«There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees.» R.W. Emerson

R.W. Emerson

As Emerson states, a man’s life is a circle. We are immersed in circularity, an unceasing movement in which all things take part.

Concentric circles, circular nature.

God is also circular with “the centre everywhere and the circumference nowhere”, as Saint Augustine said.

Man participates in such circularity first of all with the workings of his own mind. Unfathomable mechanisms, locking and overlapping, with the prevailing shape of a circle which connects and activates.

Man’s life is the overlapping of concentric circles.

Of this primary and original form, the driving force of the universe, P.H. Wert’s works are almost spontaneously born: circularities that intertwine, loom over or simply brush against each other, retracing and recreating the eternal becoming that does not incessantly thrust itself forward, but comes back to itself, in the centre that is the beginning and the end.

It is the transcendental and divine nature, but also human kind’s industriousness: mechanisms like workings constructed by man, from the first rudimentary farming tools to the most modern industrial machines.
In this respect, Wert’s creations reflect the territory in which they were born: hard-working Emilia Romagna, which bears witness to the objectification of these archetypes through man’s ingenuity as a constructor. Mechanical and motor realities thus become tangible, a technical knowledge that recreates the movement of the universe.
A dream drives man’s hand in a hide and seek game, one of parallel and interlacing lines wherefrom the driving force is issued, so that the movement becomes perpetual and unrelenting.
Machines are the objectification of our thought, nature’s mirror with all its power.
Acrylic and oil on canvas is the technique used to make these works. Light and shadows, overlaps and concealments spring up almost spontaneously, emerging from a universal thought. Like enlightenment coming out with patience: from the background the first lines are drawn with watercolour pencils, the acrylic colour is then spread and the first filled-in figures are created. But it is the oil colour that puts the finishing touches with the technique of the glazing that perfects the interplay of tones accomplishing the shapes.
The thought of the shapes comes afterwards, foremost are the emotions which guide the artist’s hand. Art becomes technique, helping emerge more clearly what the unconscious had let out of the innermost self.
The work will then reach full achievement in the encounter with the viewer: from the traces provided for rationality, one slowly goes back to the maze of his/her innermost self, reliving the same arcane emotions shapes.
The thought of the shapes comes afterwards, foremost are the emotions which guide the artist’s hand. Art becomes technique, helping emerge more clearly what the unconscious had let out of the innermost self.
The work will then reach full achievement in the encounter with the viewer: from the traces provided for rationality, one slowly goes back to the maze of his/her innermost self, reliving the same arcane emotions.

Alessandra De Bianchi