Tesserae and pixels. It is against this fascinating horizon that the works of Fabrizio Plessi and Davide Maria Coltro conduct their dialogues. These are two artists that explore the ancient art of mosaics searching its most profound dimensions, such as light, movement and colour, and reinterpreting them, transformed through the allure of an immaterial language.
Fabrizio Plessi’s liquid mosaics first appeared at the opening of the 2014-2015 academic year, when the artist held a master lecture at the Ravenna Academy of Fine Arts. Inspired by the concepts of ancient mosaic art, Plessi brings fragments of mosaic floors to life creating a delicately liquid effect by making video-sculptures in which the mosaic is dematerialised and interacts with sound, light and movement.
Davide Maria Coltro’s research, too, is conducted against an immaterial horizon, his Media Picture method, invented in 2001.
His works may be considered as incessant and self-renewing paintings on the module, where pixels emerge or sink, always the same yet constantly different. In Coltro’s works, the ceaseless movement of the tesserae/pixels, far from being a mere frenzy, becomes an opportunity for harmony, inviting the viewer, in the reverberations of the surfaces, to enter a spiritual dimension of silent contemplation.