The light of fragility finds space only in art
A L E S S A N D R O S T R O N A T I Lighting Up Art
In a world where the LEDs in our "black mirrors" highlight and amplify society's good and bad, Lighting Up Art introduces a new language to art, using RGB LEDs to highlight the cracks in a fragile canvas sculpture.
Each work adapts to the viewer and his or her state of mind, changing its colors under indication from the observer. The work's immense mutability and luminosity draw the viewer's attention, engaging at a deep level.
Light and matter, modern and ancient, on these dichotomies the artist's paintings are based. Through the use of stucco and the resulting formation of craquelure, Stronati transcends the barriers of the two-dimensional medium, reaching the viewer beyond the pictorial plane. Fascinated by craquelure, the artist integrates its aesthetics with the use of light, which, through the cracks, becomes the pictorial medium of choice, resolutely replacing color. Thanks to the crepa- tures, the brushstrokes of light are thus able to reach the viewer with a language that is both primordial and modern, through the use of colored LEDs, leading in a metaphorical-conceptual path and telling, through medical analogies, the indissoluble link that exists between anatomy and psyche.
All the works are constructed, right from the canvas itself, entirely by the artist, incorporating the process of constructing the artistic message into the creation plan as well. Being manually constructed, the canvases lend a touch of fragility to the works that, leave room for human imperfections and mistakes. It is precisely the artist's intention to emphasize how nowadays, the world has become increasingly virtual, digital and editable, and potentially perfect despite being compressed into an imperfect world.
Lights Off: Lighting Up Art is not only light, it is also matter and cracks on rough stucco. Under an external light, the works take a new, more real, and more fragile form. The third light brings out the three-dimensionality of the works, giving form to the shadows that take the place of the work's own LED lights.
Lighting Up Art?
Sculptures On Canvas and Lighting Up Art’s first exhibition in Rome, 2017