A man and a woman, with a tree between them offering its fruits. The immediate association is with the Garden of Eden, yet neither before nor after Eve took the Apple, defying the divine Prohibition and unknowingly condemning the masculine and feminine to never meet again without suffering.
“I will greatly multiply your pains and your pregnancies; with labor pains, you shall bear children. Your desires will turn towards your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
An “Encounter,” in this case, between the Feminine and the Masculine, in an eternal and infinite time, in an absolute Here and Now, untouchable by Good and Evil. A meeting where each faces the other, mirroring and contemplating one another, flowing in the energy, where only respect and empathy reign.
This is how the artist describes her piece:
“As they are placed side by side in an ideal garden, the two figures may suggest a possible encounter, a point of balance between the reasons of the heart and those of the mind, in a sort of mutual contemplation.
Through the representation of a male and a female figure, I would like to indicate the two aspects of the soul and a conceivable, perhaps possible, reconciliation and harmony between these two aspects—so distant from each other, yet fundamental and inseparable. Placed next to each other, as if in conversation, I would like them to express a dimension of dialogue and mutual respect.”
Through her works, Marzia Gandini gives shape to her emotions, and her art always tells emotions—whether depicting figures or landscapes—in a continuous exchange between perception and feeling. Strong yet at the same time impalpable, translated into painting through color, sometimes soft, sometimes intense, depending on whether the focus is on gazes or physical contact. In sculpture, instead, emotions are captured through the body language of the figures.
As in this absolute “Encounter” between the Feminine and the Masculine, where awareness, respect, and Unconditional Love reign supreme—both for the other and for oneself. Love is to be understood as the divine spark and the driving force of everything because if Man could balance and integrate his feminine and masculine sides, Unconditional Love would reign supreme: for oneself, for the other.