Displacement
In the works of Alessia Armeni, spatial dimension is used as an instrument to interpret human identity, providing a theatrical backdrop for both individual existence and wider collective memory.
Space used as thither of humanity - modeled and shaped by history and mankind's actions but also by clear-cut geometric lines, contradicting the physical definition of space - offers accurate boundaries and infinite settings for the intimate and personal tales of the individual that, in the oil paintings of Alessia Armeni, occupy space with confidence trust.
Alessia Armeni's subjects move across landscapes - real or symbolic, rich with suggestion or easily sketched as colorful blades that cut through and outline the physical space of the canvas - or more simply put, they inhabit the setting, fully confident it is nothing more than a material embrace in which survival, growth and balance are givens.
The landscape is fanciful protagonist, an innocent, eternal Garden of Eden that provides nourishment.
The word "Paradise" actually originates from pairi.daeza, an ancient Iranian expression that refers to a garden or grove between walls: a peaceful, joyful, place that protects all those inside.
In effect, likely as a result of our ancestral environment, mankind's evolutionary memory has transformed forest and trees into an archetypical setting. Across Europe, North America and Far East, forest have a strong, symbolic, ambivalent meaning: they represent the power of life, from growth in the spring to flowering in the summer, throughout to arid solitude of winter.
Many cultures associate particular deities with trees, such as Celts, or Germans who associate the God Yggdrasil, with the evergreen Weltenbaum (World tree) - an Oak tree living in the center of the Midgard (Middle-earth). But forests are also places of danger and deception, inhabited by menacing animals or imaginary creatures, such as kobolds or witches. And flora is also the mythical territory of the Mother Earth, the Latin goddess Mater Matuta, i.e. the all-emabracing feminine principle.
Both such perceptions of forests and trees are present in Alessia Armeni's paintings. Trees provide a reassuring presence for women having a conversation in the miss of green landscape. But they are also a disturbing presence projecting shadows when they appear behind a hesitant man shown in unknown, perhaps hostile territory.
And the shadow crossing a tree can be either normal or threatening presence for the small, reclining man who is unaware of susceptible to dominating forces. Trees bond with metaphysical geometries, but the man is, again, lying on a ray of green light that resembles the blade of a knife. Is it a human sacrifice made to the tree divinity or the loss of consciousness in an enchanted forest? Geometry can be a reassuring, man-made framework with precise patterns to show a reclining woman reading a book. But the geometrical space breaking up the green patterning with a Cosmatesque line. The conflict between nature and civilization reemerges when geometric design, reminiscent of marble Renaissance flooring, is dissected by gigantic blades that seem to come out of a visually disruptive, vertical lawn.
In Freudian psychologic "displacement" (verschiebung in German) is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind automatically substitutes images or emotions in order to overcome negative impulses. In the works of Alessia Armeni, displacement refers to landscape that surround individual stories. There is a transition from the interpretation of nature as mother's womb in the forest, an architectonic strings, and to the refined pictorial geometry that represents a trail needed for not getting lost in the dark, ghostly woods of traditional European fables. […]
Ludovica Rossi Purini and Roberto Purini
In the works of Alessia Armeni, spatial dimension is used as an instrument to interpret human identity, providing a theatrical backdrop for both individual existence and wider collective memory.
Space used as thither of humanity - modeled and shaped by history and mankind's actions but also by clear-cut geometric lines, contradicting the physical definition of space - offers accurate boundaries and infinite settings for the intimate and personal tales of the individual that, in the oil paintings of Alessia Armeni, occupy space with confidence trust.
Alessia Armeni's subjects move across landscapes - real or symbolic, rich with suggestion or easily sketched as colorful blades that cut through and outline the physical space of the canvas - or more simply put, they inhabit the setting, fully confident it is nothing more than a material embrace in which survival, growth and balance are givens.
The landscape is fanciful protagonist, an innocent, eternal Garden of Eden that provides nourishment.
The word "Paradise" actually originates from pairi.daeza, an ancient Iranian expression that refers to a garden or grove between walls: a peaceful, joyful, place that protects all those inside.
In effect, likely as a result of our ancestral environment, mankind's evolutionary memory has transformed forest and trees into an archetypical setting. Across Europe, North America and Far East, forest have a strong, symbolic, ambivalent meaning: they represent the power of life, from growth in the spring to flowering in the summer, throughout to arid solitude of winter.
Many cultures associate particular deities with trees, such as Celts, or Germans who associate the God Yggdrasil, with the evergreen Weltenbaum (World tree) - an Oak tree living in the center of the Midgard (Middle-earth). But forests are also places of danger and deception, inhabited by menacing animals or imaginary creatures, such as kobolds or witches. And flora is also the mythical territory of the Mother Earth, the Latin goddess Mater Matuta, i.e. the all-emabracing feminine principle.
Both such perceptions of forests and trees are present in Alessia Armeni's paintings. Trees provide a reassuring presence for women having a conversation in the miss of green landscape. But they are also a disturbing presence projecting shadows when they appear behind a hesitant man shown in unknown, perhaps hostile territory.
And the shadow crossing a tree can be either normal or threatening presence for the small, reclining man who is unaware of susceptible to dominating forces. Trees bond with metaphysical geometries, but the man is, again, lying on a ray of green light that resembles the blade of a knife. Is it a human sacrifice made to the tree divinity or the loss of consciousness in an enchanted forest? Geometry can be a reassuring, man-made framework with precise patterns to show a reclining woman reading a book. But the geometrical space breaking up the green patterning with a Cosmatesque line. The conflict between nature and civilization reemerges when geometric design, reminiscent of marble Renaissance flooring, is dissected by gigantic blades that seem to come out of a visually disruptive, vertical lawn.
In Freudian psychologic "displacement" (verschiebung in German) is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind automatically substitutes images or emotions in order to overcome negative impulses. In the works of Alessia Armeni, displacement refers to landscape that surround individual stories. There is a transition from the interpretation of nature as mother's womb in the forest, an architectonic strings, and to the refined pictorial geometry that represents a trail needed for not getting lost in the dark, ghostly woods of traditional European fables. […]
Ludovica Rossi Purini and Roberto Purini