Research Themes
"It is a different thing if the artist seeks the particular in function of the universal, or if they descry [discern] the universal in the particular. From the first manner results allegory, where the particular is merely the emblem, the example of the universal; but the second is properly the nature of poetry: it expresses a particular, without thinking of the universal, or without alluding to it. Whoever captures this particular vividly, at the same time grasps the universal, without being aware of it, or only becoming aware of it later.”(Sir Walter Benjamin)
“Senses are not passive receptors, yet active moments of an experience of reality, a space where nature becomes transparent.” (Kikki Ghezzi).
In Kikki Ghezzi’s works, time, poetry, light and color take part in a complex and fascinating system composed of corresponding energies, luminous colors, planetary transits and subtle bodies.
The artist’s work is never static. Her paintings have been described as increments of time, marks and strokes in a meditative moment, where the kind of glow-time is infinite in both directions, outward in accumulated, immeasurable brush strokes and inward towards a glow point. Music exemplifies it best — retaining previous notes to understand the whole body of music, my painting does something similar — back in time and forward in time.
The artist’s book Luce is a series of 12 oil paintings on Belgian linen housed in a leather case, inspired by a 7th century Coptic binding. The colors correspond to the 12 divine Rays of Light, which, when taken together make up the fabric of our entire Universe.
La 24 Ore (literally “24 Hours”, 2013 - work in progress) is a leather briefcase, a sort of Wunderkammern designed to hold only a day’s essentials. It embodies the process of memory itself, its limitations and demands for selection and compression: a house must become a small, portable case; years passed within its walls must become only moments of inward reflection, representing stages in a journey of remembrance, preservation of memory, grief, and ultimately, personal transformation. While, the process of enveloping an abandoned Cornish house nestled under a cliff beside the sea, used once by local tin miners in the Land Art project Chi (2015/2017), allowed the artist to reflect upon the perpetual principles of impermanence, repair, and renewal.
The Magical Cherry Tree (2017-2020) explores, through the use of the old traditions of embroidery, oil painting, natural dyeing and printmaking, the theme of Nature and place in an ideal dialogue between two cherry trees, whose roots symbolically touch despite being thousands of miles apart: Our Magical Cherry Tree, a national monument rooted in beloved native Italy, and the majestic Magical Cherry tree in Villa Firenze’s garden, the residence of the Italian Ambassador to the U.S.
My Cosmic Clock (2011-work in progress) speaks to the capacity to look at the Cosmos and see our “Higher Self” reflected there, as if we were looking into a mirror. As such, autobiographical and memory-based components are some of its fundamental ingredients. The result is a sequence of poetic pages in which visually harmonious kaleidoscopic images alternate with enigmatic alchemical and cosmological symbols. The long and patient work of selection, transcription, and systematization has become the armature of a complex work in which diaristic intimacy is combined with astrological traditions, beliefs, and the supporting pillars of Kikki Ghezzi’s aesthetic.