Giuseppe Penone

Born in 1947, he grew up in Garessio, a rural community south of Turin, and his empathy with nature stems from this experience. For Penone, Nature represents the great memory, the ever-present model of the processes of change and growth that shape the individual life. His art is often concerned with the revelation and realisation in the form of sculpture of natural processes which may normally be hidden or invisible. He has returned consistently to the tree as a model for his sculpture; its stationary, vegetal form embraces and integrates the events of its life. In his recent work he has begun to work with other materials such as marble or glass, exploring their natural properties to create a metaphor for all systems of growth and change – and for the structure of history itself.

In a new series of sculptures Trappole di Luce (Light Traps) Penone draws an analogy between the tree and the human eye; not only are the eye and the leaf the same shape but both are dependent on light to function. Many of the pieces incorporate glass casts of tree trunks or branches coupled with images of the human eye; in one sculpture a small photograph of the artist’s eyes is threaded through the branches of a tree. In other works Penone makes a comparison between the body’s surfaces and natural forms; Propagazione shows an enlarged tracing of his finger prints which echoes the rings of a tree trunk and ripples of water. For Palperbra e Spilli, he made an imprint of his eyelid and traced the enlarged projection of it onto a field of synthetic felt. These imprints examine human surfaces, areas which leave traces of contact but which we scarcely think about.