Malinconico – from the series The Four Temperaments

59x25x25cm – resin and metal

In the series of busts of which Malinconico is part I focus on the ancient medical theory that an imbalance in one of the four humors present in our body (blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm) leads to tensions and imbalances in a person’s personality.
What fascinates me most about the four temperament theory is the idea that an individual’s mental health and personality are based on the constant conflict between elements of the body and parts of the soul.
For each bust—each inspired by iconic works from different historical eras—I intervened by applying one of the fundamental movements of clay modeling: twisting, pulling, opening, and crushing.

In Malinconico, the gesture is compression: a black elliptical stone, its veins recalling a galaxy, presses against the smiling face of a child. The stone becomes a metaphor for the weight the melancholic temperament perceives bearing down on existence.