Form and Matter in Constant Dialogue: the Proposal of Pinelopi Volterra

The work of Pinelopi Volterra constitutes a visual world grounded in the notion of continuous flow and transformation as a fundamental condition of existence. Her painting is not organized around fixed forms or closed meanings but unfolds as a field of becoming, where matter, color, and shape are in constant motion. Forms emerge through this process, appear, transform, and are reintegrated into the whole of the surface without claiming autonomy or narrative completion. The work functions as a visible record of a cosmological experience in which the microcosm of gesture and material act reflects a broader, symbolic macrocosm.

The choice of materials and techniques is far from neutral. Tempera on wood, mixed media with relief interventions, and oil on canvas mounted on wood create surfaces with intense materiality and corporeality. The wood acts as a carrier of memory and duration, while successive layers of color, gypsum, and gestural marks create a field where the image is not exhausted in its visual result but bears the traces of the process. The material is not smoothed or concealed. It remains active, visible, and often tactile, contributing to the formation of a space where the gaze is invited to wander slowly and attentively.

At the iconographic level, human and superhuman forms prevail—figures reminiscent of angelic presences, collective processions, or solitary entities in a state of suspension. These figures are not defined by anatomical accuracy or psychological portrayal. They are treated as archetypal shapes, carriers of states and forces that transcend the individual. The face is often simplified, withdrawn, or dissolved into light and color, allowing the form to function as a symbol rather than a portrait. The presence of halos, circular shapes, and cosmic elements reinforces this dimension without pointing to specific religious references or iconographic commitments.

The color palette moves mainly in tones of blue, violet, ochre, and white, with interventions of warm hues that act as energy centers. Color structures the space and its rhythmic organization. Spiral motions, circular flows, and transitions from light to shadow create a sense of cosmic movement, where nothing remains static or definitive. Space is rendered as a field of forces, where above and below, near and far merge into a unified experience.

This painting belongs to a broader tradition of spiritual and symbolic reflection in contemporary art. It converses with symbolism and post-symbolism, with forms of expressionist intensity that aim not at external dramatization but at internal concentration. At the same time, it maintains a discreet relationship with the neo-Byzantine tradition, particularly in the use of tempera, the emphasis on surface, and the meaning of the image as a field of spiritual experience. This relationship does not function as revival or reproduction, but as a contemporary rewriting of a way of seeing that treats the image as a site of presence rather than a window of representation.

A central element of the work is the notion of co-creation between the artist and the becoming of the image itself. The process does not appear as an imposition of form upon matter, but as a dialogue where matter guides, resists, and proposes. Gesture does not fully control the outcome but trusts the dynamics of movement and moment. Through this attitude, the work acquires an open and experiential character, where completion does not coincide with the end of labor but with the moment the image reveals its coherence.

The viewer is invited to approach the works as a field of experience and contemplation. Reading is neither immediate nor univocal. It requires time, silence, and a disposition for internal participation. This painting seeks to create a space where thought, emotion, and sensation coexist, offering the viewer the possibility to encounter their own internal rhythm within the flow of the image.

As a whole, the artist’s work presents a consistent and recognizable visual proposal, drawing from philosophical and cosmological notions without translating them literally or didactically. Through the act of painting, these notions are transformed into visual experience, into pulsing matter and forms emerging from the flow. It is a kind of painting that treats the world as perpetual becoming and the image as an active site of participation in that process.

Paris Kapralos
Art Curator
Athens 2026