Kilometers away, light years close
With immense generosity Leonardo Petrucci welcomed me into his study, overwhelming me with his words, his ideas, his complicated reasoning, profound, curious, logical and vast. Making me feel like a small dot in the universe. Yet the small one here is he, by age and stature. His mind, tall, mature and linear, goes into remote and dark universes, to which manages to bring light, giving it an aesthetic reading and an extremely sophisticated and linear visual transposition.
His research ranges from physics, astrophysics, science, mathematics, philosophy and alchemy. In his beautiful pencil drawings there is always a perfect geometry, a mathematical and philosophical hidden formulation applied to a symbolic and truly fascinating natural world. His black paper modular sculptures -that remind Japanese origami- in their aesthetic balance manage to hold together the extremely complicated foundations of “Platonic Solid” geometry.
Space galaxies, collisions of asteroids and planets, have inspired many of his works. A big black picture, hanging on his wall, which apparently looks like a large clock, marks the actual time anticipated of six hours. Just by six hours the asteoid “4581 Ascletius” in 1989 failed a collision with the planet Earth, avoiding its inevitable disintegration.
His tireless curiosity led him to travel to remote locations in search of minerals from the chemical composition equal to those on Mars to understand and build a link between our planet and the others of the solar system. He translates all this process into sculptural works that synthesize with minimalism and strict harmony his quest for knowledge of finite, infinite and metaphysics.
Going back home after visiting Leonardo I did a lot of reflections. About our forced need to circumscribe natural dynamics into a perfect geometry, about the eternal utopian search for perfection, about the inevitability of fate. He made me also think about the the fortuity of encounters in life, the uniqueness and the unrepeatability of some collisions.
Q. Tell me about what you do
I constantly try to change point of view.
Q. What sensation would you like to transmit with your work to the audience?
Revelation and amazement as an epiphany.
Q. Where does your inspiration comes from?
From the esoteric and alchemical studies, together with the latest scientific discoveries.
IN TIN THIS PHOTO: “4581 Asclepius”
Q. What are your current projects?
The project is still secret, but I can reveal that the exhibition will be in Rome, will concern the “red planet”, Mars, and the works are produced in Varanasi, India .
Q. Describe our historical moment
Ours historic moment is very complex. You no longer have the perception of time as something linear, everything flows so fast that past and future are compressed in an instant, which is the present, but this form of present is not as it’s commonly perceived. It is a present without the instant. And because of this we no longer meditate about time, and unawarely we belive to be eternal. For this error in fact we are the most mortal and short of any historical epoch.
Q. Describe art world today
With an eye for fashion, shallow and incapable, but very smart.
Q. Who is your favorite artist of all the time
Leonardo Da Vinci
Q. And which one do you think is the most overrated?
I hate Botero’s work, Konstabi and mostly all the “Transavanguardia”.
Q. What is the best thing about being who you are
To be constantly changing and trying to be unpredictable.
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Leonardo Petrucci, born in Grosseto (Tuscany) in 1986, lives and works in Rome
Artist represeted by: Operativa www.operativa-arte.com
EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com.
