Amalia Borin
Italy
The cultural roots of Amalia Borin fade in the misty meanders of the Po delta, where she was born and grew up until she moved to Modena, a city near Bologna, where – after obtaining a degree in medicine from the oldest university in the world, and specialising in Oriental medicine in China – she attended the Academy of Fine Arts under the direction of Concetto Pozzati. Her colored ribbons sublimate the rivers and canals of her ancestral land, as they encrypt that chromatic poem of light written by Nature into the very code which is the quintessence of her style’s symbolic magnetism. Her choice to paint sculptures is the result of her personal artistic research and growth, which culminated into something or somewhere utterly new, where her ancestral desire to create figurative art finally weds her admiration for abstractism and action painting.
All the themes that she represents in her artwork are expressed with sheer passion and even violence, though never neglecting the ironic and allegorical side of things, which are epitomised by the Arlecchino mask.
(Patrick Dennis).
Ethics XXII -2018
1. What’s your background?
Colours and masks always had a big impact on my emotional sphere: I might have inherited this from my father. In Italian “maschera” is not only an object of disguise; in the broader connotation of the term, “maschera” sublimates the main archetypes of Italian personality from "commedia dell'arte", into sort of stereotyped folk characters commonly portrayed in theatre plays as well as puppetry.
I remember making drawings of these characters, such as Harlequin, Colombina and Pulcinella, but my school teacher would refuse to mark them claiming I couldn't possibly have made them myself. My older brother would even threaten to hurt me unless I drew a copy of those very drawings in his notebook for his own enjoyment.
Walking along the narrow alleyways of Venice I have always been fascinated by the shop windows full of coloured masks; I have always been attracted to theatre and puppetry, the protagonists of which were also those "maschere" that are so entrenched in Italian folk and dialectal culture.
I was also fascinated by Play-Doh and clay, I was simply amazed by the shapes my hands were able to mould.
However, I allowed myself to concentrate on art only after having obtained a degree in Medicine, specialising in China in acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine.
I first delved into abstract expressionism, sign painting and action painting, thoroughly studying its major figures over a 20-year-knowledge spree during which I traveled internationally in order to get to see their major works first hand.
Then, one day I was suddenly struck – it was like a lightning – by the revolutionary idea of making human-like sculptures and painting them with my automatic painting-style, yet it took years of reflection - like the thunder after the lightning - before I could metabolise this vision into action and finally realise the first sculpture.
2. What does your work aim to say?
The message that my work conveys is that the objective of our lives should be happiness, rather than wealth and power at the expense of the poor and the environment. Although a few philosophers have already said it, we have the moral duty to insistently repeat it and remind it to everybody at all times, especially to politicians, to governments, to business people and to the ruling class, as well as more in general to those people who act shamelessly towards these issues, showing no respect for anybody.
My work criticises society’s injustice towards mankind, men oppressing women, and religion when improperly instrumentalised in order to subdue the people and exploit them. My first 59 sculptures’ titles tackle these issues; starting from the 60th, the title has not changed: I settled on the eloquent enough “Ethics”.
3. How does your work comment on current social or political issues?
In my work I use signs. Those same signs man used since the dawn of time were carved on stone, and evolved into hieroglyphs and characters in all cultures: these symbols represent our identity, they are entrenched in our DNAs, just like the use of geometrical symbols and colours along with all the symbolism and meaning they implicitly and explicitly carry, hide and reveal.
In my first sculptures this language is simpler to decipher. My sculpture “La Belva” (The Beast, 2011) represents a man with a black muzzle that represents the oppression of society on the people, inhibiting their good feelings. There are also other black signs in his chest, which represent the archetypal violence that is the quintessence of men’s sexuality.
My sculpture “La Religiosa” (“The Religious one, 2011) classically poses in a traditional fashion but she is brutally disfigured by a big black sign covering her mouth, eyes, ears and waist, forming an extended chastity belt which makes her mute, blind, half-deaf and sexually imprisoned, while her eyes are staring into the vacuum of a black cross on her knee, which expresses the conditioning that society and family imposes on women.
4. Who are your biggest influences?
Signs of primitive civilizations, sign painters, abstract expressionism, action painting, and automatic painting, in particular Vedova, Capogrossi and Scanavino.
Ethics XVIii- 2016
5. How has your art evolved over the years?
My initial goal was to be able to grasp the deep meaning (in all its multifaceted nuances of significance) behind the abstract painting that attracted me so fiercely, so I entered this fascinating world of colour and signs delving without fear in its symbolic abysses and venturing in the meanders of its very soul. With time, my artistic consciousness of symbolism and abstractism grew more and more, finally allowing me to pour these tools, like and with colour, in my work ever more skillfully.
6. What does art mean to you?
Art is a tool that helps the evolution of mankind, both on a personal and social level. More precisely, knowledge and culture help the evolution of mankind, and art is at its very centre. In fact, the biggest luck one can experience in life is to meet art. Like Mondrian used to say, people should live inside art; and art should be the environment in which we live.
7. What’s the most valuable piece of art to you?
I am not able to answer a question like that. I could say the magnificent “Cappella degli Scovegni “ by Giotto in Padova, but it would be an insult to all the infinity of art with which all the world abounds..
8. What’s next for you in the future?
I hope, through my work, to persuade the world, who inhabits it, and especially who governs it, that I believe in a better way, one everybody should embrace, one that goes by the overarching motto of “Ethics”.
Covid 19-2020
