The “scoglietto” in pink

Today I’m going to take you to the place that inspired my collage entitled Mediterraneo n. 19.

The idea behind this work was to present in a feminine and sensory fashion something that on the island of Elba is considered a sort of monument. I’m talking about the scoglietto, the ‘little rock’ that with its small lighthouse guides seafarers heading towards these white coasts.

As you descend, the sound of the sea grows ever stronger, becoming almost deafening on days when the maestrale, the north-west wind, is blowing.

At sunset this panorama is tinged with pink, yellow, green and violet. And so I wanted to represents this little bit of magic in a picture, making the palette turn around yellow, its complementary colour violet and a whole series of shades of grey-green.

Besides, the two colours of the year 2021 are grey and yellow. And in fact at this moment we are all in need of yellow, which is a positive colour, the colour of the sun but also of elevation and consciousness. The material I chose for this work was sandpaper. As I explained here, the use of this material gives the colour a wholly unexpected quality, allowing us to experience it in a tactile manner.

First I made a sketch and then I used it as a template for the creation of different coloured levels, superimposing them with the technique of collage.

An artistic source of inspiration for this was the painter Emile Nolde, who utilised colour for his landscapes in a boldly expressionistic way, but always started out from reality.

So from a small beach on the island of Elba we have arrived at the paintings of Nolde, passing through the sensations that a magical place like the Spiaggia di Napoleone offers. What I would like this picture to bring with it is light and a sense of wonder… The wonder that you feel when you make your way down through the scrub and are suddenly faced by the sea and the horizon, interrupted only by the silhouette of the scoglietto. I show all this in a short video that you can find here: