Interview with Silvia De Marchi

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Gabriele Landi: How important is the idea of the fragment in your work?

Silvia De Marchi: The fragment is a key element in my work, I’m strongly attracted to it and it’s an image I keep coming back to.

In the fragment I see the infinitely small that is welcomed into the infinitely large, the microcosm and the macrocosm of Buddhist culture and, following this path, I face and reflect on the concepts of temporality, cyclicity and transformation.

I mean transformation as energy and rhythm, therefore vital, but also as a yearning movement because it implies a deterioration, the transformation of one object into another of a different nature. The fragment creates bridges between past and present, therefore it is not only a material reality but also has an important emotional component.

The fragment is a very stimulating space for me also from the point of view of form and visual perception. My works are formed with incomplete and deformed, visible and non-visible forms that can create a perceptive and mental disorientation, transmitting a feeling of uncertainty and curiosity. It is a work that offers different points of view from the simple frontal fruition, therefore different sensory experiences. It is precisely this imaginary space that oscillates between the known and the unknown that interests me.

The fragment is my dimension: it is a small, intimate space, you have to look at it closely, it can be explored in detail and above all it asks to be continued in the heart-mind of the beholder.

Gabriele Landi: Do the fragments you use have their own history prior to your intervention or are they created on purpose by you?

Silvia De Marchi: The scraps of paper I use for my works come from untouched Fabriano sheets. I paint them, manipulate, cut or tear and assemble them. But I don’t use them immediately, on the contrary I abandon them, sometimes even for a long time, months or years.

I leave them in different places in the studio: some in boxes, others piled up on work surfaces or under a piece of furniture, in the dust. Others still I put them outdoors exposed to the wind, sun or rain: these practices are essential to obtain a material that is worn, deteriorated, torn but which also proves to be resistant. Time and these external agents change them, and it is in this moment that their story appears. Other fragments, on the other hand, are the result of a recycling of leftovers and waste from my previous works.

So the fragments I use are a layered creation of involuntary elements, the slow workings of time and natural but also voluntary agents, my action. In both cases the process of making and choosing material for a new job takes a long time.

Then there are certain fragments that are special, those that are a constant source of inspiration. I keep them on my work table or hanging on the wall, so I can always see them.

Gabriele Landi: So you have never used found objects or elements that don’t have a provenance other than the one that starts from your doing?

Silvia De Marchi: Yes, together with paper, in some works I also use found objects and other materials. Stones and nails but also adhesive tape and silk cord.

The nails are ancient, I found them when I worked as a restorer, they are rusty and imperfect and it is in this deterioration that their expression and beauty lies. The stones are fragments that I find at the base of the rocky pinnacles of the Grigna, a mountain that constantly inspires me. But they are also round stones smoothed by the sea that I find on the beaches. They are elements united by a strong materiality, with signs, incisions, cracks, often incomplete, worn out and which are therefore symbols of all that they have collected over time.

These objects, which are placed on top of the painting, actually coexist with the painting in an antagonistic way because they give shape to a painting that is almost sculpture, which is the relationship on which my work reflects.

Gabriele Landi: You mentioned your past as a restorer earlier. Does this past affect your current work in any way?

Silvia De Marchi: I think my work is the result of many experiences that have taken place

stratified over time, for example my attraction to the ancient and archeology, which led me to study restoration and work on paintings and frescoes. What influences my works the most from that world is essentially the profound knowledge of materials: stone, canvas, pigments, glues, nails and more are understood and felt differently by a restorer than by a painter.

From a conceptual point of view, the experience as a restorer has helped me to compare and reflect on aesthetic criteria and technical reasoning, on the relationship between the work of art and the passage of time.

Gabriele Landi: How did the transition from restoration to art take place?

Silvia De Marchi: There wasn’t a clear transition because I’ve always painted, even when I worked as a restorer. I started doing my own work while attending the art school in Milan and I have never stopped. In that period, and until about 2000, I exhibited my works, oil paintings on canvas and wood, in group exhibitions, participating as a finalist in various art awards, including national ones such as the Morlotti-Imbersago award.

Then due to various events, the family, the children, I slowed down my active participation in exhibitions while still not ceasing to devote myself to art. Probably even a phase was over, because then I approached calligraphy and ink painting on paper, in particular the monochrome painting technique. I found my new dimension by studying classical Chinese painting which is related to the highest reflection of Chinese philosophy, the relationship between human destiny and the universe.

Gabriele Landi: How did this contact with Chinese culture come about?

Silvia De Marchi: It was a chance meeting, I was lucky, as often happens. I was traveling in France and saw a group exhibition of ink painting. In those works, despite their small size, I caught a great energy and at the same time a sense of calm. I felt the need to know more, so I found fundamental texts such as those by François Cheng, the essays by Marcello Ghilardi, Shitao and much more, which were indispensable for understanding the philosophical dimension of this painting.

I didn’t know the Chinese pictorial language before this meeting, except from a superficial school study, so it was important to dedicate time to the study of the technique, to research and experiments, to get to know and confront others who experiment in the same directions.

My interest in Chinese pictorial culture is also in some aspects that I feel are very close to my personal dimension: the long time for listening and reflection, which is fundamental for turning the work into an inner experience; the technical elements, brush, black ink and paper, which are not just tools for painting but elements that complement each other to create that flow that animates both the bodily and spiritual dimensions of the pictorial action. And then, fundamentally, the philosophical aspect that considers the creative act in profound relationship with natural phenomena.

My works thus arise among these reflections, in which I try to move in continuous formation. I have an obvious limit which is my way of thinking, with western thinking canons, so I can only try to get close by leaving my heart and mind open.

Gabriele Landi: How important is the dimension of physicality in your work?

Silvia De Marchi: Although my works have a physical presence close to sculpture, my main interest is painting. I spend a lot of time, and it’s an extremely important part of the process, painting the surfaces. Then I work the paper to arrive at the three-dimensional shape.

I’m looking for a different way of understanding the painting, I think of the painting more as an object. In this sense, moving away from the image, I focus on form, spatial impact and materiality. I always move within square, rectangular or round shapes, thus maintaining the look of a classic painting. Starting from these reflections, my research focuses on physicality following different directions.

Essentially I’m interested in there being elements in the work that can create tensions, dynamic flows, I’m not interested in a static work, but in a painting that is alive, with tangible weight and shapes. My practice of layering and accumulating material is part of this quest for movement and transformation.

Another element I work on, and which is linked to physicality, is the degradation of painted surfaces. I am interested in describing materials, above all showing their evolution, fragility and resistance, I want to feel the weight of memory in matter.

Another aspect that intrigues me a lot is relating knowledge of the painting to imagination. Through construction and deconstruction I try to create internal surfaces and voids, to make some elements visible or not visible, to connect internal and external, letting us imagine what may be behind or inside the surface. Therefore, in my work I intend physicality as a way to be able to know the painting with senses other than sight.