Shadows or forms

some shadows cast by the bamboo

recollected as visual images

on the pure white canvas

pale brush works to trace the delicate shadows

of the bamboo planted outside my window

a beginning of a new search of reality

realities?

Or do realities exist?

an identical canvas

of the same size

a standard one - 50x70 cm

to visually trace

the magnolia outside my window

treating it as form

not as shadow

in and out of the space

a lost of trace is bound to happen

a solution is found after

by not looking anymore at the magnolia in reality

as the new reality

is recreated on canvas

a western approach

to balance form and color and space

with perhaps a hidden estern understanding:

richness of forms is equvialent to emptiness of shadows

shadows and forms

one shadow, one reality

many shadows, multiple realities

you thought perhaps shadows were unreal

yet they are traced without effort

on the bare canvas

as they seem to yield, without efforts 

so they finally asume a reality much more substantial

as content

then there is the form

that looks tangible

measurable

traceable

yet such obvious visual realities

when truthfully traced and transported onto

your canvas

they look not as interesting ( as in reality )

at least not as real as the shadows of the bamboo traced

on the other canvas

what is real

what are realities then

one is traced

the other is a reinvention of a visual tracing

one is subtle, like breath

the other is loud, like a statement

but breath , in order to continue its course

needs form

the form, in order to outlive its sterile intrinsic self

needs breath

so the eastern mind

is sometimes in need of a body

yet when it gets too heavy

it needs to return to itself

to breathe once more

of the essence

in order

to

express in a form

that is tangible yet intangible

like every single reality in nature

when it is being grasped with force

it vanishes

Bernadette, after having lost one of the first experiments on the tracing of the shadows of the bamboo, wrote this reflection, hoping to begin a new series of works: shadows and forms in multi- manifestations

14 May 2016 Italy