Markers, pencil, resin, glitter, digital manipulation on D-Bond, 2019
“Accipe vestem candidam, quam pérferas immaculatam… ut habeas vitam ætérnam”.
Receive this white robe, which you may wear without blemish… to have eternal life.
Because of original sin, man found himself naked, devoid of that spirit that enveloped and covered him. A spirit symbolized by a white, luminous garment that covers nudity, a sign of human misery.
It is during the sacrament of Baptism that we solemnly receive this new garment, dressing with Christ and returning to the pre-existence: “You have clothed yourselves with Christ”, says St. Paul.
This is the time of transformation, which the artist wants to express in the work “Accipe vestem candidam” with a game of metaphors, where the dressing is figured, not intended as a real material garment, but rather as a breath, a divine air that envelops, covering human nakedness with a gold that illuminates and strengthens.
The centrality of the symbolism of the baptismal garment as a metaphor, which we find in Saint Paul, is assumed and interpreted by the artist not as a passage from impure to pure, but as the splendor of the divine: no sadness transpires from the face of the baptized, but a great peace and a desire to continue to shine with spiritual splendor throughout earthly existence, to earn eternal life, as Cyril of Jerusalem teaches.
