FILIPPO RIZZONELLI nymphaeum
“We can't put it off any longer, it's time to enter the woods. Nature eludes us, it does not allow itself to be represented, the trees allude and the undergrowth is filled with eyes.”
These words by Mohini Pettinato on the work of Filippo Rizzonelli open the path to project #2 - Nymphaeum, a journey into the mystical landscapes of the painter, where Mohini herself will be our guide.
In Infestamento di un tenero ricordo (Haunting of a loving memory), Mohini becomes a nymph set into the deep blue of the ocean, that spills right all over nature itself. The eyes of Rizzonelli in this work treat her with a sense of tender curiosity, the same curiosity with which she seems to assess the viewers’ regard towards her. Unsure about what is real and what is only imagined, we perceive haunting shapes of plants, animals, the female body; and Mohini herself, cheekily staring right back at us.
She is the nymph, the mystical deity that introduces us to the most sacred parts of nature itself. From the deep blue shades of the forest, she guides us into the most colorful vibrance of the clearing, where she comes to rest, like in Fanciulla fiore (in quieta e inquieta, diurna ed equorea foresta) (Maiden-blossom (in quiet and unquiet, diurnal and equestrian forest)).
Here more than ever, the mystical forest presents itself in full bloom, and Mohini right along with it. Everything radiates a sense of nature’s fertility, a brilliance of colors that tips almost to the point of nuclear radiation. We come to understand the sacral character of this home, but can’t help but feel a sense of discomfort. As the nymph is surrounded by blossoming nature, she also seems trapped in it. Referencing Alexander the Great, nature’s deities can’t escape the shade of its eternal forest nor their vows, that bound them to their everlasting love for it.¹
Speculazione blues (Blues speculation) is possibly the most private of all three portraits. Out of the forest and back in contemporary reality, we witness a snapshot of time being taken, and we can only catch a glimpse of Mohini. Private, almost reclusive, her body vanishes in the deep shades of lapis blue as she takes a selfie in the mirror; it’s the same blue that once devoured her as a nymph, and now seems to have followed her back to reality.
The intensity of the color imprints the depths of a tender memory onto the canvas and turns it into this negative in paint, preserving in space and time the intimacy of Rizzonelli and his companion.
