Studio per Albero, 2013, grafite, 14.5 x 14.5

“studio”, 2013, grafite, 14.5 x 14.5

The tree, as we know, has always had an important and multifaceted symbolic value in the history of mankind: for example, as a symbol of soil fertility and cult of the Mother-Earth; a symbol of fertility tout court; “tree of knowledge of good and evil” and “tree of life” in the Bible, and so on. The drive to create images with this subject, stylistically portrayed just as a symbolic form, comes from the exploration and observation of hundreds of medieval paintings – miniatures, tables, predellas, etc. – in which the trees appear with a clear symbolic appearance whatever form they have: some are essential, spare; some are lush and lifelike. In any case they are very attractive, for me, just by virtue of their creative and purely symbolic shape.