If it is true that being artistic nowadays cannot have a precise connotation and explanation as it does not necessarily lead towards a particular and unambiguous goal, it is equally true that the work of a sculptor, at its highest level of communication, is elevated to a meaning of a general nature that transcends the limits of the universe and pure artistry. In their different means of expression, artists are increasingly attracted to investigate the invisible, to seek answers in the beyond to their cultural and existential questions, equipped with age-old human knowledge to try to anticipate the future. For this purpose each one tries their own road, following paths that can go far beyond our solar system and ever deeper into what we call reality.

In the works of Gianfranco Meggiato, space and time may be considered forms of thought that are indeterminate and indeterminable, without beginning or end. His creation of art, therefore, despite not having a direct relation with reality, starts with the aim of an ongoing dialogue with nature and with humanity, in a challenge with matter, with form, with light and with space that takes shape from the solid roots of tradition via the most daring sculptural choices of our times. He produces all-round images that correspond to profound self-referential visual syntheses, sometimes in an apparent duality between them, the unique things that can be represented at that precise moment in tune with his own ideas and inner promptings tied to the genesis of matter.

All the objects that surround us have a common characteristic – they are made of atoms. From the very genesis of philosophy, man has been committed to working out what matter is and only in the last two centuries have humans been able to understand that it is formed by the aggregation of an innumerable number of elementary particles. It is believed that the components necessary for the origin of life came to the earth in violent meteorite bombardments around four billion years ago. Organic molecules travelling on board these meteorites remained imprisoned while our planet was still in a nebulous stage. The chemical compounds that gave rise to life, therefore, may have been formed on meteorites thanks to the energy of a crucial ingredient – solar wind. Blowing violently at thousands of miles an hour right up to the edge of the solar system, this mysterious wind sheltered the earth from dangerous cosmic radiation, creating a sort of protective cage which allowed the genesis of life.

Almost all the works of Meggiato have something valuable to protect, an element whose form is perceived by each individual person, and that uses light to bring out its shape and colour, substance and essence. Its nuclei could represent the particles of the genesis of all life forms, the primordial heart that, protected by the evolution of dense, concrete matter, gave rise to the Whole. His sculptures, in fact, are formed of two parts: a central core, almost always a sphere or a disc that is large to a greater or lesser extent, which seems guarded by a changeable cage, never the same, which takes possession of the space enclosing the spirals of matter.

“The genesis of the Whole,” says Meggiato, “the starting point of my sculptural search, refers to the microcosm, the birth of the first forms of life and the formation of the primordial energy. Some of my works, especially the spheres, seem pulsating biological nuclei or molecular compositions rotating in space. In my works the void is as important as the substantial because the most valuable things are intangible. Matter, the compositional structures and the forms that characterise my sculptures refer to man and the journey within oneself in order to know oneself, to understand who or what he or she really is. At the beginning of my artistic career, in fact, I called my way of working Introscultura (Interior Sculpture) because in my works all the attention was, and still is, directed inside, to our essential inner journey.”

Quantum physics describes the behaviour of matter and radiation, and all their interactions both as wave and particle phenomena. In the early twentieth century, Albert Einstein demonstrated the photo-electric effect via the hypothesis that light rays could carry particles called photons – whose energy is directly proportional to the corresponding wavelength – which give up part of their energy to electrons, freeing them from the conductor. At the same time in those years Max Planck stated that energy is emitted not in continuous form but in packets that the German scientist called quanta. From this theory two formulas on the nature of energy would arise. The first is that energy takes a wave form and the second that it assumes the form of particles. Both these hypotheses have the innate connotation of a non-naturalistic form.

In Meggiato’s sculptures, the complex ramifications that wrap around themselves, chase each other and open excitedly around the initial nucleus could indeed allude to energy, understood as the genesis of forms that can be examined with the help of light through a perceptual approach capable of giving optical substance to something that does not reveal itself clearly to reason and to the single sense of sight.

The Venetian sculptor, through the study of quantum mechanics, brings with him the opportunity to encounter what would normally be invisible, the form of those energy processes that without a cerebral and visceral awareness would remain in the shadows. Visible matter, therefore, becomes a substantial factor in contemporary epistemology, in which intuitive awareness, combined with the passing reality of science, ensures that the individual is not lost in the alluring labyrinth of the beyond.

“In this historic period,” explains Meggiato, “quantum physics is profoundly revolutionising contemporary thought; it is not chance that the work on the cover is entitled Sfera Quantica (Quantum Sphere). The latest theories of quantum physics assert the existence of parallel universes and bring the three parameters that have always defined the nature of our universe into serious question – space, time and energy – to the extent of suggesting that we live in a virtual universe. Everything would occur and would have always occurred at the same time and the same place. These are shocking theories about which an artist living in his own era cannot remain indifferent. A scientific experiment that struck me was the one where the photons, the basic particles in the creation of matter, changed nature and became waves or rays according to whether an observer was or was not participating in the experiment. This participation alone caused a change in the state of the particle. Incredible! This poses a question for us: is man really what the prevailing culture has always wanted us to believe or is there something greater, or even far greater? Becoming aware that our spiritual side can change this virtual world leads inevitably to the issue of the very nature of the human being. In sculpture these theories are pushing me towards more primordial, almost tribal, forms. Balance is often sacrificed to dynamism, the voids expand and borders are often pointed or with sharp edges. My new artistic search has produced works such as: Oltre, Sfera Orione, Sfera Aldebaran, Verso la Libertà, Mizar, Scorpius, Taurus, Sfera Quantica and Sfera Aurea.”

The concept of making the genesis of matter visible becomes a fundamental element in the perception of the works of Meggiato, in which there is no cognitive priority or pre-ordered scanning of the elements that make up the work, but rather the invitation towards a different cognitive process because it opens up – despite talking of physics – an important contribution of creativity. The process of creating new forms, however, is always unique and that is why it requires a mind that is both rational and instinctive.

Especially in the artist’s later works, art is no longer an existential tool of representation, but rather a creative means linked to the display of the energy of the Whole in ways expressible through his experience and his vivid imagination. His sphere could represent the element of contact with subatomic space (form), while the enigmatic protective cage could summarise the material consistency of waves and particles to understand their structures, transformations, combinations, relationships, origins and their possible appearances. The Venetian sculptor works at the epistemological level because, starting from science and through craft and creativity, he provides a contribution to the knowledge of the essence of reality.

His goal is to get to the heart of things, to the deepest and most spiritual part of life. Sculpting means engaging in continuous changes involving his most cerebral, spiritual and profound side in relation to a vision that goes beyond what we usually call reality, though never abandoning altogether the modernday Renaissance concepts related to the harmonies between the substantial and the void (the void in some cases turns out to be more relevant than the substantial), between light and shadow, and between space and form. Meggiato is aware of following a path with many questions, with numerous vulnerabilities related to points of view that can never be proven scientifically and that, more often than not, create doubts in a public less and less willing to go beyond what they see, to believe in the mysteries of knowledge, of science and of our existence.

The genesis of the soul and esoteric symbols

One of the tasks of the art of our times, in addition to manifesting itself as a form of communication in its purest form, is to bring to the surface and demonstrate the internal and intellectual work of the artist. The visual arts, like any discipline established for a theoretical understanding of the cosmos, could represent for humanity what one’s own consciousness represents for each individual.

The result is a form of expression understood as an awareness of seeking knowledge of the universe. Meggiato’s approach is to listen before doing, a kind of philosophy of life linked to the desire for knowledge and self-knowledge that drives him to penetrate into the very heart of all the phenomena he wishes to examine. Spiritual life achieves its completion in the constant search for truth in the soul of things.

Conventionally, the term indicates the principle of the conscious activity of an individual and the genesis of the life of every living thing. Someone like Gianfranco Meggiato is dedicated to art, using it as a means of experimentation, research and investigation of forms, materials, light and space, and may be involved in a spiritual process that aims to investigate the very depths and essence of every human being – the soul.

Seeking the truth of things, confronting the infinite laws of the universe, means opening ourselves completely to the innermost part, projecting ourselves into other dimensions capable of questioning the meaning of everything we call reality. His sculptures open up a series of unlikely but possible paths, numerous opportunities for exploration, but only one of these will allow each viewer to reach that perception that we might call ideal. The unpredictable element, though, is that the appropriate path will be different for each person, depending on their memories, knowledge, desire to share and intellectual, emotional, experiential and participatory courage.

The soul can also become the seat of rationality, the means by which man can come to understand the beyond. Each of Meggiato’s works includes more concrete and logical processes together with, especially in the phases of working the material, lucid expression and instinctive mastery of space. In some of the more recent works, the sculptor has opened the forms even more with an original arrangement of the finer and more curving elements towards the light. What once seemed a barrier difficult to overcome has transformed itself into a harmonic ramification arranged, with greater dynamism, elegance and primal propulsive force, to dialogue with the void and to liberate itself in space.

“Does the Soul exist?”, Meggiato asks himself, “And if it exists, what is it?” A very interesting theory, based on countless regressive hypnosis sessions on different people, divides mankind fundamentally into three elements within a bodily envelope – the mind which is the reasoning part, the spirit which is the instinctive and vital part, and the soul. These three elements, often at odds with each other, are the ultimate cause of all human misery and only harmony between them can lead to so-called inner peace. The soul does not have a temporal dimension; to understand its true nature it can only do one thing: divide itself, reflect on itself and observe itself, hence the creation of a dual universe, where there exist two opposing faces of the soul. From this context would arise our process of acquisition of consciousness, an intimate and personal process, where even negative experience may serve our own inner growth, where each soul must be able to go through its own experiences and make its own mistakes. These dynamics have much in common with the process of creating a work of art. In fact, the artist, like an alchemist, is able to translate the metal ingot or raw marble into a lively and pulsating material capable of giving, and giving over time, strong emotions as well as providing many insights. Creating a work of art is undoubtedly a voyage of discovery where the artist who creates, often in an unconscious way, needs interior reflection to try to understand what the work means to him or her.”

Rejecting the idea of ​​history as a flux, creator and container of every link between existing entities, in the Venetian sculptor’s works, the need to make concrete the interior/exterior dialectic of each phenomenon of life is expressed. Sometimes one has the impression that his works are an attempt to direct existence to other dimensions, to escape into a sort of journey to rediscover the condition of the spirit and the soul. In his recent works, Meggiato seems to ignore the material as such, as well as the appearance of the phenomenon, to force the dynamics of new structures that are projected onto plausible if improbable universes, alluding to images that should function as a reference to ideas, an insistence on highly personal symbols.

The symbol – the diverse geometric forms, different colours and allusions to the genesis of primal forms – becomes the favoured vehicle for the beyond, as the dream is for the unconscious, acting in the depths of our being in ways that defy reason. At the centre of any symbol, however, there is a nucleus that will never yield to any attempt at rational interpretation even if, in some cases, the allusions may seem obvious.

In the case of Gianfranco Meggiato, we cannot speak of truly esoteric art, but what is certain is that in his later works, spiritual, conceptual, mystic and fantastic tendencies are interwoven and take us into dimensions tied to the supernatural. The sculptor is driven by a vision that is not so far from the voyage of discovery of the hero. In this case, the goal is a personal growth that leads to a balance between mind, spirit, body and soul by integrating into the consciousness the deepest parts of the psyche.

“Symbolism,” confirms Meggiato, “has been the basis of artistic expression since the very beginning. Works that have shaped the history of art, such as the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, are infused with symbolic meanings. Not surprisingly, the messages of the great masters often point in a single direction. In the Mona Lisa, Leonardo creates a figure that joins the feminine to the masculine in a synthesis that refers to the search for unity and to the final point of arrival. Metaphorically, the bright central sphere which is often present in my works refers to our most hidden part in which are reflected, as an accumulation of experiences, all the intricate patterns of the inner labyrinths of my sculptures. As if to say that the most complex moments in life can actually also be the most important because often, they are the crises that push us to achieve awareness. We are spiritual beings, temporarily in a physical body, we are here to learn, to grow, and perhaps eventually we will recall who we really are.”

Art transcends time and space and, through the invisible threads of traditions linked to the supernatural, artists of long ago inhabit a parallel dimension, where their eye looks beyond appearances, directly into the unchanging world of ideas and archetypes, represented by that symbol that aims to offer compositional structures capable of enhancing the quality of the spirit.

The genesis of the beyond and the supernatural

Every day we wake up, have breakfast, go to work and produce, depending on our profession, ideas and thoughts to improve our position and our lives. In some cases we pursue success, trying to prove that humans are masters of their own destiny and able to change the destiny of their own lives. While it is natural to experience every moment of our existential journey serenely, we also ask ourselves questions about the role of human beings in the universe, confronted by adversity or dramatic coincidences that make us doubt the existence of a destiny which will be fulfilled independently of our own will. After all, it was its own insecurities and emotions in the face of rationally inexplicable facts that brought humanity to philosophy or religion or a higher power. Humans were invited by God himself to a supernatural destiny, to base their existence on something that is not scientifically discoverable, aware of finding a logic by seeking revelation. Reason in itself can help analyse the natural world, the body and the soul, but it cannot examine humanity in its essence, in its desire to transcend the natural, in its systematically longing for the beyond and the infinite. There cannot exist, therefore, a real knowledge of man without one or more supernatural dimensions in a context entirely similar to the natural dimension, but at the same time completely different because it is based on a depth of thought that allows experiencing and seeing any phenomenon from other perspectives than reason alone would consider conventional. Ever since man has become aware of this, knowledge of the natural can no longer be sufficient.

Meggiato has made independence, enterprise, experimentation, the sense of belonging, introspection, the investigation of nature and the study of symbolic, esoteric and socio-anthropological phenomena a means to learn, to know oneself and to allow each person to look again at nature through intellectual and meditational processes. His works are often related to thinking of introspective identities seen from a contemporary perspective. At a time when the natural can be interpreted and examined from any perspective and with any conceivable instrument, the sculptor invites us to recover an awareness of the remote past, the strength of our origins and those primordial energies that complement and distinguish the individual in the age of globalisation. In all his work we recognise an attempt to unite opposites (light and shadow, substantial and void), to create dialogue between structures and things seemingly unconnected to each other (materials, structures, colours and forms), where the supernatural can turn itself into the common thread that binds everything in the world.

“Unlike most sculptors,” Meggiato concludes, “in my work, I do not start from initial drawings or sketches; rather I start to wrestle with the wax straightaway in an attempt to make the idea of ​​the work concrete as it emerges in my mind. Mine is a voyage of discovery, into the unknown, in a dark and intricate forest, as the black and tortuous labyrinths of my sculptures often are, but then a clearing opens and the work finds its direction and its culmination. I like to experience the creation of a work moment by moment with no preconceptions that would make me recreate myself. The rational aspect, if at all, takes over later, as the final moment in the finishing of the work. Only the freedom given to our most instinctive and pure side lets us engage, in the creative moment, with the deeper and most hidden part of ourselves and of the universe.”

Today everything is expressed as a universal tug of war. Every time we try to improve one aspect of our lives that we do not like, we rely on willpower, starting a game of tug of war with ourselves in the knowledge that we are bound to lose, whatever the outcome. Only the supernatural spirit that dwells within us can give us the power to change things, but only after changing ourselves. If we admit the intervention of something superior to the origin of mankind, if we believe that the universe is ordered by the divine will, we must consider the hypothesis that God has let all people, once instructed and made independent, follow their existential journey freely and independently, searching for their own light. Meggiato makes us understand how confronting society, daily life and the problems of the third millennium empower people and create an ongoing dialogue with a shared destiny.

Maurizio Vanni

One of the things that a conscientious art critic must consider be- fore writing an essay is the structure of the text, which is to say the context within which to place the artist under consideration. Usually, you will try to analyse the historical period and find a more or less au- dacious connection to create continuity, comparison or detachment. But at a moment in history like this, is there a precise context? Is there a cultural identity or something that distinguishes, on an inter- national level and with certainty, the here and now of contemporary culture? Twenty years on, how will we remember the first decade of the third millennium? We are probably living in the least ‘ordered’ moment of the last fifty years, where everything and its opposite be- come plausible if supported by knowledge, shrewdness and a solid socio-economic investment.
Gianfranco Meggiato is one of those artists who can never be con- fined within a spatial or temporal category of art history, or studied in terms of comparisons with, or references to, artists of the past. The Venetian sculptor consciously decided to become an artist in response to a distinct predisposition for the discipline. He works in the awareness that he needs to select the medium appropriate to his experience and understanding of visual art, as well as to his consideration of himself as a man of his time and author of his own destiny, irrespective of the technique, style and materials chosen. Meggiato has no fear of responsibility or challenges; he has always shown attention and respect for the Renaissance arts and, perhaps partly because of this, has maintained an expressive code that is independent and recognisable over time, yet always changing. He leaves nothing to chance while establishing nothing in advance in studies or preparatory drawings. Everything that looks ‘within reach of the eye’ morphs into an enigma to be solved while what appears contorted, cryptic and impenetrable breaks down magically before our eyes, provided we surrender to his work, temporarily becoming an active, integral part of it.

To acquire a satisfactory personal perception of Meggiato’s work, we have to open our senses emotionally and rationally in a way that involves instinct, reason, eros and logos. It is a kind of initiation ri- tual to purify us of predictable prejudices and appearance-based visual influences. We must find the courage to overcome the barriers separating the superficial from the heart of the sculpture, and the finite from the infinite. At the core, the pulsing nucleus may be easily identifiable but tends in many cases to play a subordinate role, as if it were considered fragile or vulnerable.

Only with dedication, tactile participation and a touch of creative boldness can we reach our destination and get beyond exteriority – beyond the veil of Maya that encrypts everything in this world – to find within ourselves a key, our very own Ariadne’s thread as it were, to prevent us from losing our way in this maze of appealingly accessible manifestations.
When we evoke the labyrinth in history, we refer to a test, the si- gnificance of Theseus’ double mission: to kill the Minotaur and find the way out. But was it really necessary to kill the beast? Did the Minotaur really exist? Or was he simply the projection of the ego of a makeshift hunter who preferred to lie to himself to cling onto the comforting unseeingness of a reassuringly perennial gloom? Inside the labyrinth, and as we gaze on Meggiato’s visual art, there opens up a series of improbable but possible paths and many opportuni- ties to perceive, but only one will enable the individual explorer to arrive at his or her final destination. The unpredictable element is that the correct path will be different for each explorer, according to his or her memories, knowledge, desire to share emotions, intellectual courage and desire to participate. The myth has always brought out the eternal tension between the one and the many and between absolute reality and relative truth, and yet it provides a way to answer all of our questions: Ariadne’s thread, in the very moment in which it traverses the labyrinth, tends to obliterate it.
For Meggiato, making art corresponds to the aesthetic/conceptual urge for confrontation with nature and with humanity, an almost neo- Humanistic challenge through which to reread the classic stability of the past through the daring plastic potential of the present. Out of it emerge images in the round that do not replace other images but rather correspond to self-referential visual syntheses, sometimes in an apparent dualism among themselves, the only things represen- table in that precise moment in tune with his ideas and interior sug- gestions, even where some compositions have obvious elements of contrast.

The theory of Yin and Yang is an ancient doctrine that starts from a simple idea: everything that is turned toward the sun is Yang and everything turned away from it is Yin. We can classify any and every phenomenon of the universe starting from this idea.
Yin and Yang describe pairs of opposites that are found in conti- nuous relation with one another, an idea tied to certain Asian phi- losophies that have come to the conclusion that all of existence is duality. In many of his works, Meggiato presents us with a clear central nucleus, a defined geometric form – shiny, spherical, circular or elliptical – the fulcrum of a second, freer, less disciplined part, in strong contrast with the preceding one to the point of concealing it or mitigating its material consistency. Two antagonistic elements, but also two sides of the same coin that, although reciprocally restraining one another, belong to the same creative phenomenon, the same thought governing the invention. In practice, it is as if Meggiato had decided to unite, in the same dimension, the inconsistency of the soul and the weight of the body. ‘The human being is a spiritual being’, says Gianfranco Meggiato, ‘temporarily restricted in a physi- cal body. It is the duty of every artist to highlight the importance of humankind, relocating it in the centre of the universe and not consi- dering it a mere number’.
Meggiato’s goal is to arrive at the heart of things, the centre of his labyrinth, the deepest and most spiritual part of life. Searching for the essence of every phenomenon in order to open himself to his interior world and project himself toward other dimensions that cast doubt upon the meaning of everything that we take for granted in life. Modelling and sculpting mean engaging himself in continuous chan- ges that involve his deepest, most cerebral and spiritual essence in relation to a vision that goes beyond that which we usually define as reality while never entirely abandoning modern Renaissance-inspired concepts of the harmonies between solids and voids, light and sha- dows and space and form. Meggiato is aware of travelling a path full of questions. There are numerous weaknesses related to views that can never be scientifically demonstrated and that, most of the time, create perplexity in observers who are increasingly unwilling to go beyond what they see to believe in the mysteries of existence.
The cabbala is a point of encounter in a mosaic that brings toge- ther all esoteric and Orphic experiences. Its language describes me- taphorically certain categories of phenomena that go beyond ratio- nal and scientific comprehension. It offers a symbolism of ideas for talking about anything whatsoever without infringing on natural men- tal barriers that derive from lack of knowledge. Meggiato is drawn to a symbolism that permits him to freely express all of his ideas, establishing a connection between the essence of the form and its spiritual, moral and intellectual equivalent in order to better under- stand the meaning of Creation and of life. He knows that experien- ce, mental openness and study can provide him with an invaluable, energising awareness.

In Buddhism, Nirvana is the ultimate aim of life, the state that libera- tes from the pain caused by the three fundamental limits: yearning, hatred and illusion. In Nirvana, the spirit reaches the highest degree of consciousness. Meggiato explores, through a constantly evolving investigation and self-investigation, a path that permits him to leave the finite, superficial world and enter into contact with the limitless, infinite dimension of nature and of humankind. In his work, he en- counters the spirit of things. At that point, his own Ariadne’s thread consists in trying to circumscribe these perceptions, to define them and to give them form. Knowing how to intuit and correctly interpret the three-dimensional shape of an impression is an incredible skill for an artist but to acquire it, the artist must have a clear desire to go beyond: ‘The coherent artist brings to his work his own knowledge, his own everyday life and the figurative expressions of his own life, demonstrating that even the most difficult, complicated moments – which are never completely accidental – can transform into amazing opportunities’.
Spiritual life finds its completion in the constant search for truth. Meg- giato searches for the ultimate synthesis of his own truth in a never- ending struggle with matter. He deploys strategy, astuteness and authority to bend matter to his will, without ever fully depriving it of specificity. It is as if there were a secret affinity between the artist and the secret forces of nature that instinctively, almost magically, come together in the unpredictable repertoire of shapes that are always able to encapsulate them all: ‘We are spiritual beings in direct relation with the energies of the universe. We are part of those energies’.
What emerges are works with a sphere or a disc around which open up complex branches that twist excitedly as if searching for a fusion between volume and space, almost to the point of encrypting the original nucleus. Their aesthetic significance resides in formal rela- tionships, in their interaction with light and space through concretely abstract exterior forms: ‘There are two stages involved when I create a work. The first is about the idea, the interior vision that needs to confront matter, and the second is about execution, the battle with matter, which I respect, permitting it to manifest itself for what it is’.
The disc is a sun symbol representing cerebrality, interior luminosity and expressive power. It is light that has the power to defeat the dark lack of awareness, becoming an element to be perpetuated and preserved. Meggiato’s works, although distant from any plau- sibly realistic form, always have an air of familiarity. In some cases, shapes are perceived almost as if they had always been a part of our existence. His goal is always the vitality of volume. Approaching one of Meggiato’s works, we may be tempted to speak to it. We do not expect a reply but we have the sense that it might understand every single word, since we can hear it breathing: ‘Each work is the mirror of the person experiencing it’.

In some of his more recent pieces, Meggiato has opened up his forms even further with a new arrangement of the more slender, cur- ving parts facing the light. What at first looked to be a challenging barrier has been transformed into a harmonious branching arranged – with dynamism and refined elegance – in such a way as to dialogue with the void and free itself in space. He aims for a new symbolism of form, seeking to exalt the constant energy of his compositions and capable of translating the equivalent of a nature that he will never wholly abandon. He is aware that he will never stop growing, evol- ving and transforming. Gianfranco Meggiato is increasingly intere- sted in freeing matter from its physical weight in order to make it live and live again in the energy that will make it eternal.

Maurizio Vanni