Scrolls, Boxes, and Trees: Manuela Filiaci's Work

A certain streak of rebellion runs through various phases of Manuela Filiaci's work. She has produced huge, colored scrolls of oil paint on paper. The rolled edges of these objects challenge the idea of a painting hanging flat on the wall, under a nail and inside a frame, the way traditional paintings do. On the contrary, Filiaci's scrolls would like to be touched and opened out even further. In addition, the scrolls' wavy sides reinforce the transformation of oil paint into free-breathing color-the latter acquiring the force of a being that wishes to be light and water at the very same time. Yellow, blue, red, and green move, flow, walk, and change themselves on the surface of the paper. Many of Filiaci's scrolls carry subtle markings like those left on an old wall in a place or a space soon to be lost forever.