Stefania Orrù

"The painting is inspired by Yuyuan Garden atmosphere, with all its elements, water especially and the harmony with which the plants and rocks where disposed… I reconstructed the scene using a traditional pattern, transforming the elements (leaves and branches, rocks and water, small buildings and the sky behind) into lines and knots. On the interweaving of lines that came out I have built the structure and then started my process of braking and repairing, covering and revealing, scraping, adding and smoothing…

The result was a soft fluid green-bluish surface where lines and shapes remind of stylized butterflies, vaguely shaped flowers and small flying creatures on a sinuous background, something like a fairytale scene, humid and vital, very peaceful and slightly mysterious. From this comes the title, Il Primo Giardino, the first garden, somewhere where life has just been formed from a gentle primordial substance and is still connected with the depth of creation, with an elemental sort of energy, very fluid… a gentle deep transformation. I guess this is what has happened to me during the residency, I guess the vitality of the artist’s community life and of great Shanghai city, so contemporary and welcoming and yet so mysterious and maybe still secretly connected with the tradition allowed me to perceive the very beginning of a new fresh life…." (Stefania Orrù, 2024)