Technique: oil and pure amber
Support: canvas
Size in cm: 90x65
Turin, 2016
Evolution
In this painting I show two women, one painted realistically and the other painted with the blind contour technique. The second image is the black mirror of the first, distorted, deformed but certainly with a strength capable of fascinating. The subject is a woman with a lip disk, here they become handcuffs that join the two faces. The labial disc is found in the culture of numerous African peoples; the size of the disc is often associated with the social importance of the wearer. Sara (Chad) apply it to both lips; the Makonde (Tanzania and Mozambique) only to the upper one. Among the peoples of the lower course of the Omo river in Ethiopia, namely the Surma and the Mursi, the labial disc is unique to women, and is applied to symbolize sexual maturity, at 15 or 16 years, 6 or 12 months before marriage.
This is a series of oil paintings, mostly in black and white. They arise from sketches made around the city, museums and from photographic image research. Made with technique ¨Blind Contour Drawing¨, Umanoidi is a sincere mirror of how I see the metropolitan world wrapped in a darkness that is illuminated only by the human figure.