Sasha Toli’s paintings are distinguished by a plurality of subjects, as demonstrated by the three works presented here. They share a hybrid symbolism that draws on mythology, religion and mysticism, enriched by references to popular culture and video games. The result is a series of imaginary landscapes with a distinctive character, often permeated by a naturalistic atmosphere, a tragicomic tension or a dreamlike quality: scenes that appear familiar yet always contain an element of surprise that prevents them from being fully recognised.
Ottavio cattura la dattilo-salamandra di Prometeo unfolds as a journey driven primarily by vision and imagination. In the foreground, a wizard – perhaps Ottavio himself – grasps a fiery creature by one of its tentacles, animating a rocky landscape. Behind them, the head of a reptile – the dactyl-salamander – can be seen extending its tongue towards the dense blanket of clouds. On the horizon, a threatening sky is torn open by a distant bolt of lightning. Dark clouds gather like an omen of an impending judgement or an approaching resolution. Familiar elements – such as Prometheus, the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods, and the salamander, a figure with a long symbolic association with fire – are combined with unfamiliar elements drawn from a new imaginary world. Among them is a previously unknown hero, Ottavio, placed within a story that has yet to be written.
The threatening sky reappears in Tensione superficiale, where heavy, dark clouds occupy the upper part of the canvas. Here, the subject is no longer a representation but a metaphor for an inescapable impending event, opening onto a thin, pink layer of the Earth’s crust. This surface resembles taut epithelial tissue, poised to expel or give birth to a protrusion. Within a landscape that is never what it seems and does not conform to the logic through which we ordinarily interpret reality, this same protrusion intermittently reveals itself as the trunk of a great tree whose roots extend deep into the earth.
It is the tree that brings this cycle of three paintings to a close. In Orazione dello Spettro (vespro), a tranquil landscape opens before us: a serene valley in which a monk kneels before a tree with a luxuriant crown, while a serpent coils around its trunk. The scene contains the elements of a hierophany – a manifestation of the sacred – a recurring motif in the history of painting. One might think, for example, of God revealing himself to Moses through the burning bush. In this instance, however, painting itself assumes the role of a creative divinity, becoming the force that brings about the epiphany. Light permeates every visible element, from the rocks and clouds to the tree itself. Every natural form becomes protean – capable of changing shape – alive and sacred.
The scenes move within a distinctive tension between representation, symbolism and the direct observation of reality. Their narratives are never definitive or closed, but are continually reinvented through the gaze of each viewer.
Sasha Toli (b. 2000, Narni) lives and works in Otricoli. He first became interested in painting during his secondary-school years and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino. His painting practice draws inspiration from the hierophanic dimension of the image: not resemblance but metaphor, following Paul Klee’s celebrated statement, ‘Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.’
Text by Mirta Gianocca