Castagna Maurizio 1961 - XL - La Soglia del Silenzio

THE THRESHOLD OF SILENCE
Acrylic, gesso and mixed media on canvas
The Threshold of Silence is a work in which Maurizio Castagna transforms the surface of the canvas into a crossing place: a threshold, indeed, between what emerges and what remains hidden. The white, vibrant material does not serve as a mere background, but welcomes impacts, marks, stratifications and sudden openings of light. The black, energetic and incised, builds an almost architectural fabric; the blues, yellows and pinks intervene as emotional apparitions, fragments of memory and possibilities of breath.
The spirals and circular forms, recurring in the artist’s search, do not describe recognizable objects: they are nuclei of energy, points of condensation of thought and matter. In this composition, silence does not equal absence, but is an intense presence, charged with inner tensions. Painting proceeds through accumulation, erasure, scratching and reemergence, creating an unstable balance between immediate gesture and rigorous construction.
As critic Okwui Enwezor observed, Castagna’s painting “neither represents nor expresses an objective or subjective reality: it releases a tension that has accumulated inside.” This reading finds in The Threshold of Silence a particularly strong confirmation: the painting does not tell a scene, but makes visible an inner experience, transforming emotion into sign, matter and rhythm.
Maurizio Castagna trained at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. After his beginnings in classical painting, he developed a personal research in the field of material and gestural abstraction. He has carried out important commissions for Italian ecclesiastical institutions, including portraits for the Sees of Asti, Catania and Caltanissetta and a large canvas dedicated to the Stoning of Saint Stephen. His works are in public and private collections in Europe, the United States, Dubai, China and Japan; his work has also been noted in Italian art publications and catalogs, including Bolaffi and Giorgio Mondadori’s Catalog of Italian Modern Art.