Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine
- Byron

Umberto Palestini, brochure of the exhibition “WANDLUNGEN” – TRANSFORMATIONS

Myth and tradition, recovered to a new life, can produce something closely connected with modernity by covering unexpectedly, with new poetic reflections, iconographies which are hidden in the most intimate and secret part of our coffer. Precious glazes which have absorbed silvery moonlight reflections become skin for symbolic subjects given to a timeless dimension.

Icarus, Daphne, Prometheus, rebellious Angels, figures which embody mutation, are born from an apparently shapeless material. What at first sight seems abstract manufacture takes us into an enchanted world in perpetual metamorphosis thanks to a secondary detail suggesting a face or an anatomic feature.

It seems as if the inert material tries to show, with effort and suffering, a secret nucleus which can be understood only if seen beyond the opaque filter of banal appearance.

Nicoletta Braccioni’s work expressed its powerful glamour by checking evidence in order to let out the magic suggestion of a world in which the divine questions the human again with renewed strength.

- Umberto Palestini