lineadacqua gallery: “Remember the Sea”

lineadacqua gallery presents the exhibition “Remember the Sea” with works by three Venetian artists, photographer Andrea Avezzù, painters Davide Battistin and Vittorio Marella, and eclectic Viennese artist and photographer Barbara Luisi.

Four very personal visions, giving us a glimpse into their powerful relationship with the sea. The story of Venice and the sea is the story of a people who, starting from an archipelago of small muddy islets in a lagoon in the northern Adriatic, will build the largest maritime empire of the Middle Ages; history of ships and brave captains from the sea like Enrico Dandolo who over eighty and blind led the Venetian fleet to the conquest of Constantinople. The sea has always represented the symbolic element of power in Venetian history, but also of discovery and innovation. The progressive deterioration of the relationship between Venice and the sea has devastating effects, not so much due to the waning of economic profits from mercantile activity, but to the compromise of a formidable development model based on the flow of new energies and information from the world that Venetian travelers took with them on their return to the lagoon. Venice was, thanks to them, the world center of arts, industries, and, above all, new ideas. It was no coincidence that the sea represented the main educational experience for young people, who were soon sent by their families away from their comfortable city to get to know the world and train themselves by acquiring courage. The oblivion of the sea deprived the Venetians of their creative strength, gradually making them full-time residents of the island until they were transformed into substantially unproductive people who live off the commercial exploitation of the superb heritage they have inherited. A ruinous drift lived between ambiguous nostalgia for past glories and a dangerous self-referentiality, fortunately, mitigated by the presence of new Venetians who, thanks to the extraordinarily unchanged power of attraction of Venice, continue to settle in the lagoon.

Andrea Avezzù’s photographs, mainly nocturnal visions, seem to scrutinize the matter of the sea in search of its own density and intrinsic light. What emerges from his works is the strength and mystery, but also the dismay of man in front of the power of the sea. His photographs sometimes are a punch in the stomach, presenting the sea as a metaphor for life and reminding us of the importance of courage.

Davide Battistin paints the sea of ours and his dreams. In its infinite horizons, we lose ourselves and escape from our everyday life, in which we lead dull lives in contrast with the deep needs of our souls. Battistin’s seas are the quintessence of freedom. But they are also chimera, perfect worlds that we can only yearn for. We can only dream of them by losing ourselves in the infinite horizons that no one like Battistin knows how to create with his painting.

Vittorio Marella, a young Venetian artist, takes us from our familiar sea – the sea of the Venetian Lido – to some far-away place. The sea that belongs to us, with its colors, its winds, and its smells. With the painting “La naufraga felice”, the sea of ​​the Lido becomes the stage for a representation between drama and myth. Marella elevates the sea to a strongly metaphysical dimension, infusing us with feelings that oscillate between deep anguish and amazement when we face the beauty of the world.

Barbara Luisi exhibits three photographs belonging to the Dreamland series. Luisi’s night shots, taken on the coasts of places around the world on different continents, tell us about a specific, highly cosmopolitan background. Barbara Luisi is a nomad desperate for beauty. Her eclectic gaze wanders greedy and delicate, scrutinizing every aspect of reality with penetrating curiosity. A new Venetian from afar with her inseparable violin. Barbara, after having lived for a long time between New York, Japan, and Austria, has chosen Venice as her home.

Venice city of the world. Ideal place for citizens of the world.