Sigillum 2013

Curator: Roberto Ferri painted "Sigillum" in 2013, using oil paint on canvas. What are your initial thoughts on this piece? Editor: My first impression is of intense drama and almost theatrical tension. The stark contrast in the poses—the active male figure and the seemingly passive female one—immediately grabs your attention. The coloring, all earth tones, feels classical, yet the subject is quite raw. Curator: The making is interesting to unpack here. Ferri, trained in the rigorous techniques of academic art, employs them to depict quite contemporary themes. The labor involved in achieving such hyperrealism is substantial, and the canvas itself would have undergone extensive preparation to receive the oil paint so flawlessly. The market values skill like this. Editor: Absolutely, and that hyperrealism, bordering on surrealism, is achieved through incredibly meticulous composition. Look at the way the bodies intertwine, how light emphasizes the musculature, and the subtle semiotics—like the trickle of blood—to evoke complex narratives. Curator: It's impossible to ignore the social commentary, implicit or explicit, in works like this. The artist engages with traditions of representing the body and the relationship between dominance and submission and forces us to reflect on them. Where does power truly reside, given the viewers engagement with the work itself? Editor: A compelling point. The staging feels crucial—the figures set upon what appears to be a classical plinth or altar. Is this a sacrifice, a power play, or something more nuanced? The answer isn't explicitly stated; instead, the formal language of the work—line, tone, texture—suggest multiple possibilities. Curator: Moreover, what of the contemporary consumer? The market demands not only technique, but titillation. The erotic art traditions play a large part. It's hard not to read this through our contemporary lens of art as commodity. Editor: Indeed, though its power lies, for me, in that very tension. Its beauty seduces even as its subtext unsettles, creating a space for contemplation and questioning of ourselves and art's history. Curator: I see "Sigillum" as an ongoing reflection on power structures embedded in the history of image making. The canvas, brushstrokes, pigments – they are all physical evidence of labour within an intricate web of consumption and artistic statement. Editor: And for me, its strength resides in the successful fusion of the beautiful and the disturbing, using meticulously crafted forms to question perception and morality.