Reflecting Again

Created for DeltArte

The mural is dedicated to uniqueness & diversity. It takes years to fully accept our uniqueness as an asset.

Two female figures stand out in the work, set in a narrow space. In the center a young woman with a mirror in her hand and a hesitant gaze directed at the observer. In the foreground, a little girl with an old scarf, intent on observing the mirror and her reflections. Above a canary placed on the fingers of the woman, also intrigued (but disoriented!) by her mirror, below an apple and a note, in the hands of the little girl.

The two figures could be basically the same person, in two stages of life. In the mirror the reading key. Who do we really see through various and multifarious reflective screens? 

If appearance continues to be slavery (especially female) what really remains of our uniqueness? What is truly profound if the content becomes a faint echo of the image? 

After all, reflecting has multiple meanings: it is to send the light back but also to constitute a repercussion, a consequence or an effect, at the same time to continue, to be the outcome, to turn the mind on an object of thought and above all to reconsider it carefully. 

In the apple a multi-significant symbol of redemption and perdition, spirituality and vanity but also a memory of a time of economic difficulties and sacrifices that marked the place that houses my work. The leaflet in the hands of the little girl refers in fact to the popular neighborhood built along the ancient bank road called Cengiaretto, which in 1943, following the fall of fascism, was renamed Borgo XXV July. The story made me rethink the freedom regained with liberation which was also the possibility of disagreeing, of expressing opinions different from those of a regime, a right that is never taken for granted and which we often risk underestimating. 

If I had made the sketch a couple of weeks late I probably would have painted a piece inspired by the protests that erupted in Iran after the killing of Mahsa Amini and Hadith Najafi. My work wanted to be an ethical reflection on uniqueness. And yet, I believe that a thread links acceptance of self and of the other and equal rights at all levels, against any repressive regime or state. I would therefore like to dedicate this piece to Iranian women and their courage (if I had a shred of it) but also to the men who are supporting them.