Man tries to express himself through his actions.
This longing is a human constant aiming at the expression of our own individual need.
This will can be expressed either in an easy way – i.e. through our behaviour; or in a disguised and symbolic way through the Arts.
The primitive man – possibly unconscious of the ontological values of life – gave terse representations of both the world and nature.
His natural instinct was thus expressed through creations which were easy to understand for all members of that society.
Since man started to use reason – the logos – all symbolic creations have been interpreted, have increased and have undergone countless metamorphoses through an ever-increasing deeper creative skill.

Today we have reached the verge of human individualism .
Far from traditional education and lost in the meandrous forest of modern life contemporary man feels confused in front of a work of art.
Today it has become increasingly difficult to read and interpret a work of art because it tends to express an individual process only.
Furthermore when a work of art has to stand out just because of its intrinsic and aesthetic qualities it runs the risk of becoming a ludic sensorial and emotional stimulus only.
For these reasons I have addressed my pictorial research towards a partial retrieval of traditional artistic values.
These values – expressed in time and space through the reproduction of images and symbolic objects which constitute myths and religions – are to be considered as the sweet, ripe fruit of “knowledge”.
This knowledge, hidden in the secret of its own conscience – emerges through the power of images and is fed with the constant quest of Universal Principals which can be brought into countless and meaningful pictorial constructions since they have no “substance”.
I want to conciliate the symbolic and aesthetic aspects making the pictorial action sacred thanks to a ritual of alchemic memory.
The aesthetic feature lies in the constant search for balance between shapes and colours while the symbolism is expressed through the study of traditional images which are transfigured but still remain faithful to their original meaning.
The result has to be considered as a means of personal interpretation and must come together with the several needs of each beholder. My paintings find their spirit when they merge with the sensibility and intelligence of their beholder.
Art is a path. According to Gombrich. “No thing called art exists in reality. Only the artist exists”.
I paint in tune with this saying: anarchic, free, careless of business painting is to me an inner quest: “know yourself” I can add: “through images”!
I wish these works may raise interior debates and thoughts not for my pride but to make those speculative researches meaningful.
In fact they help man to be ever conscious of both himself and the values which balance his microcosm.
Thus we may get to build meaningful ideas of the whole cosmos.
In conclusion I hope that every single work will be considered as just one page of an ever-unfinished book. I also hope that in my paintings each and everyone may find his own personal meaning and a substantiation in the archetypal values of humanity so as to be able to give meaning to the sacred in art.

Andrea Saltarelli

© Copyright Andrea Saltarelli 2004-2006