Il corpus di questa personale di Michael Zyw, intitolata Navigazione e Santi, prende spunto dai lunghi studi che l’artista scozzese ha dedicato alla figura di San Brandano. Michael Zyw predilige la tecnica dell’acquerello, la domina anzi; tanto da permettersi formati molto grandi. Nell’acquerello conta la presa diretta tra impressione visiva e restituzione pittorica, tra emozione interiore e immeditezza dell’azione, che si scarica sul supporto; dunque occorrono chiarezza di idee e leggerezza di mano.   per visitare la mostra su appuntamento telefonare a questo numero (+39) 339 34 600 10

Michael Zyw è nato nel 1951 a Edimburgo (Scozia). Vive e dipinge a Poggio Lamentano, una località nei pressi di Castagneto Carducci. Laureato con onore nel 1973 in Biochimica all’Università di Oxford, sin dalla più giovane età si è dedicato alla pittura.

La navigazione di San Brandano (Navigatio sancti Brendani), opera anonima in prosa latina tramandata da numerosi manoscritti a partire dal X secolo, per l'insieme di elementi eterogenei che contiene, è considerata un classico della letteratura medievale di viaggio e agiografica. Brandano, abate benedettino irlandese (Clomfert), fu un santo vissuto nel VI secolo: si procurò fama di navigatore fondando monasteri sulle isole tra l’Irlanda e la Scozia. La leggenda lo trasfigurò, immaginandolo alla testa di un gruppo di monaci, alla ricerca del Paradiso Terrestre e dei santi, situato su un’isola meravigliosa e facendo vari incontri con creature fantastiche.

It has been several decades since the arts have exceeded beyond the established techniques and materials used in painting, sculpture and architecture.

Colours in acrylic, resins, contextures; video installations, various conserved or deflected organic materials; photography -implicit or manipulated, instanced with videos- all these profuse mediums are considered intensely stimulating for contemporary artists.

Glass itself has also become a medium in the arts. And though its origins were recorded in the third millennium BC, it's correlation with the decorative crafts have somewhat detracted our appreciation. It may be that its enchanting, polychromatic, transparent and brilliant nature confers an aura of frivolity, which is incompatible with an artistic expression of vigorous impact.

This is demonstrated by the fact that many contemporary artists prefer to use glass as an industrial product. Examples include plaques, remnants and residue from glass-making or urban detritus -taking leave from refined craftsmanship and suggestive chromatic decoration.

In these instances, some of its qualities such as its fragility, its transparency, or its possibility for reflecting objects and figures have become venues for precise messages in conceptual works.

However since the 1950s, several artists who have been unallied with the world of glassworks began to experiment with this material. There was a discovery of its refined aspects and its extremely accurate manual procedures, which resulted in exalting its fluid plasticity and unconventional polychromatics -at once delicate and evanescent or lively and provocative.

Since the process of glassmaking demands an exceptionally long and arduous apprenticeship, these artists have had to collaborate with a master glassmaker who could execute the interpretations of their creative ideas. The figure of a craftsman, a collaborator in the practical phase of a work, is not uncommon in the arts, as sculptures of marble or bronze well attest.

It can be stated, however, that not all attempts of artistic glassworks have produced satisfactory results. The reasons for such failure - which are not rare - are often indecipherable; but certainly a lack of concord between the artist and glassmaker is part of the reason. Also, the quality of the project which may be intrinsically a valid idea, may not adopt to the material and technology of the glass craft.

This is not the case in the glassworks of Michael Zyw. This artist, from his first attempts with glass at Murano, knew how to conflux the aspects with his personal sensitivity permitting a transfer onto solid glass blocks that which had been initiated as colourful and flowing water colours on paper.

Michael Zyw's extraordinary paintings incarnate the essence of the art of Aquarelle, in which profuse colour diluted in water arrives at its perfected image. It can be likened to a photo, which can instantly manifest delicate visual impressions born of an observation of reality in continuous movement. Here natural backgrounds, persons and objects merge into a hidden impression. Thus the abundance of water, which moves upon a paper, controlled by the artist, acts as a foundation and a supra-foundation of colors.
It invariably suggests without punctual definition- skies moved by variegated clouds, landscapes stratified unto the horizon and marine waters made brilliant by the light of the sun.

Also glass, by definition, is a liquid - a liquid under cooled - if one were to infer scientific language. And so it is this medium, ideal for Zyw, which has become an alternative for Aquarelle, a natural development of his work. In collaboration with master craftsman of glass, Zyw has realized blocks of Murano crystal within which colours have been captivated - absolutely effectively and respecting the Aquarelles - communicating the living visual impressions of his bright imagination.

Zyw has chosen not blown but solid glass, or in other terms, overlaid "sommerso" glass. With this he crowns with importance and acknowledgment the whole of the Murano glass tradition.

The sculptures in solid "massiccio" flasks seem in fact to re propose the antique collections of the Wunderkammern. It had been the intention to imprison within one glass the manifestations most incredible of the natural world. With Michael Zyw there is no single reproduction of a natural organism, but rather a most interior and personal expression. Zyw could not resist but to implement the traditions of glassmaking at Murano. At other locations, in fact, glass is perceived as a surrogate to rock chystal - that is, a stone to exalt by geometric cuts in its structure. Thus it is destined to lose the liquid essence, which is intrinsic to its true nature.

As John Ruskin clearly expressed in the Stones of Venice, identifying with the sensibility of Venetian glass, it is the most antique of the Mediterranean and European world. Glass will not be betrayed by disguising its malleability, its transparency, and moreover with a modality of its process which demands instantaneous interventions, repeated, struggling against time and in contact with fire.

Zyw intuited that only the super quality of Murano could have satisfied the intense condition to realize his liquid paintings into glass.
This formidable conjunction has led this artist to manifest his myriad creative processes. And with continuous bravura. With his keen dedication, and with his superlative application, Michael Zyw has most brilliantly perfected his art.

Rosa Barovier Mentasti, April 2009, Murano
Translated by Serpoohi Benazzi-Pilosian