HORIZONS

Earth implies the existence of a horizon, a boundary, a break which, however, also constitutes the essence of being and defining a form, its vocation to verticality, continuity and meaningful fracture, to impurity and a high degree of intimate geometry. From one work to the next, with loving complicity, Bresciani allows the clay to unfold through its variations, settling well beyond the ley lines of nature and to feed off humours which are already symbols, translations to a dimension which, though rooted in physicality, riverberates with thought processes and emotional fluxes. For this reason he also chooses to shy away from any expectations of pure sculpture, returning to a surface dimension which therefore - by convention and in more than one aspect, in appearance - also implies a certain pictorial quality. The use of colour is part of this process: but it constitutes matière couleur, substance and not illusory covering, belonging to and not distinct from the areas over which it stretches. Bresciani thus works in a space of conscious contamination between inherited codes - ceramics, sculpture, painting – aware of each of them but disciple of none, far less a priest. One does not sense, in these works, the aftertaste of the smith's liturgy; these are no offering to aesthetic appreciation. His are works which arise in extended, concentrated, intense, sometimes gritted but not fictitious, soul time in his studio: and in its silences. And it is wholly introverted time, secluded, fully self-questioning. Bresciani does not exhibit these works to gather admiration. He seeks a different reward. He places them between himself and the viewer as a signal and a delicate invitation. He asks you to look at them; really look at them.