Origo

"In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and deserted, and darkness covered the abyss and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters."

This is the beginning of the first two verses of the book of Genesis, as well as the incipit of the entire Bible and the Torah from which Paul Alex Samaniego has drawn inspiration for this unpublished project that he presents at Spazio Menexa.

Origo, in whose name we already find the answer to his research, is an exhibition composed of four large canvases and a video in which the comparison between the initial chaos and the chaos of today shines through in a parallel of continuous mediation between the torment of the artist and that of the world in which we live, from which it is natural to wonder whether Paul Alex Samaniego talks to us about the beginning or the end of the world.

This is one of the questions we ask ourselves in front of the artist's canvases in which chaos and quiet coexist where the artist traces the creation of this world at the origin of perfection, and inserts all the complexity of evolution in the circle of life.

Balance to the eye, in fact, the arrangement of the strokes within what could appear as a cellular element inspired by the evolution of the zygote that through blastocystogenesis generates blastomeres totipotent with which the artist, perhaps, wants to emphasize the infinite potential of the individual that are often forgotten or directed towards self-destruction.

The centrality of the paintings that at first glance resemble an ancient shield encloses all the force that in its circularity imbued with apparent chaos remains cohesive, in defense of the darkness that envelops it and at the extremes of which the energy represented by color struggles to defend this idea of identity, while at the same time the uncontrolled and unconscious energy opens gashes inside the disc undermining the integrity itself.

The strength of these works is exalted by the realization made with particularly significant components such as coal, ash, earth, tempera, arabic glue and acrylic enamel, juxtaposed on a support of eco-leather and contaminated by the title of the work written in Braille almost as if to mean that a complete reading of it can only occur with a high degree of knowledge.

Day VII - Man

Paul Alex Samaniego has opened a door for us to reflect on the creation of the world and that of man, a question that torments sensitive souls who seek answers to the why of things. All religions have taken care to trace narratives about the origins of the cosmos and the human race, the Christian religion consecrates the Book of Genesis to this explanation, in this story man is the essence of creation, as the ruler of everything and it is emphasized how everything was created because of love for him. The contemporary world makes its own account by formulating the hypothesis on the origin of the cosmos, and Paul A. Samaniego traces his visual path made of complex and intricate traits until the creation of man, and then wonders about the becoming.

What happens after the completion of the sublime work? In the aftermath, man proceeds in the conquest, and the evolution of his existence is a description of increase and intensification; the artist, taking a great leap to the present day, denounces the decadence that distinguishes the work of humanity, and proposes an analysis of the current scenario in which we live, revealing some of the problems of the modern world, examining the economy, placing it in its pre-eminent role as it is currently considered. The law of supply and demand fundamental in the economic questions, the problem of social housing that traces the archaic problem of the hearth, television as a means of one-way communication that tends to be used in the manipulation of the masses.

The passage from the story of creation to that of the contemporary world takes place through man, formally the artist goes from a circular spherical sign to straight lines that intersect, overlap or diverge; these lines want to distinguish the evolution almost retracing the patterns we know of the Russian artists, which are revealed in a synthesis of cubism, futurism and orphism, creating spatial forms resulting from the intersection of rays reflected by the various objects. All created according to his technique reminiscent of the rock paintings that in prehistoric man was resolved in the need for a story of their simple life and the animals that surrounded them. The artist reproposes the technique with coal, ash, earth, adding arabic glue and acrylic enamel, on a support of eco-leather material used in our days, for a more complex story of what man has become and the problems and habits of today's life.

From a conceptual point of view the analysis of the present world is presented as a fast and superficial world, which does not stop to ask the right questions, those concerning the fundamental values and rights that all men should have to lead a life worthy of the name.

Micaela Legnaioli