Alessandro Boezio

Boezio's fingers. What do they mean? 9, 12, 10,12, 11.

When was the last time you studied your hands? I don't mean the last time you saw them, but the last time you really observed your paws, especially your marvelous fingers. Where would we be without them? Of all the parts of the hand, the fingers are the most important...except for the thumb which makes it possible to firmly grasp objects. That one anatomical feature, the opposable thumb, has long been the dividing line between the upper level primates and lower level mammals. Fingers are among the most beautiful appendages, both conceptually and physically. They accuse, they grab, the touch, they give pleasure, they take; they are the means in which humans create and communicate.

I'd love to know the title for this, but insofar as I could determine, he seems not to title his work.

 

The Italian sculptor, Alessandro Boezio has an intense fascination with these touchy digits. He offers a simple and beautiful exploration of these indispensable lengths of bones, nerves, veins, muscle, cartilage and skin. Boezio takes these unique identifiers, these tiny, powerful tools we take for granted, and creates abstract narratives with unlikely single positions in static moments. It's a fascin-ating gift. Add a mastery of skill and technique to create realistic portrayals of human anatomy, and you have a breath of fresh, but somehow alarming air.

Playing footsies?

Familiar, yet threatening--





Alessandro Boezio

Alessandro Boezio was born in 1983 and grew up in Milano, Italy. In 2003, he obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry from Mont-real University, then continued his edu-cation as a NSERC postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Eric N. Jacobsen at Harvard Uni-versity. An artist of versatile creativity, he uses an incredible number of materials, both precious and simple, to create sculp-tures, installations, and original works, each infused by a rich vein of humor. He transforms reality by toying with concepts and objects. Boezio claims everything can be transformed, everything can be re-used, and everything is re-adaptable." His works often show a strong bond with nature, bizarre in its micro and macro config-uration. At the same time, Boezio pays a clear homage to technology with its useless knick-knacks that man seems unable to do without. Boezio's work has been shown in exhibitions, and projects in Germany, Spain, England, Belgium, and the United States.

 

Boezio does feet and legs with the same verisimilitude as his fingers.

If a deer had fingers...and fingernails

Like a creative science experiment with Dr. Frankenstein and Salvador Dali, Boezio uses our physical commonalities to bring our psycho-logical conundrums to life. Some are seemingly scary and some sim-ply fantastical, Boezio creates scul-ptural poetry that plays a fascinating game with our perceptions. He is intrigued by the human under-standing of real and illusory. Boezio uses clay and fiberglass to create these mythological and unnerving anatomic experiments in artistic ex-pression. He also imbues his pieces with flesh tones or gold leaf to further push the perception of reality and artifice.

 

Are they fingers or legs?

 

Boezio's installation-based projects are even more poetic than the sculptures alone; using golden thread and shadows, he creates whole surrealist scenes in spaces. In our subconscious, the human form can be altered to fulfill a variety of desires, horrors and creative psycho-ses. Fingers roll out like a carpet into digit-shaped centipedes; feet emerge from the palm of a human hand and begin walking away into the darkness, finding nothing but a fulfilled nightmare full of comfort and terrifying accuracy. . .it may simply be a dream; then again, it may also just be the sculptural artwork of Alessandro Boezio.

 

 

Back of the larger

image above.

Are they faces or fingers?