First Pillar

Original painting by Michele Petrelli ©

Here we are faced with a foundation, not a passing scene. The poetics focus on how the family is not just a place of affections, but the archetypal structure that supports individual identity and consciousness, often in ways that reason cannot fully discern. The artist here does not seek to portray faces, but the fusion of souls into a single emotional nucleus: the figures are indistinct, almost modeled from a single primal wax, suggesting that the identity of the individual members is secondary to the collective and fused identity of the group. This non-distinction invites reflection on the boundary between the self and the us, questioning how much of our individuality is actually determined, formed, and supported, sometimes even suffocated, by this first and fundamental support. The work thus becomes a meditation on the necessity of the bond, a necessity that is not always comfortable but which is essential to existence itself, presenting itself in a timeless form, stripped of environmental or narrative details that might distract from the sole, raw truth of interdependence.