivers of time running through the mountains of the ages. The cascading marvel is the smooth and flesh rendered warmth radiating through the layers of white and sparkle inherent in the quality of this particular marble block from Carrara. This twenty-year endeavor is one of the more compelling revelations of how Anna’s methodology and technique are uniquely capable of pulling the messages and thoughts, pictures and forms of a thousand years from history into the portal of the present: breathing life into what we dream about, what we think about, what we imagine and what we believe. |