CLAM

The artwork is dedicated to the fascinating history of the underground printing press of the Resistance, set up in 1944 at the Podere Piave in Cànolo by Pinotti brothers with the printer Gino Patroncini, a Communist who the fascist state had inscribed in the lists of special supervised. He coordinated for 11 months the activity of a small printing house, a secret and very dangerous job, and they haven’t been discovered till the end of the war. 

Through my work I have tried to evoke Patroncini’s experience as a recluse, the cramped environment, the light that illuminates half a face, experiencing only one pupil, the ear tense to perceive the external danger, the tired aspect of whole days of incessant activity, the fear of getting caught. Yet this surreal nocturnal is tinged with blue and is a light that comes not only from the candle (around which only darkness would be perceived) but also from the flying characters and from the character himself. An unreal and magical light that is the power of the word, of the struggle through ideas. The title Clam refers to the Latin adverb which means “secretly, without the knowledge of” (The etymology of the word clandestine is in fact due to the Latin clamdestinus: clam = secretly + dies = day. He who hides himself from day, it conceals itself, it conceals itself) but also at the same term which in English means “mollusk”, recalling the idea of ​​the bivalve mollusk that hides something precious (and symbolic, like truth) inside.