Chromatic codes. Ferlin’s meta-syntesis
by Isabella Falbo
If "Sleeping reason generates monster", Venetian abstract artist Ferlin, through his work, that has taken up the crusade of denouncing contemporary society falling prey to degradation, he chooses to search out seeds of reason to reverse this.
Ferlin’s poetics right from the very start are centred around two elements: the Human Condition and Chromatic Research. Through a series of Chromatic codes, his work reaches out to ‘evolved minds’ with the intention of articulately imparting the ‘here and now’: meta-synthesis.
It is the Rovigan artist’s belief that meta-synthesis is the triumphant process of a free mind, having unchained itself from metaphysical and metaphorical experiences, it can even rationally exploit the absurd.
The non-rational aspects of contemporary society: wars of power and religion, the unequal balance between the world’s richer and poorer countries and the near total abandonment of the younger Western generations to re-populate our species, become disjointed grammar, divided into synthetic and chromatic marks and lines.
Ferlin’s works are composed of a multi-faceted discourse between the surface and representative lines of ‘the moving whole’.
Employing a structural approach to painting, based on abstraction and synthesis, images and contents appear to filter through the canvas, allowing the onlooker a vision and insight devoid of intercession or hindrance previously perceived by the ‘upper brain’. The purpose being to excite without the super-structured nature.
The chromatic range is composed of illusory shades, which are defined using the ‘colour forecaster’ approach. It identifies and foresees the shades of our future, considering conscious and unconscious genetic heritage and all the possible implications connected to the use of colours. The final depiction is a mental image composed around the symmetry and equilibrium of these elements.
Developing his own methodology, based on rationality and pragmatism, Ferlin’s works are therefore in a position to offer a more scientific than artistic appeal, his ‘Infinite Silences’, ‘Infinite Emotions’ and ‘Infinite Presences’ series appear as visual formulas and essential expressions.
Throughout Art History, extraordinary artists have experimented with and developed abstraction, rejecting the representation of reality, preferring to follow communicative rules, which encourage dissociation of the natural relationship between subject and form.
Ferlin’s works follow a well-structured linguistic logic, with their purpose being to express the need to rediscover human rationality, since “ regained reason is the only solution for a preferable future”.
It seems only in appearance do Ferlin’s work continue on from that of his illustrious predecessors, they nevertheless undoubtedly derive their aesthetic impact from the abstract traditions.
Abstractionism, although already alive and frequent on the International scene with the avant- guarde experimentation of Vasiliij Kandinskij, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, was to only arrive in Italy around the 1930’s. It developed with the Kn groups, with artists such as Mauro Reggiani, Osvaldo Licini, Lucio Fontana, Atanasio Soldati and Luigi Veronesi, joining the “il Milione” Gallery in Milan, together with another group which established itself in Como, inspired by the architect Giuseppe Terragni and by the artists Manlio Rho, Mario Radice, the group also included Aldo Galli, Carla Badiali and Carla Prina.
The abstract tradition continued in Italy until the 1960’s/1970’s, with Aldo Schmid and his research addressing visual perception, formal purity and colour. Dadamaino also contributed with linear and chromatic research, together with other artists, such as Aricò, Castellani, Coletta, Garutti, Nagasawa, Pinelli, Staccioli, Vago and Varisco, all aspiring to dedicate their own artistic practices to the redefinition of space. Research on Kinetics, optical and programmed were carried out Alberto Biasi, Gianni Colombo and Getulio Alviani.
Amongst the most stimulating of research on the contemporary International scene, are the chromatic- psychedelic syntheses of new abstractionism by Ferruccio Gard and Jim Lambie’s pop developments.
The Italian Gard, by transforming the semantic rationality into semantic substance through lyrical strokes of sparkling colours, seems to recreate traces of cosmic energy which in turn compose fiery visions, which, in front of such visions, the audience can only but abandon themselves completely.
Lambie, a Glaswegian artist, and his series of paved installations, such as 2003’s ‘Touch Zobop’ seem to continue on the Bridget Riley optical abstract tradition.
Lambie transforms the quiet space of the gallery into a dynamic and energetic space, making it vibrate with a pulsating rhythm in order to confuse and disorientate its audience.
Ferlin, through his work, escapes from these characteristics of confusion and of disorientation that border on the irrational, so favoured by his contemporaries like the American Artrist Paul McCarthy and the German Artist John Bock.
If Ferlin, with extreme synthesis, depicts expressive demonstrations of ourselves through lines that are the colours of our memory, then McCarthy, proposes visions whereby mankind is the protagonist of scenic installations that boast shocking orgiastic violence. Bock, as a chaos philosopher, re-builds a surreal world through his works, where logic seems to be affected by some sort of disorientation.
Rationality versus Irrationality, Meta-synthesis as opposed to Instinct, Contemplation in favour of Participation : these are the very values on which Ferlin bases his work.
Ferlin’s research is characterized right from the very start by the process of synthesis, “the Impression” of the first half of the 1970’s is displaced by “the expression” of the second half, both however, interpreting the existential condition of humans. At the end of 1990’s we can observe that the artist assumed a more meditative attitude which flow into current synthesis of the communicative language of colours. He makes an explicit approach through two demonstrations:: the Manifest of Natural Objectivism and the Manifest of Aesthetic Rationalism.
With colour no longer serving form, and by becoming its master, it is able to grow to be the heart of the language, bestowing new meanings to the elements that make up the work.
The exhibited works belong to this very last phase of research, with three series being displayed: Infinite Emotions, Infinite Silences and Infinite Presences.
The space on the canvas of these pieces does not wish to perform, yet wants to be an infinite tear whereby the audience can ‘see and feel themselves’ can listen to their own emotions, and can meditate upon its very own existence.
Everything seems to take us back to the primitive simplicity of our origins, the primordial act of the line recalls us to the moment of time between ‘to be or not to be’, to the consciousness of being.
In the sequence of ‘Silence’, lines, straight or intermittent yet never meeting, representing mankind alone with himself.
In the sequence of “Emotions” lines meet, making contact, arranging themselves in an ever changing fashion.
They represent the importance for human beings to relate to one another . The sequence entitled “Presences” seems to make us newly feel the sublime emotion of every time that we cut into space thus declaring our presence.
Dreaming of a better future, Ferlin and his Chromatic codes aim to guide us to find ‘the true sense’ of our being and existence, stimulating the return of our hopes and dreams typical to our human condition.
ISABELLA FALBO, critical text for Chromatic Codes. Le meta-sintesi di Giannino Ferlin, Giannino Ferlin’s solo show, curated by Isabella Falbo e Roberto Roda. Conegliano (Treviso), Galleria d’arte La Roggia, december 2009; Fratta Polesine (Rovigo),Villa Badoer, october 2009; Cento (Ferrara), Rocca monumentale, december 2008. In Chromatic Codes. Le meta-sintesi di Giannino Ferlin, in GIANNINO FERLIN, Chromatic Codes, a cura di Isabella Falbo e Roberto Roda, Mantova, Editoriale Sometti, 2008