Mariano Chelo - Art Gallery

The Seas

I was born on an island, the sea has always been an important presence in my life. The sea is a prison but it is also freedom, the sea is a limit but it is also a bridge to the world. The sea is always the same but always different, a cloud is enough to change its color, a little wind is enough to change its mood. The sea does not have a precise shape, it only has the shape of the sea. The sea speaks to the sky, their meeting point is the horizon, sometimes their harmony is perfect, they merge and you cannot see where one ends and the other begins, but usually their difference is total, the sky makes the light and the sea reflects it, the sky is opaque and the sea is shiny. It is precisely from this difference that my research is born: the different behavior between two materials, a glossy paint and the other opaque, the first reflects and the second absorbs, so the light that hits the painting is reflected by the glossy paint, transforming it as it would happen in reality. This, I believe, is the boundary between painting and sculpture, in fact, while in painting the light is obtained with color through an artifice that is the pictorial technique, in sculpture it is the light and the shadow that underline the shape.