Forteacqua (Valeria Vaccari, 2002)
Monika Wolf sets a table with the memories that the sea has given her back: fragments of glass, pieces of colored wood, rusted iron. The table is that of her childhood, the scene of family traditions and “rituals” that are always repeated the same over the decades.
It is the vehicle through which the artist writes her story. The geometric arrangement of the plastic trays indicates a rigorous and linear thinking, contrasting with the chaotic and lived pictorial nature of the assemblages. Plastic is a neutral “medium,” its transparency not affecting the content. Like all of Monika Wolf’s works, “Forteacqua” is a layered work, composed of different materials with different symbolic meaning.
The grass that carpets the table recalls nature, a primitive and unstoppable force in the transformation and destruction of creation. The table represents childhood and home, a safe place where time is marked by habits and gestures of mutual care. Even setting the table is a ritual that requires order and rigor. The fulcrum, the “heart” of the work are the assemblages, the unconscious and memory take shape and color in the discarded material, memory transfigures reality and returns it to us in a new form.
The essence of man, Monika seems to tell us, is contained in an envelope that veils and protects his intimacy. What we call “soul” is strongly linked to each of our personal experiences but also to nature, which modifies its course through history. Time shapes matter and returns it to us augmented. Equally, experience shapes the soul in a continuous exercise of transformation. We cannot predict what the final shape of our “heart” will be; irrational and unpredictable events are always lurking. We can call Monika Wolf’s work a continuous exercise, an endless process that establishes a dialogue with the viewer and is augmented by his gaze. A deeply rational path in which elements of pure irrationality, pure spirit, are inserted.