“In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English – but are great in remembering signs” ― Karl Lagerfeld

The works of French sculptress Anne Cecile Surga and the ones of the Italian artist Paolo Treni do not seem to have much in common at first sight. Anne Cecile uses one of the most classical materials and techniques in art history: marble and sculpting. Paolo Treni instead uses ultra-modern technology – plexiglass, enamels, varnishes, and laser – combined with handcraft for his creations, and we could say he’s making here and now the art history of its technique. Anne Cecile’s pieces are monochromatic, except for the nuances of the marble’s veining, while Paolo’s are an explosion of multiple colors. Surga’s sculptures are static, solid, and matte. Treni’s pieces are glossy, and their medium gives them illusionary organic fluidity, as their perception changes during the day, following the reflection and refraction of the natural light. The reasons behind the exhibition-dialog between these two artists are not only their fascinating opposites but their shared ability to create a powerful sign, a sort of hypnotic melody, to give voice to illusions. As the magical chant of mermaids, the art pieces of both these artists have a luring power able to kidnap the viewer and push it beyond the limits of reality.

Anne Cecile creates to create an illusion of softness and fragility of the marble self. The signs she meticulously carves bring the observer to question the material, pushing the mind above the limits of acceptance of physical matters, projecting it into the poetic, the philosophical, the psychological, the metaphysical, and into the symbolical. Her signs tell us stories of emotional responses to societal issues, where the individual, especially if it is a woman, has to fight hard to develop a notion of self-consciousness, free by external consumerist pressures, and unsettling surrounding. Her sculptures are rich in femininity, being her signs and geometries minimalistic and passionate at the same time, and of open feminist taste. On top of it, her talent for summary forces the viewer to drop the veil in front of its eyes and embrace the noumenon, as the artist presents it, free of any possible misinterpretation.

Paolo Treni, on the contrary, doesn’t speak about reality, and his creativity draws directly from his imagination. In his laboratory, he transforms the sheets of Plexiglas into the ideal support for the physical transcription of his fantasies. To this purpose, he uses lasers, enamels, and varnishes in overlapping layers, to obtain a sublime and luminous compound. The result is a new and unrecognizable medium that creates emotional resonance with the viewer. His signs are a sort of poetry written with a light, investigating the connections between color and shape, and kidnapping the attention of the observer by playing with reflections. Paolo aims to engage the viewer in an aesthetic experience, opening the road to a fully immersive voyage to a contemplative dimension, where the metaphysical bond with the vital energies of nature and the phenomena of the cosmos is evident and ravishing.