I believe that the most appropriate expression is “a search for depth”; the theme of inspiration of my paintings is “the human body as seen from the inside”, the body as a vast container of questions that represent fascinating symbols in the moment in which one approaches them in order to decipher them.
I have always loved to investigate the mysteries of existence; I have asked myself many questions regarding the reasons for the apparent injustice of life. I say “apparent” because I believe that life is not only the fruit of chance in which those who have had the good luck to have been born in a valid environment will lead lives of dignity while those who have been born children of poverty and violence will very probably never be able to distance themselves from their origins.
I feel that behind the apparent chaos of existence there exists an order dictated by an intelligence that pervades every form of life from the smallest atom to the stars. Oriental philosophies and the great thinkers like Giordano Bruno have found different answers which have in common the concepts of “the spirit, the soul, the infinite, the eternal present, the divine”. Man lives through his body but at the same time through his spirit and there is that “divine spark” within him which will survive his mortality but which he often doesen’t notice he possesses because the everyday pressures of life on this earth suppresses it.
This dualism of matter and spirit fascinates me not only from an intellectual perspective but finds its most complete expression in my painting; therefore, I have decided to represent “Matter” because it has the more “ Noble” function. Through matter one is able to understand the spirit; through the burning consumption of passions one obtains a small glimmer of wisdom.
We are governed by panic in our lives but through evolution we have been trained to dominate it by reason; we desire balance and serenity but often search outside and not inside ourselves as we should. Someone said: “If you are not inside yourself, you are nowhere!”. My personal way of looking inside myself in psychoanalytical terms expresses itself in my observation of human tissue and cells in the search for a confirmation of my personal creed. And so I say: “Let’s look inside ourselves, let’s analyse our thoughts but let’s take one more step, let’s dwell upon the overwhelming beauty of the complex life that pulses inside our bodies”.
Whether we are aware of it or not, our journey through life is an eternal attempt to reconcile our conflicting travelling companions, the material aspect, the instincts, with reason and love.
Trying to balance both elements is a wise thing; approaching beauty by representing the wealth of symbols inside the human body is for me an attempt to find all wisdom which is synonymus with knowledge and is finally extremely liberating. Literally looking inside our own insides, we can observe a profound similarity: the fascinating sinuousness of the abdomen resembles that of the brain.
At the end we came to understand that “ All is one” and there is no point in which the body ends and the spirit begins.
Beatrice Tosi