Donna con albero azzurro

On a base of the same material, this polychrome marble figure (green Guatemala marble, the face in multicoloured juparanà, part of the tree behind the head in dark green serpentine) dominates the broad courtyard at the heart of the Bank of Italy’s Donato Menichella Centre in Vermicino near Rome. The woman, in a flowing cape, isolated and distant, solemn as a goddess, stands as the guardian of the place. The light blue marble highlights the potent volume, standing out against the light travertine buildings. The monolithic volume of the sculpture has cuts and gaps, brusquely interrupting its flow. The form is moved by the sudden openings in the stone, with deep fissures or sharp out-juttings. The lines that accompany the figure outline its profiles delicately, and the modeling is soft, so that the marble in which the form is sculpted seems to be ductile material, like clay. “What I am interested in”, says the artist, “is interrupting certain volumes without touching the form, in such a way that the work remains monolithic. This way, you get a sort of visual cut that imparts movement and speed to the figure. The light that plays over the surface, leaving some parts in shadow, and the sense of the opening and closing of the volumes is like perceiving the scent of things”. The woman is leaning against a tree, one of Vangi’s recurrent themes. The tree is detached from the volume of the figure, with the colour contrast of its leafy crown.