Hardhead Artwork

Like other works I call 'hard heads', in this one we find a body taken from a pornographic image superimposed in collage on a lion's head. The head in this case was photographed from one of the ancient gates of the city of Verona: in Veronese idiom, to say 'gate head' is equivalent to saying 'hard head'. If someone is afraid, he needs to show himself strong, big, he needs to shout. The strength of the lion wants to see beyond the physical body, emphasising the existence of a spiritual and an animic body. Thus was born a reflection on matter and its illusions, on the body and its masks, on time and changing morals. Through a refined language, I found an ironic yet caustic key to represent a world that is only appearance. TECHNIQUE The photo-transfer technique, which I learnt in Spain, is a manual print made with a roller pressure press that - through a process of chemical heat and pressure - 'brings back' the printed image onto the final support: in this case a velvet canvas. For me, this technique was a reminiscence of my childhood period when I used to play with toy transfer sheets, which is why I used it for a long time in my artistic production. The technique creates a reversal of the image as in photography with its negative being printed. This reversal creates a splitting, it gives the possibility to consider a polarity: chaos/order, darkness/light, evil/good that are not divisible, but mutually complementary because they are part of the same world. I also added an 8-pointed blue star element to the work using the intaglio technique of etching, in which I took a zinc plate, waxed and etched it until I obtained the star outline that represents one of my trademarks. The latter was then inked and printed on the silk with the same roller stroke. Finally, the embroidery of a vine flower was added, another personal symbol of mine.