Corinna Gosmaro. Talking Knots

About

The exhibition’s title, which evokes objects formed by fine threads of ropes interlacing each other that in some South American cultures and traditions used to have ornamental, ritual and communicative functions, provides a key to interpreting the new collection of works presented by Gomarro. 

Blending the here and now of the painting act, with the temporally, geographically and culturally cross-cutting nature of the symbol, the artist is interested in manipulating some major elements that have accompanied mankind throughout history, characterizing its passages and evolutions through their intrinsic expressive power. Instead of drawing upon overused symbols due to ductility of their contents – e.g., the rainbow, which in the Genesis is the covenant established between God and every living creature on earth in the aftermath of the great flood, and later source of numerous meanings in the Jewish, Indian, Greek, Chinese mythology, until becoming a symbol of political and social struggle, from the post-apartheid South Africa to Greenpeace, and from the Gay Pride to the peace flag – Gosmaro chooses the cosmetic palettes used in the predynastic Egypt, a more refined, almost concealed, symbol that evokes a fundamental and, at the same time, paradoxical aspect of the human condition: the connection between the desire of preservation and of death, which has led modern anthropology to match the first cultural manifestations with the beginning of the habit of burying the dead and with the first funeral rites.