LORIS CECCHINI

Galleria Continua is pleased to announce the solo show, Aeolian Landforms and other Particles, by Italian artist Loris Cecchini, the second exhibition to take place in the gallery’s exhibition space inside the iconic Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, situated on the shore of Dubai’s largest private beach and recognized the world over for its distinctive sailboat-inspired shape. For the occasion, Loris Cecchini has developed works that address some of the key themes of the artist’s oeuvre: metamorphosis, natural phenomena and biological structures.

On entering the exhibition, the visitor is greeted by the structure occupying the central part of the space, entitled Waterbones. The modules that make up the structure flow from the ceiling before progressing towards the floor, creating an arrangement that recalls natural constructions to be found in a plethora of biological phenomena. The artist’s Waterbones installations have an inherent faculty for adaptation, a premise conceived by the artist in their development. Consisting of hundreds if not thousands of steel modules called Waterbones, they act as a biological metaphor that, like a particles substance, manage to occupy and fill the determined space. They interact with the architectural volume of their surroundings, finding themselves teetering on the boundary between biological and artificial, inert and dynamic. These modular works play with a form of abstraction; the geometry that is created recalls arabesques. The exhibition includes a number of works under the title Aeolian Landforms. The vibrant and monochromatic surfaces of these works exemplify the erosive effect of air and water and its subsequent phenomena on a range of natural surfaces. This is manifested through the undulating “waves” we find on the surface, evoking the formation of sand dunes to be found in vast deserts that are subject to the manipulations of the wind. Indeed, the word “aeolian” derives from Æolus, the Greek god of the winds and it is a phenomenon that is not only to be found on this earth but also on other planets like Mars. In nature, Aeolian landforms are created when sediment particles are lifted by upwards forces, causing them to roll across the surface until they land, hop from point to point or remain suspended in the air. Once this movement is provoked, it continues via the forces of gravity and momentum, the excess particles that fall out of the chain of movement then go on to dislodge further particles, creating a continuous dynamic phenomenon that feeds itself.

This scientific dynamism is translated by the artist into a poetic image, in this case a sort of bas-relief that evokes a hypnotic movement, a metaphor for interiority but also for landscape, inciting a transitory gaze from the viewer who quickly realizes that there is a depth to the artwork that is determined by the shadows that are created by the light on the surface. The experience becomes an optic phenomenon. The color becomes an emotional field; the dust-like quality of the surface plays with the depth of color thanks to the particular absorption of light in a certain relationship with the idea of the sublime. Exploring space and the relation to space is significant in the artist’s research. The work in this exhibition that most pertains to this is Wallwaves Vibrations (Quanta Canticum): without a frame it becomes part of the wall and the architecture. The visual pattern suggests a reverberation of a sequence of waves on the surface of a liquid, or a sound. It’s as if the architecture is modified by the relationship between the sculpture and the wall and because of this it loses its status as an object. Loris Cecchini, through an extraction process, transforms the phenomenological elements of nature into sculpture, bas-relief, and installation. Within this extraction process, the surrounding context is considered. The desert which encompasses the exhibition location becomes a condition of the gaze for the local inhabitants and international visitors alike, creating both a landscape in the artworks and an emotional landscape in the eyes of the viewer.

https://www.galleriacontinua.com/special-projects/aeolian-landforms-and-other-particles-157