“Loneliness has the great advantage that you stop running away from yourself.”
(Marcel Proust)
Starting from a fundamental examination of resistance, doubt, loss, death and life itself, a month-long journey through the stone deserts of the Dead Mountains begins - lined with the fascination of a primal force and the tangible remnants of thousands of years of history. This work also begins with the inner urge to find one's own but still unknown path through the twists and turns of abandoned areas. It is a story about getting lost and finding something again: dealing with the mountains is often similar to dealing with death. An idea from which the unbroken inspiration of the Totes Gebirge also draws.
With this work, Giovi makes memory tangible and moves away from usual working methods, materials or techniques. Classic painting is complemented by the instruments of chrome spray cans, ornamental patterns and plaster. The artist also goes through a learning process during the years-long creative process. Finding the very path that essentially gives these works their foundation. So much for giving up an escape, a conscious one
Forgetting the paths of the past and remembering the twists and turns of your own life path. “You can’t go very far in a straight line,” said a very well-known Little Prince.
Giovi's works reflect the range of his memory: fog like smoke covers rugged steep walls. Narrow lines make their way through a metaphorical mirror that holds scenes of travel in its golden reflections. The Zwölferkogel rises almost like an icon, its heights reflected like an inner echo deep down in the Almtal.
A spectrum whose closer inspection not only represents an image of an artist's journey, but ultimately also turns to the viewer as a mirror. The works around TOTES GEBIRGE are not only fragments from a hiker's memory, but also leave space to linger, to hike along and see along. And perhaps also to give up one's own wanderings on the paths of the past.
Romana Stücklschweiger