Lisa Batacchi
Sand Storms in Medio Mundi – Imaginatio Vera
The LdM Gallery is pleased to present Sand Storms in Medio Mundi – Imaginatio Vera, a solo exhibition by Italian American multidisciplinary artist, Lisa Batacchi.
The artist presents the three tapestries created after a long process of travel, study and research that represent three phases of the development of the spirit.
The first piece created, Meditating on Earth, is woven in beige colors and introduces the concept of earth. Mother Earth, a feminine energy that governs nature. The artist created brocaded triangles, the vortices, or waves of a sand storm. One facing up to the North and one down South, they represent the eternal dance between good and evil, positive and negative, typical dichotomy for Zoroastrian religion, as if the opposite poles were ready to create movement that allows the energy to flow, but needed a final push.
The World Is so far Reversed draws our gaze to the centre, representing firm, masculine energy referring to the state of the world today, being on the edge of big changes.
The final work in the series, The Spirit Will Return to Us, which the artist executed herself in a time span of almost a year, has a centre, a northern star, the first tool of orientation for human beings., From the star in the middle, four tentacles extend, dividing the surface into four sections: two darker, representing terrain, and two lighter, representing the celestial. The four tentacles are forming an ancient symbol that represents the vital energy of the sun. The tentacles trigger the circular movement of vital energy.
The tapestries manually executed by Batacchi on a vertical loom show us the creation of color shades, shapes that represent the earth, the sky, ancient symbols such as the sun, the stars, the vortices of sand storms that are intertwined in the narration made up of thousands of yarns. The artist begins to create on one part of the tapestry and then resumes work on the other side, always keeping in mind the overall picture, the preparatory drawing, whose appearance she wants to reproduce. To create we need space and to have space sometimes we need to destroy, overturn, discover or reveal like the waves of the winds that blow during sandstorms do. And when the storm calms down, when the work is done we can see the harmony that arises from the chaos – we have arrived at the Imaginatio Vera, interworld between the sensible and the intelligible, a place that existed in ancient Persia and the disappearance of which led to the catastrophe of the spirit. Perhaps being able to enter the Imaginatio Vera again means discovering the possible space from which to begin to change the destiny of the world?
Gallery Supervisor: Špela Zidar
Intern: Catherine Amis
LdM Gallery, Via de’Pucci 4 – Firenze
Opening: September 26th, 5pm-8pm
Duration September 26th to October 17th
Opening hours Mon, Tue, Fri 4-7pm, Wed, Thu 10am-2pm
The LdM Gallery is a project by Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici, an interdisciplinary space where academic research and artistic experimentation meet within a professional setting.