Graphite Tapestries
Description: An original piece from the series “Zi hua”: I wanted to learn to write Chinese characters, but I've lost control! I have always been fascinated by the art of ideograms, and when I was in China I spent hours and hours, enchanted to observe people trying to dip the brush into water, and to draw on the ground ephemeral signs intended to evaporate, with controlled and sensual movements. But my nature is baroque! The gesture that I started cannot be stopped, the hand begins to draw on the paper some convolutions, scrolls and doodles, at first timid, but soon prevailing over the same character and its meaning! And the gesture that remains, even if free and decorative, is extremely rewarding for me!
Description: Russian writer and poet Varlam Shalamov spent the best years of his life imprisoned. At first, he spent two years in gulag and after serving it he became a published writer and journalist. Then he was arrested again and survived seventeen years of extreme labour camp. When he came back, his health was ruined, his family life destroyed. Kolyma Tales, collection of short stories about a labour camp, is considered a masterpiece. It is written in dry, almost numb documentary style. Shalamov also published books of poetry like Flint, Journey and Destiny, and Moscow Cloud.
