NEFES L’ALCHIMA DI UN SOFFIO | Annalù

Annalù. Breath and soul
Annalù’s art is played upon a delicate balance, just like that self-portrait from some years ago which represented her like a tightrope walker made of paper envelopes. The striking love for resin – material which she internalized, tamed and conquered, gifting it with unprecedented voices – had not yet born, she had still not chosen transparency. However, within that precarious and dynamic lightness, frozen in the act of flying away, already lived the nowadays Annalù. Since her work moves within her representation of Nature and its inner artifice, thus surprising the viewer; between the majesty of sculpture (such a solemn word) and a liquid and anarchic form; the illusory fragility which stops us from touching those drops and the solidity of matter; the poem of a crochet and the merciless rationality of a fractal; the rules of shape and the lyric of colour; the moment hardly recognizable by human glances and the eternity of a piece of art.
It is not a simple art, the one by Annalù, even though it appears to be. It enchants. The glance runs instinctively towards the object since it recognizes something unique yet familiar. Among the pieces of art I loved the most, while working with her, there are her books. Not only because written words are the substance to my life, but also because books have the power of opening worlds which she perfectly represents as well as it happens within the imagination of those who love books, even if sometimes being unaware of that vision. Annalù seizes the precise moment when the story pours from the pages like a waterfall of emotions, it comes out, invading the room, overwhelming anything within a wave of liquid matter. The image gifted by Annalù is the eternal moment of that emotion, the magic instant when the tale ravishes one from reality towards an enchanted elsewhere. Only then – whether one desires it – a second enchantment starts, the one of matter. Thus it will be discovered that behind the overflowing of the translucent wave, there are rules, rhythm, a sublime architecture governing chaos. Since there is always something behind or beyond. Even owning a sculpture by Annalù, it might happen that one day, unexpectedly, thanks to a light seeping in through the clouds, or a new perspective, or an emotion just experienced, it could reveal new details and worlds. Then worlds within worlds within other worlds. Like in the huge Dreamcatchers, which seem to aim at trapping us within vortexes of vibrant, charming and fatal butterflies. We are firstly struck by beauty: how to resist? Then we face it and we feel the recall of the abyss, the dizzying instinct of jumping. After that, the vibration, those butterflies seeming to move in unison. We observe them and remain hypnotized by blue. But then we realize that another creature is trapped within those wings and we recognize the fin of the flying fish. Since we definitely are within a dream. So we are urged to approach one of the Fukinagashi, the trees shaken by the wind whose foliage is – once again – made of butterflies. We observe the branches, waiting for the moment when the butterflies will fly away since we know something amazing will also happen within ourselves. Then we turn and the heart skips a beat in front of another tree with a deeply evocative title, L’inverno del piangente, whose trunk made of harsh matter does not carry leaves nor butterflies wings, but only transparent stalactites.
Vegetal and animal matters blend within these creatures owning breath and soul, just like the lymph flowing within the veins of the petals of the huge flowers by Annalù is immediately identified with one’s own blood. Since Annalù is a modern shaman and the rituals of her magic develop in her atelier, among mysterious alchemical combinations, by handling precious materials which could reveal – when treated – their lethal dangerousness. Therefore, protected by her armour, Annalù the shaman warrior mixes modern resins and ancient spells, woods collected around the lagoon and fragments of fairy tales, complex mathematical combinations and daydreams, thus creating a different nature which surprises us by directly addressing our souls.