It all started only a few years ago…
when I restructured my kitchen, and decided to enrich one wall with a picture; antique and modern furniture cohabit in great harmony in such room.
My first intuition was to go for a large picture, with a few spots of colour, resuming the chromaticity already existing in the context - simple in its structure but fully reflecting my taste and at the same time providing harmony to the atmosphere where it was to be placed.
Out of many options, I would have gladly seen a picture of Salvatore Emblema or one of George Griffa in such context.
At the same time, I also thought that such choice – although more than suitable and completely inherent to the requirements and my taste – would have been too onerous for the decoration of a kitchen space.
As a preface I should add that I have been lucky enough – throughout my life – to have the ability to realize what I had in mind, exactly the way I thought it, the way I intuitively wanted to build it, the way I desired it.
Planning in advance, adjusting during the process, to achieve the precise realization of those ideas of mine, sometimes impossible to find in the market, in the exact shape and form I imagined them.
The following step was to realize something of my own, inspired to Emblema or Griffa, but at the same time – and above all – reflecting my way to make my ideas of taste and colour and shape explicit.
Someone pointed my attention to the analogies of my work with those structures and shapes that are typical of Mark Rothko. This was a positive surprise to me, as it wasn’t my intention to propose his same themes.
Instead, part of the chromic spectrum I use takes inspiration, among others, from that used with much higher mastery by Wassily Kandinsky.
That is how my very first painting was born - framed in Liberty-style decorated wood, which I restored and repainted with white liquid concrete that donates to it characteristics comparable to those of chalk, providing at the same time a neoclassical connotation.

Great contrast, therefore, between the jute canvas – in its original color – used as surface for my paintings, the analyticity of the colour- shapes and the choice of frame.

And soon after the first one, the second and more; the first requests, a few gifts, and the first sales - in Italy and abroad, across Europe.

The first concept of my painting is the study of shapes and colours in the space, meant as substrate in which to paint them. Therefore analytical painting in all aspects, where nothing is left to the case, where every thing is properly and adequately weighted - from the measures, that must be in harmony first and mathematic-geometric relationship then, with the surface to paint; to the shapes that vary according to the inspiration that determines them; to the colours – consistently in mathematical relationship (the shadings of white, for instance, are obtained with proportional equal and successive additions).

All this for me is the pursuit of order.

Order, in nature, is the state that requires the minimum amount of energy to be maintained; the exact opposite of chaos, where the energy necessary in order to restore a lower kinetic order is higher and quantifiable. These are mathematical-physical-chemical concepts that constitute the core of our being: the concepts of Entropy and Enthalpy are the base of our universe.
And it is for this, I believe, than the most neat shapes – even if complex in their architectonic superstructure – are the most intuitive to analyse and understand.

Shapes are also inspired by what is left of the ancient symbolism, sometimes resumed and used with other meanings in our times.

All in all, SIGNS that are part of our present and our past.
Signs that are part of our essence.

Here a new chapter opened up in the evolution of my work: the gestural revision, in the actual graphical action, of what perfection is in nature, since the beginning of times: the order that determines every thing and that at the same time is also evolutionary program: the DNA.

Its structure is made of organic elements that are order perfection, ordered in perfect sequence and then in over-spiral structure thanks to a mathematical relationship between prime numbers: the number of Fidia, that relationship which is present in everything which exists, from the infinitesimally small to the spiral of a perturbation or in the over-spiral of a galaxy.

And where better to represent this ever-existing relationship sign-presence than on something that has been, since the beginning of times: stone.
This is how the Rock Slices were born.

DNA and the GOLDEN RATIO

The GOLDEN RATIO, or PHI, the Gold Number of Fidia is the special relationship that can be used in order to describe the proportions of the whole, from the smallest building blocks of nature, such as atoms, to the celestial bodies.
The Golden Ratio, also known as Divine Proportion - spans from the aerial ways of lungs to the formation of the rivers’ deltas, from biology and geophysics to social dynamics and the evolution of technology. It is used in art for its beauty and equilibrium. Ancient Egyptians presumably used it in the construction of the pyramids. Same as ancient Greeks, in their own architecture. The Parthenon and the Leonardo’s Gioconda are commonly cited as examples of the Ratio. The Golden Ratio can be used to explain the physical proportions of several forms of life, but the most beautiful application is found in human beings. It feels as if this “golden ruler” is a common, if not universal, instrument in the engineering of the living organisms. It is not surprising at all, then, that humanity has used this same proportion – common throughout nature – to achieve the equilibrium, the harmony and the beauty in artistic, architectonic, and musical creations.
The DNA is a double-stranded helix. The length of the curve in each of these spirals is 34 Angstroms and the width 21 Angstroms. (1 Angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter).
21 and 34 are two consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci series, and their relationship – 1.6190476 – closely approximates ɸ: 1.6180339.
One of the wonders of nature is represented in the analytical painting, using “rock slices” as substrate, and utilising acrylic colours.
The selection of colours and their shadings is derived from the observation and the memory of what surrounds us, and in particular of places that are particularly dear to me.
The sea, in all its forms, is fundamental inspiration to me, as is the rest of nature, in its multiple ways to represent itself, providing inspiration for shapes and colours.

The colours are acrylic - their choice and chromatic association is determined by observation, interpreted by my personal taste.
Colours too have their own order, provided by their wavelength, characterising and distinguishing them from each other, even in the smallest shadings, and perceived by us thanks to this chemical-physical order.
The base colours are no more than 20, including white and gold.
Based on this palette, mixing its components and blending them with proportional additions of white, an exponential set of colours can be obtained.
It is the actual, methodical search of their smallest shadings and their chromatic association in the same painting that renders it a small study of shapes and colours: here is why “Analytical Painting”: definition that I wish to associate to the search that I implement before and during the realization of my paintings.

If the driving principles of Emblema, Griffa and Rothko can be summarised as my general inspiration, Kandinsky – as well as the chromatic palette that is most dear to me, used thousands of years ago by the Aztecs, Mayas and Egyptians – constitute my main inspiration when it comes to colours.

The material I used the most, initially, for my paintings, is jute canvas, in two slightly different shades; frayed throughout its entire perimeter, and of the exact same size, on each side (this is an operation that demands time, and of great precision).

I have investigated the idea of making certain structural modifications to the jute canvas, in order to render it more interactive with the painted shapes and their colours.
As a preliminary result, I have created a few paintings on un-woven jute, coupled exclusively with antique frames, re-painted with white liquid concrete.

Subsequently, I decided to realize some new pieces utilising another typology of substrate: cardboard glued to plywood.
In these works the shapes can appear more complex and without an apparent order; in reality it is nothing else than the ordered development of simpler shapes overlapping each other, or are placed side by side, giving life to a much particular kaleidoscope of colours. This represents the natural requirement of moving on to a successive stage, more complex, reflecting at the same time the concept of order - Evolutionism.

At the same time, I started developing larger works, under the theme “Journey into Space”, utilising cardboard on plywood, and painting tone on tone colours, to reflect an imaginary “voyage into space”.

I have also started to use “Spanish paper”, although more study is required on this specific material, before producing any more works.

All in all, my decision to start paingin, a few years ago, was the natural consequence of my desire merge my idea of order with that implied by the shapes we have in front of us each single day, created by nature, or by us human beings.

It all started only a few years ago…
…or maybe not.

Fabio Bedina