Can a virtuous behavior be defined as one that wants to transform indifferent places into interesting spaces? That makes them rich in momentum. That it is able to recreate a link, an impulse, a trait d’union with the life of the city? If this is effected by a declared ecological intent, there is no doubt. From flowers to bamboo, a strong and gentle invasion. To recapture the most degraded and abandoned urban places. These are the sites “deprived of economic function.” Privatized because they are deprived of it. But they are in the sight of us all. Street art has chosen to highlight precisely these andites. Not to neglect, abandon or set aside. Freak of Nature explains his commitment.
Urban art
Urban art is now more than 40 years old. So much for a passing trend. To those who call them taggers: is this how you imagine a tagging vandal? Dedicated to experience and vigilant in emotions. Inspired and able to awaken our emotional world? Besides, someone has to tell us that we are cheerfully celebrating the inexorable defeat of a world.
“My work is about making visible what we too often want or end up ignoring”. Freak of Nature calls her work as an artist (Milanese by birth but Veneto by adoption). She prefers not to reveal her name, to remain anonymous. Like Bansky (the British artist and writer superquoted by the art mainstream).
My work is about making visible what we too often want or end up ignoring
“For the past 15 years or so, i focused my attention on the idea of neglect. Urban and human. Street art is an established artistic current, even if it is not always recognized in Italy. And it is almost always expressed outside city centers.” It is often outside the usual channels of art. And this is for obvious reasons.
Freak of Nature
Freak of Nature fearlessly describes the limits of this art form. “Sometimes it seems to have become pure decoration. Maybe it relays positive messages, but without going beyond that. Art instead should be a megaphone, awakening consciences even about what they don’t want to see. And historic centers are the most effective stage for conveying messages and making them visible”.
For the past fifteen years or so, my attention has been focused on the idea of neglect. Urban and human. Street art is an established artistic current, even if it is not always recognized in Italy. And it is almost always expressed outside city centers.
Often the work, from its intent of denunciation, shifts to that of an aesthetic icon, without a specific message. Of course, institutionalizing street art has always been a problem. There is a fear of taking risks, of stepping out of the mainstream. To assert.
Freak of Nature has painted nearly eight hundred “storefronts” of empty stores and neglected premises. A real census of vacant spaces, not surprisingly numbered in progression, one by one. Which becomes a kind of mapping of the economic and social crisis. Which makes clear how much a change of course is needed.
The Bamboo
Bamboo, a symbol of life but a pest species. It gives an idea of what nature would do if it were left free. “Ever since I was a little girl, I started drawing bamboo. It was something innate but then it became a symbol. There are more than a thousand species of bamboo. Bamboo are among the most resistant plants to weather, disease attack and mechanical compression on earth. They are evergreen. And have an extraordinary speed of growth. They flower every 50 years or so. And are able to fight pollution”.
Just provocation?
Is it only provocation? The call for attention and the petition for a response. But not only this. Also subject of the day, political discussion, awakening of a conscience. Thus Freak of Nature hits the nail on the head.
“Art cannot ask for permission to express itself. Nor to be accepted. In the inner cities, the suggestion of a work is more likely to bring about an eye-opener.” Without harming structures, buildings, or even the environment in any way.
Alien and free body
A small independent and mobile world, which has its own total coherence given by an aesthetic philosophy. But also, of action and uncompromising absolute value given to freedom. According to its nature. It is we who observe it and understand the meaning of its existence.
The artist gave a lecture at IUAV in Venice on the topic of street art and the potential of this phenomenon. At Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, last June 18, during Art Night Venice, he curated the interior courtyard setting by reusing the two large canvases painted for the Onda Palace in Padua (and which had already been used as a theatrical set design).
Human Surrender
The battle against indifference to what is neglected or forgotten, carried on by Freak of Nature through its works, has gradually extended to the concept of human surrender as well. A theme expressly at the center of one of the next projects, which will follow in the footsteps of the “homeless people who found shelter under the loggia of Palazzo Chiericati, in Vicenza, during the critical phase of Covid19: the only people we street artists were meeting on the street at that time. I wondered: where did they end up?” Another project in the pipeline will instead focus on communication and, in particular, on journalism, “a fundamental profession in its noblest expression,” says the artist, “but today strongly in crisis: the message I want to convey will take shape at the headquarters of major newspapers.
Visit the work of Freak of Nature
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