Cristiano Carotti

Works

Cristiano Carotti (Terni, 1981) lives and works in Rome. Moving between painting, sculpture and installation, he investigates social dynamics through the study of the archetypal power of the symbol. Starting with the realisation of sculptural works in ceramic - a medium long favoured by the artist - Carotti recovers the dichotomous value between Homo Naturalis and Homo Mechanicus, resolving it through a practice that turns his gaze to Nature and to the possibility of the re-establishment of an active role with it by Man. In both his sculptural and pictorial approach, the artist acts as an alchemist capable of investigating, with a different gaze, the dynamics underlying the loss of centre implicit in universal and human ecosystems. The cycle of ceramic works inaugurated by the presentation of the site-specific installation Cella, in the Batti-stero in Pietrasanta, is defined as a reconquest by nature of the spaces that have been taken away from her: beehives or nests grow naturally on abandoned artefacts, creating contrasting panoramas with which man can measure himself. For Carotti, this reconquest represents the symbol of man rediscovering the healing energies to overcome the crisis that is affecting him. In the artist's work, the very creation of the wax hives takes on a ritual and almost shamanic character of rapprochement with one's unconscious and innermost self. The starting objects are objets trouvés that the artist unearths in scrapyards, inert simulacra of a frenetic life are thus covered by painted ceramic sculptures modelled on wild beehives.

In more recent works, the return to painting is part of a broader reflection on the projective power of the Life-Death, Eros-Thanatos dichotomy, in a movement of ascent and descent that inevitably leads back to the cyclical nature of life and, with it, of our existences, symbolically transposed through the use of totemic animals (the viper, the boar, the ram) immersed in a nature of acid hues, obtained by superimposing composite and material pictorial layers to confer an idea of constant progression and movement. This latest phase of his research gives rise to the new cycle of aluminium castings created for the solo show at the Museo Caos in Terni entitled "Tra cane e lupo" curated by Eleonora Aloise, with sound installations by Alessandro Deflorio and Rodrigo D'erasmo (October 2023-January 2024).