Fernando Izzi - The iron

The conscious artist constitutes a sort of mistery for those who do not have a clear idea of the caracter and the nature of that which is called intuition.

One generaly thinks that this is a kind of dream with open eyes, something that the artist suffers almost in a state of trance. Things appear simpler to those who believe, instead, art is a non intuitive factor, but a simple construction, the resault of a conscious calculation and of effects reasonably displayed.

In this way the works of Fernando Izzi become twice as misterious: because in them there is a clear awareness of the participation of that which psicologists call the subconscious. The subconscious: what is that which slowly reaches the conscious, almost as a message sparked off from reality which preserves the explanations and the solutions of the geroglifico of the existance. An art completely closed in the reason of the awareness would be useless,because it would tele us what we already know. The art of Fernando Izzi is none of this. Certainly, the knowledged artist, such as Fernando Izzi, is similar to a contradiction in terms. But the art of Fernando Izzi, yet again, as in any authentic art, helps us to solve the enigma: because it is not the result of an inspired "instant"; it is rather a process, a narrative of what the intuition transmits to the artist. It is a bridge between the non expression and the expression: therefore something that makes conscious the unconscious. In short: it is the fruit of a successful intuition. I do not know if the hardness of iron, such a difficult substance to handle, contributes to forcing the artist into a sort of slow meditation.

What however appears certain, is that the difficulty of the means usually contributes to the good artistic quality of the works: the tecniques in use today, made too easy by the imposing aid of new tecnical methods, weaken and make trivial the work of art. If so, certainly it is a reedition, a little comical, of the ideas of Walter Gropius.
All of this is to say that the art of Fernando Izzi is above all moving because it demonstrates an estetical wish to go back to the simple "nude" simply to concentrate the creative force on the decisive point: free the metal from its destiny, the threat to stillness and to silence. Give to him the right of expression and movement, free him in the atmosphere and in the light of the "created thing".

The long tradition which has brought me close to Fernando Izzi has allowed me to penetrate in his "forge". Through his work, and well aware of his role: force the inert subject to the laws of the mind. I have for a long time observed his work: figures still fatigued from the miracle accomplished; figures like flames which are abandoned to the fire of a new life - for them, the first; gestures as of bewilderment, or in thanksgiving, or in meditation.

I remember, amongst the many, a small figure dedicated to the memory of my mother. Elena Ciamarra, who was a famous musician. A "spirit" similar to a flame, but also to a leaf that floats away, observes amongst the marvelled and protective an enormeous violin key, which rises from nowhere like a prodigious. The music is a flame, it is fire,says this small masterpiece; it is a miracle of transcendence which contradicts the laws of this world, and which burns the many words of a deafening silence, our daily dumbness. Small swings of the Calder still remember and express yet again the miracle of light. Light is lightness, says the flame which burns on one of the extremities, which soon though, wearing away, allows the weight of the substance to win yet again. But in the meantime, burning, it rises and trionfs before dying. Dense palisades of iron suggest that the light has "a sense"; it is not necessary to see it everywhere. Playing with light, the black iron bends to the desire of its apparent enemy. And so, all the population of "black" things (iron by Fernando Izzi is significantly and inexorably black) suggests to us,almost by antifrases, the reign of light and of harmony. I go back to the beginning yet again: Fernando Izzi is a conscious artist. He knows that it is wise to leave the unknown alone, to bring him to awareness, to light. And it is in this direction that his art, in appearance simple, reveals to be dense with fine significance. As demonstrated by the figurative equivalence of his painting (he is also a painter), of which it would be interesting to talk about. But it will be for another time.

(Leonardo Cammarano)