olive tree 2009

Olive tree
 drawings charcol, soft pastel
540x750cm
 
 
I was born  and I grew up in Dignano, Istria the home town of olive oil.

Since I was a child, I ve always been fasinated by the olive tree.
There is something about the olive tree that has always intrigued me, captured my fantasy.
I remember the long walks in the countryside with my father, admiring the old olive trees arround my home town.
I remember the game we used to play, running from one olive tree to onother and discovering in them an infinity of shapes and forms: a ballerina streaching her arms, a bird with its open wings. a sleeping dog , a monster trying to attac us...
Our immagination would run free in the fields and we would be happy.
And then fullfilled with that happiness we would lay down on the grass closed to the olive tree and I would discover the power and the energy of the twisted trunk, the ballerina would disapper in the rich greenish brawn texture and we wolud be taken by the infinity of wonderful tones, colours and textures.

Today,thirty years and more later, admiring, in my garden in Casa Rosina, this wonderful livig sculpture I can`t not think of the happiness of those far away days, the lafther and the love we shared.

And I still see in the secred trees the beautiful shapes I discovered when I was a child, and I still stop and put my hand gently on their trunk to feel again the textures and colours  my father had shown me.

I can then absorb the wisdom, the glory, the peace, the power, the pureness of the ancient tree and I can sill feel at peace, purifed.

Olive tree, 2009

In my "Olive Tree" drawings I tried to cupture the pureness of the olive tree shape: a simple white siluette. The richness and abundance of its coulor and texture have been sapareted and explored in the background.

It has been a powerful experiance, after so many years, to walk and run in the countryside arround my home town again, without my father now, he has long ago gone to the "next room", and rediscover in the eternal trees the little old friends of my chilhood and been wrapped in the spring breeze, by my father voice again when laying under our old olive tree.

I hope my drawings are going to give justice  to the old sacred trees.

"Buriole" 2009

Buriole 2009
metal, stainless steel 1450x850mm

The fountain Buriole has inspired Solidea to create a new cicle of metalwork that has been presented to the public in May 2009 in an art exhibition in Sutton Courtney, Abingdon.

..." I jumped in the black see... sourranded by millions of flashes of silver and white; on the sea surface a glimmer of light... up in the sky the moon smiling at me...

 Then and there I knew Iwanted to use metal for my fountain: stainless steel to capture the light and the silver riflections."

Buriole

"Buriole" water fountain 2008, Zupni Square, Fazana, Croatia

stainless steel and Indian grey marble

429x163x350x172 cm

A very complex visual intervention by Solidea Guerra. It` s a non-classical, non- traditional and unusual fountain, dedicated to that moment when pilchards escape in an instant, leaving behind a glimmer on the sea surface.Its been named, by the author, "Buriole" a word taken from the fisherman`s dialectal treasury. "Buriole" is an old Venetian word which describes the bubbles which appear at the sea surface letting the old fisherman know that there is a shoal of fish there.

Grey stone was used as lining for the very atypical architectural fountain, while shallow and high metal reliefs of pilchards glisten towards the needed effect.The sunlight follows the fountain during the day, while a delicate light from"within" accentuates the delicate, subtle calligraphic traces of metal at night followed by an incessant murmur of the water that support the artistic circle thought by the artist.

The fountain impresses for its structural and conceptual purity both demanding the artisan`s flawlessness so well achieved here by the artist.

The achieved harmony belongs to the consistent, clear, serious,convincing, and strong personality of Solidea Guerra.

(from "Burile" catalogue text by Gorka Ostojic Cvajner)