September 15th-29th 2020 - Basilica di San Celso
Corso Italia 37, Milano
"The echo of the “dead seasons”, of the lives lived, the sense of time and Nature's perpetual regeneration can be recognized in the works that Remo Rachini has created on the theme of trees since 2015. Tree trunks that have been torn down or have died of old age that, unexpectedly, reveal a precious and complex interior made up of an interweaving of blue glass bottle shards.
In the works Tronco 1 and Tronco 2 the aim is to keep the organic nature of the plant intact, emphasized in the contrast between the knotty wood and the mosaic of glass shards, while in the more recent Impronte corticali (2019), produced with the frottage technique, the choice has become more exquisitely conceptual, aimed at capturing and fixing the traces of life, the individual stories that interacted with those trees or which the trees are the silent witnesses to.
The artist's Impronte corticali, to those who look at them with curiosity and attention, do not just reveal a geometric flow chart or the sharing with any living creature of structures regulated by a system of balances and proportions, but also the signs of human stories and sentiments.
What Rachini offers us is only apparently a game of combinations, a skilful execution. The truth is that each of his works is a precise analysis of natural laws, a rethinking of the meaning of things."
Valerio Terraroli