SILVIA INSELVINI
About
B. 1987, Brescia, Italy. Lives and works in Brescia.
For years, she has focused daily on the practice of eliminating all traces of white from A4 sheets of paper, with an inexhaustible gesture that covers them with ballpoint pen ink. Inselvini uses at least 10 kilometres of ink to complete a single A4 sheet, which rises to 30 kilometres in the Apoteosi series.
This erasure, in successive layers, gives rise to a new iridescent-oily uniformity, blue or black. However, no faithful transcription emerges from these copy-like pages. This transcendent writing, repeated until the pen strokes become indistinguishable, is almost a prayer, a liturgical chant that reveals a new relationship with time and the world.
In the act of erasing the white, time expands, is created, becomes the very matter of the work. However, it is in the final composition on panel that the mantra-like gesture manifests itself in its entirety: the sheets are chosen and placed side by side to create a new alchemy, capable of opening up to an infinite continuity beyond the space of the work. Inselvini counters the glut of images and visual noise with a silent, slow abstraction: by removing figurative elements, recognisable forms or signs, she leaves room for a greater awareness of emptiness and the unrepresented, inviting the observer to a moment of contemplation and introspection.
