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.