Nebula, 2021

Nebula, 2021 silicon, wood, paint, pigment 180 × 133 × 5.7 cm

Safavi’s framed silicone monochromes investigate the limit between reality and fiction, dream and awareness. The silicone surface appears to symbolise that limit, as a sort of gate that would connect two dimensions. If you get closer to the surface, the outlines of the silicones will disappear and you will be traveling between small craters of air bubbles. Safavi sees these particularities as metaphors of the mind. In her work, she proposes an experimental reflection on the materiality creating analogies with a fragmented vision of the figure of the body, its identities and its metamorphoses.

In the last 10 years Safavi has been looking a lot into the whole family of rubbers, mostly for their characteristic to be soft, elastic and transformative, calling the heritage of the “soft sculpture” or  the “Antiform” movement, which use industrial material in a more sensitive way. For the artist, silicone, latex, wax and all kind of rubbers, soft and pliable, have the very particular ability to attract inner and hidden emotions.

All photos by Andrea Rossetti