THE STRUGGLE OF JACOB the-struggle-of-jacob | Page 25

• MANSIT SOLUS ET ECCE VIR LUCTABATUR CUM EO ESQUE
MANE, (25) Jacob remained alone and a man struggled with him
until the breaking of the dawn;
• DIC MIHI, QUO APPELLARIS NOMINE? CUR QUAERIS NOMEN
MEUM?, (30) Jacob then asked him, “Tell me, what is your given
name.” He replied, “Why do you ask me my name?”;
• VEDI DEUM FACIE IN FACIEM, ET SALA FACTA EST ANIMA MEA,
(31) “Verily,” he said, “I saw God face to face, and yet my life
was saved.”
In my creative process, the design phase and the execution
phase intersect: once the structure of the work is defined,
I proceed first of all with the creation of the backgrounds;
I photograph them, and then I scale down the images on the
computer. The rest of the composition takes place in a digital
environment, and is finally projected back onto the original
canvases at a scale of 1 to 1, and painted by hand.
For the backgrounds I utilize action painting. I either begin
with canvasses that are already mounted, or with large rolls of
canvas already prepared with a white ground, which are then
cut to size, mounted or glued onto hardboard.
Action painting is a pictorial technique in which the paint
is dripped, splashed or instinctively thrown at the canvas.
The result is extraordinarily evocative thanks to the clear traces
left by these gestures, by the energy in those actions,
by the strength of the colors, and by the freedom of motion.
Action painting became widespread in the 1950s, above all
through the ingenious work of Jackson Pollock.