Repertoire of Extraordinary Forms in Nature

If in “Regesto” Ezio Ferreri archived forms created by the hand of man - tools, irons, objects worn by work - here he archives forms created without a hand.

They are stones collected in Sicily, on Etna, on the beaches. But photographed in the studio, isolated on the wooden table, they become something else.

A white pomice is the Matterhorn. A black lava pebble is a cosmic egg. A stratified sandstone is an island. A yellow veined jasper is a heart.

Nature here is a sculptor. But it is a sculptor who works by subtraction and accumulation, with times that are not ours: the sea polishing for thousands of years to a perfect oval, the volcano suddenly cooling fire into black glass, calcareous water depositing layer upon layer to create an anthropomorphic lump.

Ferreri does not intervene. He places them on the table like a metaphysical painter - Morandi, de Pisis - and lights them with grazing light. The wood below, the earth-colored background behind. No dramatic shadow. Only the form.

It is a repertory, indeed. Not a collection of beautiful stones, but an inventory of how matter, left alone, can become a work of art. Without an author.