by Marcello Carlino
There is no doubt that it was the example of Ficus Macrophylla in Palermo , spectacular for its trunk , branches and foliage that influenced the idea of Olga De Gasperisi to paint this sequence of operas. The tree, one of the biggest examples in Europe, leaves us with no doubt that its majestic and monumental status attracts an air for metaphors and it is potentially an ‘expression” for both art and literature.
What this series of paintings evoke in me goes beyond that miracle in Palermo, deeper inside me I imagine ‘The tree of life’ not only the concept in religious terms handed down by traditional iconographic images but a tree of life ‘grown’ in three places of different origins, all equally significantly represented by a western way of creativity.
I am of course referring to first of all William Morris’ tapestry “Tree of life”, emblematic of peace and tolerance, the essential rules of living together. Morris an able multi talented artist and politician dreamed of a social purpose for the arts in everyday life. The tapestry is a model statement for co-existence of man and his environment, a dominating thought amongst other pre-Raffaello artists too. Secondly in Volponi’s novel that takes place under the constant shade of the service tree and evergreens where life existed and history of mankind was contemplated through affinity, identity and differences. To conclude also comes to mind the ability of the talented American director Terrence Malick to associate immediately in ‘The tree of life’ the symbolism of a tree, to trace a biological memory back to the beginning of an existence in an unknown point of time.
My multiple meanings of Dendrite are defined by grafting these ideas together with a budding sense for strength and nature to describe this series of paintings, like the chapters of a book , make one ‘whole’ opera.
The artists’ mixture of components for the chromatic performance is an indicator of what to expect: being multi-material, the images are often obtained by a combination of oils and asphalts that give a chemical- organic flavour that come from the earth like the idea that can only materialize after having planted ‘the seed’ in the earth. Only to mention the colours, used to a minimum, that have an unfinished porous effect simulating a material ‘in movement’. A hint of opaque brown dominates and confines with a grey, sometimes a whitish grey almost silver, whilst transforming and reaching out to plait with the red. Together they form newborn colours, colours that seem to appear to have always been there for the human eye to absorb through the lens, the light : the colours of earth and fire ( from burning and the ash that is fed back to nature) begin to animate a form of life.
From a different perspective the theme of roots is repeated by a motif which separates from a mass its original existence. Olga De Gasperis has that capability to intone it, mould it into possible variations and runs away with the idea; she explores in minute detail, centimetre by centimetre, one detail after the other like a dermatologist would the skin, and on canvas her vision of dendrite is the pleat in the bark.
Channels, knots, fissures, seen close-up in an uninterrupted sequence where what is root is root congruent where root becomes trunk and is resumed in the monochrome of freshly bleached wood and then as if filmed in slow motion other trunks come from branches and together with the roots they become one, representing one vital source of energy that conciliate their differences.
It’s in this ability to ‘unify’ that the artist possesses she shows us how life triumphs .
In Olga De Gasperis’ work she gives us a plastic perspective using the idea of alternate spaces, empty and full. By cutting the surface of the tree she reveals the ability of the tree to encapsulate and conceive other existences and possible realities with their possible consequences. If we look for example at the fissures and splits divaricating the options of an incubation time, it’s possible to grow the unknown and new and it cuts a fine figure to the uterine cavity ; thinking of the tree as a ‘she’ who gives herself to musical parallelisms capable of choosing slow gradual matches that consequently focus in harmony: like a vision from the beginning of time when cavemen safeguarded the future, weighing himself down with a suitcase of knowledge he lugged around so his body inevitably grew the necessary muscles to do so and slowly and relentlessly the change came about. The tree becomes the body, the flesh. The tree becomes the essence of man.
There are silvers to be found , a haze of white (squashed in bas-relief as if the essence has been squeezed out) mutilated in passing. Then there is red and more red coming to life and it’s twisted together finding its own channels and flowing into more defined tubular spaces. The red is now what was the opaque brown, digging out hives and perforating holes making a plastic perspective of empty and full spaces. The tree is transformed, it’s man seen from the inside showing his ideal interior: the lymph mixed here and there with blood both of intense vitality.
Dendriti is the tale of evolution and its forms of existence, the most fascinating adventure that ever begun.
Dendriti is a hymn to life and the mysterious un-suppressible energy that sustains it. Dendriti is a book containing many images, to be considered an ‘ecological’ opera d’arte if the canvas is capable of using nature as a ‘conversation’ between the tree and man to conciliate.
Dendriti wants you to reflect. The title being elusive to the obvious visual division of the plant and its roots. If we were to recall the anatomy of the brain (the plant) and its internal activity (the roots) we can extract the concept between abstract and real: somewhere in between is how cleverly Olga De Gasperis depicts this. The artist starts with the exterior aspect of a tree and peels off, layer by layer, to reveal the inside.
Dendriti is a way of telling a story, the roots of which are deep inside us and by the time the story has been told have branched out, been externalized and so from beginning to end has entwined like the branches on a trunk. Past and present entwine rooting themselves in the present where the story springs to life and like lymph and blood irradiate it pulsates and flows, we could say sap is the essence of life.
Dendriti represents a life cycle and like a wheel that never tops turning it spins out a wishful ecological message. How tragic it would be if we weren’t to appreciate that message and were to put something between the spokes interrupting the cycle compromising beauty as its to be found somewhere inside the rim . (Lisa Eagles)