Beauty is everywhere. But it is not easily conquered.
The “look” is necessary.
Not only a perceptive act of biological nature but intuition, necessity of the soul, impulse and animal instinct, delicacy of touch, patience.
Calker has educated his gaze on things throughout his life: placing it among the alleys of “his” Genoa, launching it with a lightning-fast shot onto the seas that he brings within, blowing it between the sails of the boats on which, kneeling, he has smoothed the wood for many years, transforming the raw material into shining carpets.
For Calker, the search for beauty is not one of the many things that belong to him, but it is the identifying feature par excellence of his being thrown into the world. To the point of having found beauty even in the midst of hell, where there is no beauty.
It is a journey.
On a sailing boat, on a motorbike, in a car, on foot.....his camera is his gaze, his gaze is the timeless love for life.
It is therefore not surprising that at the age of 60 Calker stumbles upon his own art, after having wildly admired the art of the great authors.
And it is not surprising that his art has the colors and materials of his life: wood, silicones, resins, shells, cuttlefish bones......waste material from carpentries, but not only...Matter of the surfs on the banks of his beaches, geometric shapes of gin bottles whose fragrances he enjoys, of which nothing is wasted, much less the perfection of the shapes.
Whole and varied matter that comes to life in his laboratory, which, before being a physical place, is a dreamlike space, a vision.
Calker's art is more. It is civil commitment, obstinate testimony of the need for justice, a return to the origins of his militant past in favor of social rights and peace.
It is no coincidence that Campari bitters are transformed into the colors of peace in “ LIFE: Caulking &bitter” and even more strongly in “GENOCIDE” the Palestinian flag reproduced in silicone and resin is tinged with blood and is torn apart by debris from the explosions.
Again, his art is lightness: jazz music, popular song, Hermes scarves, pop culture!
Looking at Calker's works, in short, is listening to the long story of his life path and journey.....which begins now.
Presentation by Flora Salveti
Contemporary artwork | Pop Art | Material art | Enviromental and re-use crative |
Silicone and Italian bitter Campari
Spatula filler epoxy, wood veneer
recycled packing tape
Spatula silicone Bitter Campari
hammered iron plate, colored silicone, construction debris and everyday home object, epoxy resin. Publication in catalog #Effetto Arte 3 with critique by Hosè Van Roy Dalì
Silicone spatula, acrylic canvas effect hardboard
silicone spatula, bamboo, plastic packaging
silicone spatula, hardboard,gray stained ash frame
Spatula silicone. black canvas effect on hardboard
epoxy filler with spatula, resin epoxy, geometric aluminium inserts
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. J.W Goethe
Napoli, Rione Sanità '23 Fine Art paper 310 gr. Ash frame oil and wax finish and passpartout