Between darkness and light

Existence’s mysteries in Lino Di Vinci’s artworks

By Chiara Barbagallo

Circular shapes always had a strict bond with spirituality and with what is precisely defined ‘the circle of life’. This phenomenon can be explained with the never-ending alternation between day and night, with the perennial succession of seasons, and with the perpetual flux of birth, growth, and death typical of all living beings.

Lino Di Vinci, an artist who has displayed his works in many countries of the world, applies to his art this cyclicality specific of human existence. Indeed, during his long career, he alternated and he still alternates now periods in which he devotes himself to artworks he defines as ‘nocturnal’ to periods in which he realizes more joyful and brighter works.

This choice of him is not a simple repetition of stylistic features, rather it’s a way to renovate himself in a continuous growth always remindful of his path.

Circle it’s just one of the many symbols in Lino Di Vinci’s artworks. Another one is the eye, which actually has in it two circular shapes: iris and pupil.
Eyes, in his works, are overabundant, floating, and open, observing viewers and trying to make contact with them. Eyes refer to knowledge and clairvoyance of timeless figures inhabiting his paintings, they refer to the search of truth about our first origin and about the meaning of life.

Through his art, Di Vinci wants to question and at the meantime stimulate viewers to question themselves about existence. However, he doesn’t suggest answers so that leaving a sense of mystery.

Maybe it’s also for this reason that his paintings are settled in indefinite spaces, far from everyday’s reality, non-dimensional and suspended, almost dreamlike, as marine and subconscious depths, and as cosmic space. Titles themselves evoke those places: Sidereal travel, Lost in the infinite, Far in time, Anywhere, Elsewhere…
In contrast, some works with a circular cut seem enlargements made with a microscope.

In each way, all of these are places or spaces invisible to the naked eye, and it’s also for this reason that many eyes were drawn: to make us remember that the only eye able to see everything is that of spirit and mind.

Besides exploring different environments, the artist experiments many techniques and materials, from canvas to paper, from metal to plexiglass.

Lately he even juxtaposed his paintings to lights creating Light boxes, real 3D structures in which light backlights artworks made by Di Vinci on plexiglass. In this way, polymorphic shapes of those beings, defined ‘invaders’ by series’ title, seem more alive and so more disturbing.

Mystery’s fascination is a constant in his works, also in those more serene, like in Floating Colours series or in the ethereal and inscrutable springlike faces of some artworks.

Artist’s aim is to transpose his emotions in a sort of cathartic process but never making them evident. He shows and at the same time he hides feelings and messages in order to let viewers identify themselves in his art even with their complex and multiple diversities.

Di Vinci’s language is, quoting one of his artworks’ title, a real ‘secret code’; but it’s also a universal code because each human being can decode it.

Useful links: linodivinci.com
instagram.com/linodivinci/

Italian version: Tra il buio e la luce

Photo courtesy of the artist