At Santa Maria della Scala the horses of Luigi Ballarin, between East and West

The Santa Maria della Scala complex in Siena welcomes from July 8 to September 11, 2022 Luigi Ballarin ’s solo exhibition entitled La mossa del cavallo, curated by Michela Simona Eremita. On display are about thirty new works depicting the horse, including silhouettes and carpets, minute decorations and geometric designs. Promoted by the City of Siena, the exhibition synthesizes the artist’s personal and constant research between tradition and experimentation.

Ballarin’s artistic production, among chromatic contrasts, essential forms and balanced movements, is steeped in “arts” and history, a bridge between East and West, with stylistic references to other cultures, among all the Byzantine and Turkish ones. The result is a meta-art, an art that looks at art, with that horse being both its synthesis and source. Through mixed media and the use of acrylic and enamel, Ballarin makes his decorations unusual, imprecise up close but perfect from afar. A short video made on the occasion of the exhibition by Trento-based Busacca Produzioni Video will be looped inside the room.

“My art is dedicated to the Islamic world, to prayer, to Ottoman decorations,” the artist said. "My interpretation of horses follows the two-dimensional rhythms of Byzantine painting, decorated with an original technique, marked by textural fields in relief, evoking mosaics, enamels, ceramic decorations, carpets. Other paintings tell the story of the Middle East, with painting that becomes a kind of silent reflection, with images created by small touches of the brush, dotting almost abstract depictions. I chose the horse as a symbol of union between East and West, inspired by the horses of St. Mark, Byzantine works that have become emblems of Venice."

“An evident play of forms takes over everything, on the very silhouettes that, camped on the background of the paintings, seem evocations of a recognizable reality (the horse, the carpet...) with the assigned task of establishing the resonance point of the color, which, vibrant, thanks to the technique of laying and firing the glazes, seems to be disciplined within the geometrically concluded lines,” says the curator. “To the shape, in this case geometric - circles, rectangles, squares - therefore, appears entrusted with the task of giving order and making cohesive and predetermined everything that could be pure matter - color - in its free state. To the silhouette, on the other hand, the task of evoking that which, in turn, refers to images of spirituality (the carpet) or untamed freedom (the horse) of the spirit.”

For info: https://www.santamariadellascala.com/

At Santa Maria della Scala the horses of Luigi Ballarin, between East and West

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