Stumbling upon the work of Italian sculptor Willy Verginer can only dazzle. Born in 1957, the artist carves his masterpieces out of lime tree wood and covers them with detail-less tint areas of acrylic paint and gold.
His statues can be isolated, or gathered in groups, depending of the mood of their creator. They are young women and men, still children and teenagers, extracting themselves from a coating of flowers, like buds of humanity ready to blossom. The Italian expression used to name this series is ‘a fior di pelle’, describing hyper sensitivity and translated verbatim means: ‘to flower of skin’, a very poetic meaning to express the fragility of the youth and the ability to dream.
The sculptures gestures are elegant and their poise is calling to serenity, whilst avoiding the sensation of inertness: you could easily envision that you are witnessing a Qigong class or a poetic version of the neighborhood of Medusa’s den.
Each piece is extremely realistic, almost creating an illusion of body painting, of living statue, ready to come to life. Touching or viewing, they leave no one indifferent.
