JK: Human and Nature seems to be a dominant topic in your work?

AD: Yes, the relationship of human and nature, the deep interwovenness, is fascinating me for a long time. Right at the beginning the choice of material is very important. The specific characteristics and peculiarities of the substance are leading the way.

JK: How does that influence the process of production?

AD: The past of the wood, its own imbedded history, appears when it is treated and worked on, to such a degree, that I can't ignore it. Basically, it is a dialogue of specific properties like weight, softness, flexibility, which then results into form and three-dimensionality.

JK: You have developed an unusual sensibility to meet these requirements?

AD: After some time, you realize that you are creating a partnership of substance and a new form. In that respect, the production-process is as important as the final result. If the dialogue was intense, it results in a strong symbiotic aggregation of substance and new form and the sculpture is authentic, at least for me.

1st October 2024

JK: In our last conversation, Enrico, you said, that you do not adhere to an image anymore when you are painting?

EM: Yes , I gave up using images of any kind. An image is representation. Both, image and representation, that is what I am trying to avoid.

JK: Was that easy to do? And what are you painting now?

EM: Actually I felt real freedom when I discarded images. It was a liberating freedom to do what I like to do. Suddenly the whole process of painting felt easier. I started painting using memories on one side and on the other side I was driven by work-immanent solutions, meaning the way I am painting required decisions, which are more or less spontaneous but are based on my training and experience as a painter.

JK: This must be very a satisfying way of painting and I think you can see and feel it.
The timeless silence in your work is somehow oozing with optimism, in contrast to the slight morbid character which you can get with the usual still life painting.

EM: I developed to use certain materials like epoxy, special canvas preparations, technical support that becomes functional to the result I wish to achieve, mainly to enhance the effects of creating this type of ambiente and temperature of the work. The process is rather following my intuition than rationality. Still life painting is based on life and it's representation. My paintings are still and based on my creative flow.

9th October 2024

JK: Paolo, you are using concrete for your sculptures.

PM: Concrete satisfies the need to conceptually represent contemporaneity while maintaining a dynamic dialogue with the twentieth-century artistic currents I admire most, such as Arte Povera and certain American movements of the 1960s and 70s. This principle also applies to other materials I use in my sculptures: wax, coal, and refractory earths. Through my selection of materials, I aim to convey aspects that invite an immediate relationship with the forms and worlds they outline

JK: Your figures are resembling children or teenager. Why?

PM: I work on the figure of the 'child' because, from the beginning of my research, I have felt a strong need to isolate and represent what I consider the emblematic moment of artistic creation: the passage between childhood and adolescence. I aim to give substance to this liminal space/time where life unfolds in its most disturbing purity, almost silently, hidden beneath layers of norms and conventions. The energy that characterizes this secret time aligns with the act of artistic creation, and this energy is ultimately the true subject/object of my sculptures

JK: So what will be next?

PM: In recent months, I have been focusing on the decomposition and recomposition of the figure using various parts from previously molded casts. This practice allows me to never fully know what the final result of the work will be. The artwork will appear as an open matrix, constantly poised for change

16th October 2024