The most exciting thing of a trip is to put yourself on the misterious road of the coincidences - if you, of course, believe in coincidences. And it was like this that, walking throw the streets of Venice, my path slightly determined by the loss of my glasses on the day before - and so by the need of buying me lens - I met a person that certainly was on of the top moments of this trip.
The music flooding the street took me there. It was a exhibition of portraits, douzens of them, made in A3 with crayon. Every picture was like looking into a something of feelings, stories, humanity, like I was staring at the very portraited person. "The exhibition continues on the second floor". Went upstairs.
How surprised - and satisfied - was I of meeting there, next to her work, the artist, herself. Mariana Gordan, romenian artist, received me with her vivid green eyes and red hair, and not only answered to my first question saying yes, those were real people, but also started to tell me the stories of each one, calling them by their names, and then bringing them to life right in front of me.
So, I met whole families generations, an alcoholic man that had already died, a psycologist who wanted to be portraited as a basketball player, a lady that hated the artist 'cause she hated all the romanians, a man who won 3 milion dollars and gave it all to the poor children.
And she also told me how, for a casuality, had begun to portrait the people in her studio, in a little town in Romenia, and how the little Madalina, only 6 years old, helped her calling and bringing all the people to be portraited. The idea was also taken to London, becoming the exhibition which I was seeing, named The Mirror.
I asked Mariana about what did the portraited people say staring at their own image. She answered me that almost everybody said that could recognize on the portrait something of themselves, although it was diferent of looking at their own images on the mirror.
How the artist said: "They are portraits of the spirit".
In the same exhibition, there were children sculptures, inspired at the little habitants of a town on Basilicata, causing on them, of course, great excitement in front of their own images.
The talking with Mariana Gordan was a real lession about the human being and the individual, the self-perception and the perception of the other, and, mostly, communication. Her work made me see how art can be deeply based on life, how it evolves and transforms those who partecipate it, how ir makes us see what is beyond the appearance, and finally, how it communicates with the flesh and bones and feelings and stories and affections beings.
Oh, almost forgot. I've also learned a lot about coincidences...
For more details, hear the interview. I apologize for anything missing for tecnical problems (the battery of the recorder...)
Click here to get your own player.
Here also a shortfilm made by the artist:
