AESTHETICS OF DECAY

This piece is inspired by the natural progress of time using the basic materials of the wall it depicts — stone, brick and mortar, glass, wood and metal — to explore the intrinsic beauty of the decaying process. Paints blend and bleed into each other, stones crumble, steel rusts, glass shatters, graffiti comes and goes. Ironically, Aesthetics of Decay is rendered in mosaic, traditionally art’s most durable medium, meant to last centuries. In this sense, it also explores the role of mosaic in art, by asking a fundamental question, is this piece a sculpture, a painting, or a mosaic? Or is it really just a piece of a wall?

I created this mosaic, ‘estetica del degrado,’ while attending L'Accademia di belle arti di Ravenna, Italy. I would ride my bike from the centro to la scuola in the frigid Ravenna winter, stopping along the way to take in the sheer beauty of the cities’ centuries old architecture, its worn door stoops, subtly cracked and aging stucco, thickly painted shutters, all of it sweetly aged into something uniquely beautiful.

Aesthetics of Decay was subsequently chosen to be included in the first edition of the International Festival of Contemporary Mosaic, RavennaMosaico, October-November, 2009.

Materials: Smalti, Marble, Granite, Iron, Stone, Found Objects

48” x 1/2” x 48”