Giovanni Marceddu

Winner Challenge 2021

At this particular moment, all my work is guided by the idea that: "nothing is born, nothing dies, everything changes". I started to paint in the early '90s with the wall writing. At that time it was really frustrating to me noticing that all my pieces on the wall were gradually getting erased by the time and by weather's effect. I was only a child, and I couldn't accept the impermanence of everything. Then I started to paint on boards that could be framed, so that my works could last longer. At the beginning of the new millennium, I started to expose my paintings, experimenting also other languages as, for example, audiovisual. It seemed my
career was about to take off, but unfortunately in 2013 my daughter got hill of a bad cancer and I gave up everything (including my job as a teacher of audiovisual at University of Cagliari), to totally devote myself to her. No one could say if it was misfortune or fortune. If on the one hand my certainties just fell apart, on the other hand what I learned during the years of hospitalization led me to an awareness that now guides all my life and my artist's work.
When, in 2019,my daughter was declared healed, I suddenly went back to my art, especially focusing on painting. I started back from where I had left off, composing informal figures. They were basic figures but with a strong emotional impact. I learned to deal with unpredictability and impermanence of life. I understood that the life of every single cell in the whole universe is constantly changing, and I realized we are not separated from the other beings, be they start, animals, vegetables or molds. So I started research based on molds, and it pushed myself beyond my usual way of painting. I had already worked with molds before when, inspired by artists like Stan Brakhage and others, for example letting super 8 mm films get moldy to evoke a sense of death and deterioration. But now, my molds have lost the negative meaning connected to deterioration, and they changed into a life symbol. Now, I make living creations. My paintings nourish themselves, grow and change as the whole universe does. They are living beings, something to take care of as you would do with pets, rather than pieces of furniture to expose just for their aesthetic characteristics. My "animals" weren't born from nothing, because they are the processing of food waste, otherwise destined to be destroyed, and they won't die because they’re self-sufficient, they feed themselves and this will assure them a long life. But also, at the end of their life cycle, they will have left their own mark on the surface or support where they were born. In this way I intend to represent the meaning of impermanence and the concept of the continuous metamorphoses to which we are all deeply bound.

Exhibitions
2020, "The tree of hope", collective a cura di M. Mola, virtuale
2020, "3 Art paper international", collective a cura di L. Pecoraro, Bern, Svizzera
2008, "Micro meadow", solo, Cagliari, Italia;
2007, "L'altalena nel mio giardino", solo, Cagliari, Italia;
2007, "Notte bianca", collective, Cagliari, Italia;
2007, "Here I Stay Fest", collective, Guspini, Italia
2006, "Collettiva emergenti del Colore", collective, Cagliari, Italia;
Awards
2020, "Vergogna", screenplay, winner of the best screenplay at Voghera Film Festival
2017, "L'ultimo miracolo", short film, the 74° Mostra d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia
2011, “Abat Jour”, teaser film, winner of “4 minuti alla fine del mondo