September 2020
Exotic Plants is an investigation into Eros as it manifests itself in the plant world, challenging the presumed neutrality of the human gaze. The series, consisting of eight works, is the result of research into real plants whose morphology explicitly evokes male genitalia, triggering a perceptual tension between attraction and repulsion in the viewer. This visual short circuit reveals how sexuality is still filtered today by rigid and moralistic cultural superstructures, which generate embarrassment, repression and censorship. The artist's intention is to bring to light an original truth: what is perceived as disturbing has been present in nature for millennia, predating any social construction of modesty, and becomes a tool for dismantling the foundations of a respectability that continues to impoverish the relationship with desire.
The project develops in dialogue with Stefano Mancuso's reflections on the widespread intelligence of plants and their sophisticated adaptive strategies. Although they lack a centralised nervous system and voluntary movement, plants develop complex solutions to communicate and reproduce. Emblematic in this sense is Ophrys apifera, an orchid that reproduces the appearance of a female bee to attract the male and ensure pollination through deception. This mimetic strategy becomes the conceptual focus of Exotic Plants: the artist constructs a perceptual pantomime in which the viewer assumes the
Exotic Plants (Series)