Fernando De Filippi - Arebor Solis

Acrylic color painting on canvas from 2011, 45x40 cm, from the series the "Aklberi Alchemici".

The author writes: For this series of works I chose the Tree as the symbol of the union between the depth of the earth and the boundless space of the sky. The tree has always occupied a central place in traditional symbolism, in religious thought, and in the imagination of poets, and it is a fundamental motif of universal iconography, from the "Tree of Life" — symbol of the vegetative power of the cosmos as well as of death and resurrection — to the "Tree of Good and Evil", linked to the serpent and generator of the "forbidden fruit".

The roots that delve into the earth and the branches that rise toward the sky create a relationship between the underground world and the upper world; the trunk, in its solidity, represents power and centration; the fall of the leaves and the rebirth of the buds mark differentiation and the subsequent return to unity, the cyclicity of natural rhythms of a continual evolution, of death and rebirth.

Fernando De Filippi, born in Lecce on 11/04/1940. He lives and works in Milan. His first solo show in Lecce in 1959, followed by over two hundred solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad (New York, San Francisco, Warsaw, Belgrade, Paris, Brussels, Geneva, Lisbon, Vancouver, Malta); he has participated in 5 editions of the Venice Biennale (1970/1972/1976 with a Room/1978/1980 Special Projects), the IX, X, XI, XII Rome Quadrenniale, and the Milano Triennale in 1981. He also took part in Arte in Italia from 1960/1975, Galleria d’Arte Moderna Torino; Arte Italiana, Haward Gallery, London; Le Linee della ricerca artistica in Italia, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Aspects of Italian Painting from the postwar period to the present day, Museo d’Arte Moderna San Paolo e Rio; Painting in Milan from 1945 to 1990. In 1998 he held an important solo show in Milan at the prestigious Palazzo Reale. From 1991 to 2009 he was director of the Brera Academy. From 2010 to 2011 he was director of the Cignaroli Academy in Verona.