On August 16, 1965, Giovanni Anselmo was climbing up the Stromboli volcano, when at sunrise, he realized he was “shadowless” as his shadow was projected into the air. This experience deeply affected Anselmo, who would afterwards seek to condense energy through his artworks.

Since the mid-1960s Anselmo has sought to challenge the conventions of painting and sculpture and the traditional idea of representation of landscape, proposing a series of open works to actively present, and in a perceptible way, the surrounding energies and the forces and dynamics that govern the universe.

There’s always been a drive in my work to expand the visual field, a drive not to end the artistic experience—the artwork—within the space of the gallery, but instead to connect it to the outside world, the one where we live day-to-day. —Giovanni Anselmo