The underpass at the entrance of Portovenere’s historic center has become an open-air art gallery thanks to the initiative of the adjacent Grand Hotel Portovenere. The exhibition narrates the Gulf of Poets through pictorial installations and marble bas-reliefs made by young artists that come from Liguria and Tuscany. In 2020, this boutique hotel launched its new project called ‘Between Liguria & Tuscany’, involving local academies and collectives, namely the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti di Genova (Liguria), the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara (Tuscany) and the Bedrock Collective.
Despite being in a Dimora Storica (historic building), Grand Hotel Portovenere has always been active and at the vanguard in promoting art in all forms, especially with young artists. The latest addition to its gallery is “Medium”, a marble artwork by Sabrina Davì. To create it, she used Tuscany’s white marble from Carrara, and Liguria’s Portoro marble from Portovenere.
The work investigates the primordial need for immersion in nature and the connection with it. Having been born and raised in Liguria, Sabrina Davì was inspired by sensations and memories near and dear to her: the tranquility that only the sea can give, the embrace of the Riviera, the houses, the scents in the deepest depths. The author was also inspired by the Poets who drew inspiration from this bay, the Gulf of Poets.
“Medium” is made up of two key points: the outermost part represents what surrounds us, while the black point in the center symbolizes the human being who, being nature himself, unites and integrates with his surroundings, becoming the point of coexistence between the external world and his own inner reality. The natural element and the individual are both protagonists of the work, but it is only in the latter that the condition of Medium is created, understanding and questioning this essential relationship in which it contains and becomes representative of its unique point of view. The poet with his poetry as the sculptor with his works, exacerbates the need for this relationship and tries to give voice to deep sensations; so as to become, with art, through beauty and life, an infinite vortex of lines.
“Medium” by Sabrina Davì – Marble used: Carrara white marble (Tuscany), Portoro marble (Liguria)
Sabrina Davì was born in Savona in 1998 and raised in Genoa, in 2017 she moved to Tuscany to undertake her sculpture studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. She soon understood that marble is a living and wonderful material that needs work effort, love for its delicacy, and patience for the precision so as not to “violate” the material. Her current works of art are mostly in white marble and do not represent specific objects, but rather sensations and emotions that she experiences during her personal growth, as an artist and as a woman. Although young, she has already joined some major initiatives such as Maurizio Cattelan’s “Eternity” project, the “Antifrafile” exhibition curated by Gaia Pasi, and the symposium dedicated to the Via Francigena in the province of Massa-Carrara.
