COMMENTED WORKS
THE INFINITE WAYS
The creative impulse arises spontaneously and uncontrollably. The artist's task is to transform it through technique, adapt it to the codes of representation, and transform it into communication. In this process, it may lose immediacy, but it gains effectiveness. The same impulse has infinite ways of expression; it is the human's duty to recognize it, select the only possible form, and translate it into language. And to create new codes if the existing ones are insufficient.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
KNOW THYSELF
When it manifests, the intense and well-disciplined spiritual life is perceived as irrational, whimsical, and random, often the opposite of its reality. The ascetic path involves clarity, confidence, and a desire for spiritual connection. Through technique, experience, and an irrepressible creative impulse, man discerns and combines truth and appearance.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THE FACES OF A COIN
Finding yourself catapulted into a world where the criteria of massification structure society according to rigid and cataloguing patterns. Finding yourself a pawn on the enormous chessboard that is Life. Knowing you can't make a wrong move or else become cannon fodder for all those who judge appearance before substance... Often without thinking. Michele's work becomes analysis; once again, his approach to the world around him is critical and profound. A painting like the mythological two-faced Janus, front and back. Not just looking, but knowing how to observe intensely. The two sides of the coin contrast due to differences in artistic and stylistic creation. A coin that isn't flipped to decide which side to take, too simple... You can't leave the choice of who to be and how to be in the world to chance. Michele tells us about the intrinsic aspects of the decisions we make. Freedom or prison, reality or fiction, life lived and live or fiction broadcast on screen, always pleasing those we encounter. The picture is indeed painted on both sides. A painting of matter, substance, and color that identifies our ways of being and thinking. On the one hand, the pigments move independently, free from categorical interference. Symbols of those who have chosen to live and be themselves, broadening their horizons and revealing their qualities. It is not anarchy, mind you, but the desire to be sincere, to be special, and open to discussion. On the other hand, the same colors find themselves confined, unable to be a light for themselves and others, but merely dim lights devoid of personality and critical thinking. The black, rigid walls force us to become instruments. Truth has no paths: this is the beauty of truth, which is alive. And Michele's work helps us walk this path with him.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
ARGON
From multiple perspectives, the demiurge artist questions reality; the unstoppable vital and creative impulse guides his interpretation and leads him to expressive freedom: he can create the subject and the code of communication. Many eyes jealously watch over the vital creative impulse, but they are empty and uniform, unable to capture it or impose rules upon it.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
ELEGANT REPRESENTATION OF A DESPERATE CONDITION
The clear, defined, and unambiguous message of each work presupposes precise analysis and, above all, synthesis. The elements of reality are separated in reflection and become raw and inert. Inspiration identifies and harmonizes them in the message, but requires the intervention of an ordering intelligence and the space for expression. Parallel lives in the universe.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
DIALS AND LINES
Cardboard, a humble material yet rich in intrinsic qualities, embraces Michele Cea's art, his lines, his colors. What he creates on various media is never banal. It is never easy to understand. Like a modern Diogenes, he rejects social conventions, captivating yet superfluous traditions, and the futile desire for wealth. The true treasure lies in the artist's sensitivity as he rediscovers himself as a child and in his desire to grow and give profound meaning to his own existence and the universe around him. In that blue lies the majesty of the sky, crying out to infinity its own tension and the utopia of absolute freedom.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
THE NEW ANGEL 2010
The demiurge artist, a new contemporary angel, is not cast unaware into the looming future. By looking to the past and the future, he gains knowledge and celebrates the present and its irrepressible creative and vital impulse.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC COLLABORATION
Scientific reasoning and mathematics are two of the infinite tools for understanding reality: they address limited fields and construct a functioning and pervasive model, from which most experience remains outside. Sometimes the objective is achieved and the scientific explanation is appropriate; the task of the demiurge artist is to complete the interpretation of what remains.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Farewell, word of glass. Poets are Murano vases, beautiful to look at but delicate to breathe (Alda Merini). There are works destined to remain in people's memories and hearts. Works that take on greater meaning when the artist passes away. People are like those mirrored glass windows. They sparkle and shimmer when the sun is high, but when darkness falls, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. And so the essence contained within leaves the material to spread into the hearts of those who love.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
IRREVERSIBLE IMPULSE TO KNOWLEDGE
Rational activity gradually penetrates reality, but it cannot complete the clarification; many areas remain obscure. However, it is important to begin, because once one area is exhausted, all the others remain. And above all, what is most obscure must be explained: rational activity and the knowing subject.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Completeness comes from the ability to reach both the deepest and the most superficial parts; which means combining the ethical and aesthetic dimensions.
Michael Cea
The message is directed at the surface, because it uses the conventional form derived from experience and history, and from the surface it penetrates the self. Sometimes scars remain, the marks of messages that are no longer meaningful. The messages received and transmitted, along with the scars, are the self.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
A PART FOR THE WHOLE
In the work, there's no trace of the intimate conceptual development that gave rise to it. Only the clearly expressed message is visible, transcending spatial and temporal boundaries and the restrictions accepted by the artist, encountering further resistance, undergoing further modifications, and ultimately no longer belonging to the author alone. But perhaps even before he formulated it, it didn't belong to him alone.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
In the apparent whiteness of the canvas, we glimpse lines marking it, rough reliefs that materialize before our gaze, demonstrating how art—first and foremost—is an exercise in self-discovery. Mirroring parallel worlds, the work created by Michele's hand and soul reveals intricate and profound thoughts that the artist protects in its most hidden recesses. The creased surface recalls a bandage that soothes wounds and, in a synesthetic way, evokes diametrically opposed sensations.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
AWARENESS OR INERTIA
Reality is exactly as we perceive it. Without our interpretation, there remains only a constant flow, overlapping and ebbing of indefinite sensations, without any awareness. And consequently, no sensation, no reality.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
DEMIURGIC ACTIVITY
Considered abstractly, the elements of reality do not convey any rational message, but remain inert in specialist understanding. The artist's skill lies in inserting them into the context of his works and crafting, with the same elements, accessible to everyone, meaningful perspectives that are constantly changing. The creative impulse necessarily and repeatedly transforms
reality into a message.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
ARROGANCE AND HUMILITY
Ideas, which do not exist in nature, arise from reality. The mind abstractly elaborates them, defines them, and structures them into a reproduction. The difficulty of the task lies in the true representation, its correspondence to reality. It would be best to dialectically question each circumstance and all of them together, rather than applying ready-made answers in the form of models.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
BRIGHT FUTURE
To fulfill its function and bear fruit, the ideal must be connected to the people. To whom it truly belongs, even if not entirely consciously. The artist's task is to highlight this relationship and affirm its rational necessity. Most of the time, his message has reached the people; in other cases, it hasn't yet.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Each work is born from a separation, a part of oneself that becomes tangible and visible. It is like a cloud in the sky that always takes on different shapes and brings a load of regenerating rain. The white canvas, in its infinite virginal purity, is fertilized, and the color becomes an indelible stain that furrows and leaves the trace of a new shoot. The artist, wounded by the separation from the ego, claims authorship of his own creation, and the flow of blood pigment, from top to bottom, follows the path of destiny. On the support that splits, in a distinctive front-back pattern, Michele surprises with how he approaches, always differently, the role of narrator of the world. With strength and rawness, refusing to be enchanted by artificial frills, he brings out the turmoil, the conflict, the vitality, the torment, life itself, and the scars that remind us who we are.
Reflections by Professor of Art History Massimiliano Porro
Uniqueness comes not from a single point of view but rather from a broader perspective on the reality around us. This allows us to gain a single, yet at the same time more complete and defined, overall vision.
Michael Cea
The demiurge artist broadens his vision from narrow objectivity to intimate reflection, to a comprehensive perspective. Intimate reflection gradually absorbs reality and makes it his own; the language with which the artist expresses his vision is elaborated, with the aim of making it comprehensible. Through this intellectual process, the demiurge artist understands that his interpretation is part of reality and of himself.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
[I call it with a concept of Parmenides “The well-rounded sphere”, which means being or the whole, the totality of entities]
Art isn't always able to express everything the artist intends. There are subjects, those that surround the composition right now, that don't fit within it. Precisely for this reason, art is a total and objective expression, because it also indicates what it cannot represent, refers to it, and enriches it with meaning.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
FRAGMENTS AND REASON
Many separate voices are an incomprehensible chatter. The demiurge artist gathers them into a rational message, which takes on a clear, though not unambiguous, meaning depending on the conceptual context in which it is conveyed. The same is true for intellectual activities and for each occupation: conducted in isolation, each is a world unto itself, with its own rules and different purposes. If, however, they are rationally organized, they constitute a cosmos.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
CREATIVE REASON
Only artistic and rational activity can give meaning to each reality, which without this creative intervention seems inert and meaningless. The perfect action of the demiurge artist reveals the beauty obscured by the veil of appearance.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
AT WORK
The demiurge artist intuits the higher nature, makes it manifest, and invites his intelligent and creative peers to look at reality. As Prometheus, the divine creator, with all their expertise they will reshape the same idea with much work, much effort, good friends, and above all, intelligence.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
CORDIAL INVITATION
The field of art is open to the activity of intelligent and creative people. The language and rules of communication and expression are established by the work, to which it is appropriate that each person contribute, according to their own strengths, with sincerity and benevolence.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THE INTERPRETATION TOOL
Using the elements at his disposal and his experience, the artist assembles his own equipment for understanding reality. Interpretation can be influenced by the medium through which the analysis is performed. For this reason, the investigation and the point of view must be adapted to the subject under consideration and the knowing subject. And the instrument of art must be repaired to prepare it for a new performance.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Feeling as light as a blade of grass, moved by the wind and the world around you. The apparent image is merely dust that dissipates as time passes. Thus, emotions of a multifaceted nature filter through, and the artist's intimate essence gradually emerges. Michele chooses to leave an opening, choosing not to engage in a dialogue through canonical language but to build a bridge with the viewer. The bonds at the corners of the work tighten the hinges of life, building relationships that sometimes require even more solid moorings, for within that lightness lies the fragility that recalls the earthly journey. We find ourselves at a crossroads: continue the search to uncover the world's secrets, or stop, abandoning all hope? Michele decides to continue to tell his story and share his own, gradually shedding the corporeality that cages us in prejudices to become a humble, subtle, and eternal blade of grass.
Reflections by Professor of Art History Massimiliano Porro
THE DUAL FUNCTION OF CONCEPTS
Spiritual life struggles to adapt to social conditioning and imposed customs. Words and concepts delimit and shield the self from others, but they are also a link, the means of intersubjective relationship: they circumvent conventions and reveal character. The relationship with others expresses what was previously hidden or even nonexistent.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
SINKING AND RE-EMERGING
The wound of the soul is essentially incomprehensible. In relation to the audience, it successively generates new forms. Initially a wound, then a brutal representation, a tale of suffering, convalescence, the potential for health, a scar, a memory, and finally, the neutralization of pain. From which one can rise again: gathering the scattered fragments, identifying the insurmountable limit, nihilism or critical denial of all separation, identifying the elements that connect opposing conceptions, dialectically elaborating the new vision, overcoming the arbitrarily imposed limit, and accessing the infinite expressive possibilities of acquired awareness: the canvas can host new images and unprecedented thoughts.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
"We are full of tears, cuts, stitching, but also of unconventional follies, words with lines" (Fabrizio Caramagna). And so it is: Michele Cea's work literally cuts through traditional vision, as if inviting us to change our perspective each time. It is the language of contemporary art, which with colors, signs, symbolic and physical ruptures evokes the idea of the need for personal expression. The work, both in front and behind, allows the calm sea of the evening to flow, which at times becomes a restless storm, like the soul of the young artist.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
RATIONAL AND REAL
History confronts man with the bleak opportunity of choice, propelling him at breakneck speed toward its fulfillment. It is up to each of us to choose from the indistinct what is best and glimpse the possibility of individual and common good in the uncertain shadows of the future. There is no need for guides, leaders, or prophets, but rather for intelligence and rigorous asceticism, the instruments of perfection.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
When they are rationalized, expressed and communicated through some language, feelings, emotions, and ideas take on a plastic and determined patina that they originally and intimately lack. In spiritual life, they all coexist, with blurred boundaries and less vivid hues.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THE SOUND OF RAIN
Listen to the sound of the colorful rain falling from the sky... Going beyond the gaze... Have you ever tried to put your ear to the window? How similar and yet so different those falling drops appear... They settle and merge, creating plays of color. They reflect the world around them and, wetting the glass, slide downward. Thus, abstract designs form that trace paths. And the drops, like tears of happiness and sorrow, make this painting by Michele an opening to the life of each of us. A painting that resonates with the joys and difficulties of everyday life. Each drop is a hue, each hue a sensation, each emotion a thought. Front and back, above and below, there is no space that cannot be reached. Not even the rainbow could contain such a vast variety of hues. The painter's spirit has unleashed his palette, as vast as his boundless love for art. And the more you gaze at this work, the more disoriented you become. Michele has allowed his every gesture to sincerely permeate this symbolic opening. Inside and outside, the ticking increases in intensity, the rhythm becomes a drumbeat and conquers the hearts of those who observe. Sensitivity is a curse, but it allows you to capture thousands of colors on a journey through black and white. And by modulating the frequencies, you become in tune with Michele..
Professor Massimiliano Porro
EXPRESSIVE COLLABORATION
A part of life falls within representation, and the artist makes every effort to grasp it; his is the first essential step. Communication and understanding are equally necessary, but these are not individual tasks, and the author can detach himself from the work.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Every day, we all act in ways that may seem unconditional but are actually dictated by those basic values and assumptions specific to each socio-cultural context, so deeply rooted as to be unrecognizable.
Michael Cea
It's very difficult to distinguish public behavior from conventional behavior. The customary meaning of words and gestures allows us to use them without causing pain. It's helpful to have an empirical understanding of the values and assumptions of various cultural contexts, but the rest—showing oneself to the fullest on every occasion and in an appropriate manner—is the task and pleasure of individual character.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
When each individual's basic assumptions and dogmas—that is, all those beliefs considered irrefutable—no longer align, individual pillars crumble and a sense of disorientation sets in. The opposite occurs when each of our assumptions are solidly structured and in harmony with the cultural context.
Michael Cea
The consolidated wall of conventions stems and neutralizes the seething magma of ideas. Some ideas break through the barrier and acquire ineffective evidence, others are fabricated within convention and imitate the rational path, from which they are, however, detached. Evidence is ineffective as long as ideas remain isolated.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THROUGH THE GAP
Art is a tool that filters emotions. A barrier that protects and allows one to scrutinize the world around oneself from a privileged vantage point. And this seeing is synonymous with expressive feeling: Michele not only observes but transforms the contorted sign into word. On one side, the black-and-white world, where chaos reigns, the current state of things where seemingly no secure points of reference exist. Then, the wooden dividing line, the artist himself. Within him flows the lifeblood that allows him to create spontaneously. Like a tree that forms branches and leaves very differently from the roots that plant it in the ground. And so the unique act of a work is created, different in every part but also continually evolving. Once again, Michele offers an unfinished contemporary work: his true creation lies in the lower part where forms are only just beginning to emerge, to continue autonomously: in every era, his art, in every art, its freedom, the Viennese Secession proclaimed. A freedom born of toil and suffering: that wood profoundly affects the spirit of the viewer, reflecting the tumultuous, infinite universe of the young artist.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
CREATIVE SPECULATION
Intelligent and creative people must reflect on art to perfect their interpretative tools. Multiple viewpoints illuminate different aspects of reality and, when they communicate with each other, generate representation and expression. From different perspectives, it is possible to convey the complexity of reality, which is not contradictory at all, neither artistically nor rationally. And therefore not even truly so.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
STRATIFICATION
The screen of conventions obscures character, making it impossible to distinguish personal qualities from the skills required to perform a given task. Actions conform to the grayness of institutional correctness; the superstructure impedes any attempt at humanity; in some areas, it rots and contaminates what it conceals. Or the underlying rot infects the forms of kindness, which alters reality with its uniform veil. The task of education and culture, and the purpose of individual development, is to activate all components of character and harmonize them with those of past, present, and future human beings. Kindness is therefore a spontaneous and necessary consequence.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
When an individual deviates from the customs of the social system in which he finds himself, it is easily recognizable.
Michael Cea
Fortunately, individuals can distance themselves from the norms of the social system in which they find themselves, because their message can then be clearly perceived, even if perhaps not as clearly understood. However, individuals can send a message to their peers and indicate that difference is possible, or perhaps better, desirable.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
A tangled line with a torn mark tells of the bruise of a weary soul. Rupture, separation, a world that shatters, love tainted by an angry cry. Yet the thread that binds rises again: a fraternal embrace of humanity all around.
Graziano Gismondi
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES
The constraints of dominant intellectual frameworks limit experience to the binary logic of true-false, right-wrong, good-bad, friend-enemy. Conventional language fails to express the kaleidoscope of spiritual states and emotions, the vital nature of experience, but that is not its purpose. Its sole function is probably to maintain opposition and division, the suppression of the spirit. Though well-crafted and pervasive, the imposition at some point loosens and begins to collapse.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THE TIES OF THE HEART
Weaving bonds. With oneself and with the world. Creating relationships that arise suddenly and connect through sensitivity. Knowing that the human being is a bridge connecting the essences that make up the multicultural and multiracial universe we inhabit. It is the awareness of being alive. Always. The charm of this work by Michele Cea lies not only in the versatility of the colors and the threads that intersect like roads, like the ever-changing path we must face every day. Here, the artist blends painting with the craftsmanship that characterizes all his work. And opens the doors of consciousness and knowledge. Every fine white fiber joins the coarser black one: it is life that embraces you in its beauty but can also crush you with its cruelty. There is no title, but the freedom to choose to sew the work to itself, continuing the story Michele began. Like Ariadne's thread guides us, like the thread of the Fates reminds us of our destiny. With one certainty: no scissors can sever the bond with the heart of those who have truly loved, love, and will love.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
THE RELATIVITY OF OPPOSITES
Every opposition is seemingly definitive and indisputable. A step forward is to admit that each opposite essentially contains the other and cannot exist without its correlative term. The next interpretation realizes that contrariety is debatable. Another step forward is to use contradiction as a dialectical process for a new vision, to acknowledge the appearance of opposition, to identify common elements, to transcend specialized intellectual conception, to represent phenomena as they are and not in relation to anything else: yet again, new images and unprecedented thoughts.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION
Art does not conceal or disguise reality with its technique, but rather reveals its subject, which before representation was a generic entity or perhaps only an instant in the thunderous cosmic flow. In his work, the artist presents reality and creates the tools and codes to interpret it. Free in his expression, he magnanimously leaves his peers an equal freedom of interpretation, which they then use in the only way possible; the message is understood.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
In order not to remain alienated from the surrounding socio-cultural environment, everyone unconsciously consents to or is influenced by the norms in force there.
Michael Cea
Whether or not one succeeds in detaching it from the cosmic flow, the individual self will remain part of it, even reluctantly. In both cases, it exercises its spiritual and representative activity clearly and independently; that is, it asserts itself, but not necessarily in opposition to the other.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
HERE AND NOW
The artist can and must create the conditions for his interpretation to be expressible and, above all, comprehensible to his fellow human beings. Representation is possible because, after long and painful development, the prerequisites have been restored. But it is now inevitable to translate the subject into spiritual terms, to insert it into the representation. This, too, is the artist's task. For his part, through asceticism, man reclaims his nature and his unique qualities—reason, intelligence, kindness, benevolence. Both of these uninterrupted chains of necessary causes lead man, the author, subject, and recipient of artistic communication, to meditate here and now on his human and creative condition.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
In what is today's global village, we have the opportunity to confront and confuse ourselves with more than one reality.
Michael Cea
Interpreting the other through various forms and scales subjectively and objectively represents the living subject. Every other is unknown; if we enter into a relationship with them, beauty emerges from this relationship. The attempt to adapt subjective criteria of interpretation to the other is the risk and exhilaration of leaving the self; only this allows us to approach understanding.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
DEBRIS
Rational asceticism leaves earthly dross as a representable residue in the work. From enlightenment onward, perishable forms are no longer necessary for artistic expression; the intellect directs its pure gaze to the infinite worlds of the spirit and gains the possibility of immediate communication and mutual understanding, which also determine their subject matter and how to approach it.
Abstract: After enlightenment, concrete forms are no longer necessary for artistic expression, because creative intelligence directly understands, without the need for representations, the subject and the manner of communication.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Depending on the intensity of the emotions, the different sides of the personality are revealed.
Michael Cea
From the murky material depths to the edge of representation, to the removal of artifice, matter, and distinction. Asceticism forces the gradual elimination of the superfluous and leaves the self in evidence.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THE CREATIVE IMPULSE IN POWER AND ACT
As long as spiritual activity remains confined to a narrow sphere, its strength grows, but it remains inert. However, generous intelligence overflows, and as soon as it transcends arbitrarily imposed limitations, it generates grace and creativity even in the mere act of seeing—or, what amounts to the same thing, of existing. For oneself or for others, this is the alternative when faced with a blank canvas.
Abstract: The ongoing creative impulse transcends arbitrary disciplinary boundaries and spontaneously produces grace and beauty for self and others.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
The harmony and balance between the cultural assumptions of each individual allows them to recognize themselves and assume a well-defined social role, which does not happen when these are not in relation and harmony with each other.
Michael Cea
The dominant mentality or faith imposes an arbitrary order, within which phenomena are inserted and corrected, so that they acquire the meaning that justifies the order. Outside of this order, each person can perceive reality as it presents itself; their interpretation coincides with their capacity or possibility of expression. But representation with pre-established forms is necessarily false; one might call it presumption.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
All individuals, willingly or unwillingly, carry their own socio-cultural baggage, as well as scars.
Michael Cea
Only a portion of experience is communicable, because codes of expression obey conventional rules and constrain the interpretation of experience, and perhaps even experience itself, within pre-existing frameworks and concepts. This is a great advantage, because the alternative is silence. The indicative and provisional nature of conscious communicative acts should encourage us to continually seek new opportunities for exchange, and to rejoice in any communicative success.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
DOMINANT IDEA
Art gathers disorder into a comprehensible whole; what was once formless and manifold matter is connected to the universal dimension and elevated to the plane of meaning. The ascending movement permeates the work and directs its meaning to a higher level, one that requires no representations, codes, or languages. Wherever one begins and whatever path one takes, the goal is the realization of the spirit, which benevolently guides even those who are drawn reluctantly or unawarely.
Abstract: Art rationalizes empirical disorder and connects it to the universal plane of meaning through the work, which beneficially contributes to increasing the awareness of the artist and his audience.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
IN SUBTLE BALANCE
Every order is an extremely precarious balancing act(Walter Benjamin).
A rope as a dividing line between appearance and being. We are suspended in a reality in which massification seeks to build a wall around us, confining us to a single vision of things and ourselves. Michele Cea's artistic journey has always been marked by a frenetic and constant exploration of the relationships that interact between human beings. An analysis between what is conventional and seemingly reassuring and what is different and therefore perceived as strange, alien, from another dimension. The upper part of his installation adheres to the standard that society seeks to impose: rigorously compliant with the rules, it sways at the mercy of passing fashions, devoid of personality but now part of a system that prescribes categories of meaning. There is no room for free expression to reveal what is within. But by changing perspective, a metamorphosis occurs: the lower canvas is unhinged by the independent force of thought and form. It is the very essence of being human and being an artist: original, unique, and sincere. It presents itself to the world in its primordial guise. It takes effort to understand this. Just as it requires considerable effort to forge relationships and embrace others as they truly are. Michele expresses the urgent need to establish connections. It's precisely when you think you know something that you need to look at it from another perspective. An intuition that took shape in the artist's thinking and in the materials combined to make visible what isn't always visible.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
CREATIVE FUSION
The elements of the creative impulse are united in the work: reality, the code of communication, and freedom of expression. The asceticism in full sunlight has strengthened the gaze, which can focus directly on reality, to represent it.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
EVERYTHING FLOWS
Good, justice, and spirit arise from life and custom. Abstract theories and entrenched conventions artificially bind them to the dominant mentality. Irrational and obsolete explanations are maintained, new ones are fabricated, to increase subjection. The natural flow is immobilized, its vitality replaced by fixity and inertia. Neither imprisonment nor division are suited to the spirit.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
TRAINING
Perhaps the artist's task is to explore humanity, not to represent it. And he must expend great effort, acquire clear intelligence, good friends, and great vitality, diligently eliminate sloth and existential illness, to learn the rigorous discipline of technique, reflection, and communication. The subject and the foundations of art can only be reestablished by a clear and direct gaze; the work has only just begun.
Abstract: The subject and conditions of art will be restored by creative intelligence, rigorous and multifaceted discipline, and benevolent collaboration between artist and audience.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
UNTITLED
Perhaps the laws of nature, which govern the structure of the cosmos, are not as ironclad and imperative as has always been believed. Indeed, the scientific theories that contain them are reformulated from century to century, and the efforts of predecessors are treated with indulgent superiority. One can admit infinite possibilities of existence, infinite ways of life, infinite forms, infinite colors, and infinite interpretations; one need not conform to prevailing opinions: determining meaning is a rational, empirical, and individual activity.
Summary: The prevailing opinion is unequivocal and changeable. Every intelligent and creative human being finds within himself the infinite explanations of his world.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
UNTITLED
Pain, rupture, and separation are part of life, and the artist's work gives them meaning. It doesn't completely eliminate them, because they are real, but rational activity removes the conditions and, above all, the consequences of conflict, because it illustrates their irrationality.
Summary: Creative activity heals the painful tear and accelerates its healing.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
CLEAR AND DISTINCT IDEAS
On an empirical level, phenomena are multiple and fragmented, at times contradictory and even harrowing. The thoughts derived from them are elaborated by intelligent reflection along a univocal and linear path, yet not without deviations, interruptions, and lacerations. At times, research requires a shift in perspective and a double effort, but ultimately, clear and distinct ideas are available as a guide to practical and artistic activity.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
TEARS IN THE RAIN
All languages, experiences, and scientific reasoning isolate and interpret parts of reality. Most phenomena are overlooked and perhaps even ignored. Some explanations conflict, but they coexist within the particular theory in an overall coherence. From his timeless perspective, the artist views human endeavors with sympathy, recognizes the arbitrarily imposed limits on research, and transcends them.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
1) Individual history
Life has moments of crisis or breakdown. What holds it together, despite this, is the subjective conceptual framework, the thought that derives from it and binds it to the self.
2) Experience
After an experience, what remains is the memory, which is not continuous, and is missing at some points—perhaps because it isn't entirely relevant. From the level of memories, the connections and relationships between the subjects of the experience emerge and remain evident, submerging themselves within the self and constituting its structure.
3) A man
The screen of the personality, which protects the self, is torn at certain points, allowing it to shine through. The messages consciously formulated and communicated as symbols provide a barely adequate interpretative framework; most likely, they are merely a possible framework for rational explanation, but they emanate from the self and constitute it as their essence and psychic structure.
4) Self-portrait
The skin opens, where the soul enters, and bears the marks of the message consciously represented as a symbol, which is an integral part of the soul. The individual life of the body and the artistic message coincide. Precisely for this reason, they are interchangeable, and when the first ceases, the other continues. Therefore, not even the first truly ceases.
5) Twentieth century
The veil of convention is torn at some points, revealing its superficiality, but the linear rational superstructure holds it upright, weaving it deeply, and forcing within its meshes whatever does not immediately fit. The rational order eliminates, with abstractions and tortuous reasoning, the apparent imperfections and empirical deformities that derive from the structure of the individual self. The rational order, on the other hand, is based on conventions, which are superficially impeccable, and is supported or even tolerated by the individual self, which necessarily emerges when social conventions allow it.
6) On earth
Humans are born from the earth and form more or less intense relationships with one another. Their connections with Mother Earth constitute the cosmos, which is difficult to reconstruct in a unified perspective. This is the difficulty of experience.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
Just as the steps of a ladder allow us to go up or down, socio-cultural norms also allow us to follow a path that can be evolutionary or involutive.
Michael Cea
The ascetic path of elevation initially requires some technique, like a ladder. The closer a person approaches self-realization, the less he needs technique.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
COLONIZATION
The creative impulse gradually and inexorably translates reality into meaningful work. Intelligent and creative human beings collaborate benevolently, each according to their strengths, in the work of interpretation.
Abstract: Rational activity transforms reality and makes it available for interpretative collaboration.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
TO GIVE YOURSELF
A blank canvas with a golden ribbon, the kind used to wrap gifts, especially the most precious ones. In short, the ones you truly care about. Delicately wrapped for a special person. And for an artist, offering their blank canvas as a gift is like giving themselves, their intimate and inscrutable dimension. The work surface is like a page on which to express their feelings. The feelings of a child who opens the doors to their world, saying: this is me, interpreter and critic on the stage of life, and I'm about to share what I feel, what I sense. A seemingly incomprehensible gift, but one that, over time, has revealed its true meaning. Even more than any painted, elaborate, scratched, and torn work, it contains a noble emotional symbolism. It is the constant presence in memory and in the possibility, every time the gaze meets the milky white and the golden bow, of dreaming. Dreaming of a subject, a color, dreaming of the artist at work. Giving what is good and being the most precious thing: everything we learned as children, passed down through a mother's love, has been transformed into the candid offering of this canvas, capable of becoming a talisman that cuddles and caresses the wounded heart.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
A PROMISE KEPT
A small work that opens onto a transcendent dimension. A writing behind the lacerating wounds of life. The shreds of a spirit that never ceases to vibrate. The final cry of one who has built, in the world, a place for his art, the root of extreme sensitivity. He demonstrated with disarming simplicity the social complexity of the universe around him and, like a modern Atlas, he bore its weight, transforming toil and suffering into a revolutionary artistic act. To the point of creating an artifact, a latent portrait of someone who knows how to observe the most intimate and hidden collective dynamics. Why a promise kept? Because in those two words, Michele is there, he is there and always will be. Every time we look at his works, every time we talk about him, every time the light in our eyes shines in memory of him. And his "Torno Subito" takes shape in the material form of a soul inextricably connected to those who loved him and continue to love him. Knock on the door, come in, Michele will welcome you into his artistic empyrean.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
FREELY ON “I'LL BE BACK SOON”
This work is both simple and complex, because it confronts us with a simple, everyday contradiction. "I'll be right back." How many times have we encountered this message, without realizing one essential fact: its contradictory nature. Like black and white, the opposites that dominate the work, " I'll be right back " is first and foremost the coexistence of two irreconcilable terms. "Right back" makes "return" impossible, because returning implies a distance that "right away" cannot bridge. A simple contradiction laid bare in a work of art, which perhaps can become the symbol of a thousand other contradictions that imprint themselves, unconsciously, on our normal thinking (or lack thereof). Contradictions as entangling as the strings outside the frame, which lock the individual into an unrealizable depth.
But "I'll be right back" can also shift from the sociological to the existentialist, when it becomes a symbol of our alibis, our proposals. A message that inherently implies a profound unease: those who encounter this message in their daily lives are disappointed, longing, waiting. Above all, they find themselves in the psychological state of not finding who, or what, they expected to find. Perhaps a symbol for ourselves and of ourselves: how many goals we would like to achieve and how long we will have to wait, although the threads beyond the frame, like spiderwebs, seem to show us that time is the only force that truly advances in our wait that leads nowhere. And that "right away" becomes increasingly vague.
Professor Daniele Fumagalli
HYPERTROPHY
Linguistic and social conventions protect and defend the individual creative impulse, but at the same time they restrain and isolate it. In rare cases and within restricted contexts, barriers dissolve, connection is immediate and follows the spontaneous tendency toward friendship and familiarity.
Abstract: The disease of intellectual division causes an unnatural separation between human beings.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
SURPLUSES
Dominant ideas, conventions, and social conditioning penetrate deeply within the individual and enable relationships and connections with others. Some of these bonds tightly bind the interior to the social environment. Others are looser, allowing some freedom of movement and interpretation, but within a limited range. Their excess ensures that control is continuous and adapted to changing circumstances.
Abstract: The individual is bound by social conventions to his social context, even when he feels free from them.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
THE ARTIST'S COURAGE
The creative impulse pierces the dense fog of conflicting theories and social conventions and immediately grasps reality in its constituent elements. It does not eliminate outdated conceptions, because they have had their meaning; it simply places them within a broader horizon and gives them a meaning more in keeping with reality.
Summary: The creative impulse simultaneously grasps reality and eliminates the veil that alters it.
Prof. Cristiano Rocchio
SIGNS OF LIFE
Signs of life, expressions of a necessity. The need for change that takes the form of a crack in the darkness. Breaking free from common rules, Michele Cea leads the way, indicating how time changes many things in our lives. Darkness seems to dominate the scene, but the artist's gesture of caesura indelibly marks the canvas in a clear statement. His task is to free society from convention, thus allowing the most intimate part of himself to dialogue with the entire universe.
Professor Massimiliano Porro
