Antonietta Grassi

LE PROJET CICATRICE (PARTIE 1)
05.15–06.08.1997

Through this series, I trace the process of transformation from wound to scar and its connection to my journey in painting. The work recounts the stages necessary for the formation of new skin, drawing an analogy to the construction of my own self. Skin is a surface of inscription that bears the entire history of the body; it serves as both a barrier and an interface between the body’s interior and the outside world. Toughening one’s skin, feeling something deep within one’s skin, having raw, exposed nerves… These desires and emotions reveal our inner states. Etched into the skin, they write the body.

Like a diary, these works bear witness to specific days in my life, which I recount through the act of painting. The work links painting as a pure process to the inscription of a personal history. I document a working process defined by cyclical chronology, where the act of painting and the process of healing are intimately intertwined. The work alludes not only to temporal and biological cycles but also to the cycles of painting throughout history. Twentieth-century painting—marked by perpetual questioning—evokes the notion of an undefined self. How can one inscribe oneself in one’s work without being a fixed entity? My work continues; it has no precise end. It is complete yet unfinished. I inscribe myself within the work and affirm my presence as it exists today…

Text: Antonietta Grassi