AKIYOSHI ITO – UNDERWATER DREAMS

Florence, 13 September-14 October

Akiyoshi Ito, Stop the time ©Akiyoshi Ito

Akiyoshi Ito, a sculptor by profession, embarked on a journey without a destination in discovery of the depths of the sea, seeking ‘the essence of life and beauty’. Down there, exploring sea beds of indisputable splendour, he was able to find ‘a kaleidoscope of colours’, as he himself put it after diving for the first time into the pristine seas around the islands of South East Asia. Looking for and immortalizing the innumerable hues that colour Mother Nature has become his creed. Ito is an authentic discoverer of the myriad colours that characterize the bottom of the sea. He has been able to hone his supreme sensitivity to the submarine world thanks to precisely those artistic and sculptural skills in which his underwater photographs are firmly rooted. An artistic sensibility that is not limited to brilliant colours, but is also open to life and the universe in its entirety. In other words, a poetics that considers photography a powerful means of communicating the artist’s message. In his works Ito has been able to bring about a creative fusion between the ‘force of nature’ and the ‘power of art’. All this thanks in part to the use of the best photographic technology currently available. In the media it has sometimes been pointed out that the extraordinary work of Akiyoshi Ito straddles the worlds of science and art, and praise has been showered on his work as a pioneer of a new art form, one that expresses his love for marine life through the sublime images of coral reefs and underwater ecosystems that he has had the chance to observe. The beams of sunlight pouring down constantly from the surface of the water, the transparent deep blue of the sea and a variety of colourful marine creatures are all frozen in the moment of their shimmering splendour. An instant that represents the eternal. An instant that captures the immortality and perpetual character of Mother Nature. Ito has been able to offer lots of people an ‘unknown experience’ and an ‘unimaginable impression’ with his photographs. It would be the greatest pleasure for me if this exhibition were to have the same effect on you all.