Il mondo di Platone 1981

Dadamaino made this artwork, “Il mondo di Platone”, with almost no color. Instead, the surface seems to vibrate with subtle shifts, horizontally. You can almost feel the back and forth of her hand and her mind working together. I bet she was thinking about Agnes Martin, who also explored such delicate and subtle movements. But Martin is airier than Dadamaino. Dadamaino is more like a woven tapestry—more solid. Her touch is tight and repetitive, almost a system. Maybe it’s like the way Cy Twombly wrote words over and over, layering and obfuscating, but here, it’s little strokes. Each mark is so close together, forming a pattern, a matrix. And, of course, there’s Plato in the title. I wonder, was she thinking about Plato’s own matrix? This piece invites us to consider the connections between material action and philosophical inquiry. It's like a conversation that painters have with each other, across time and space, each contributing their own unique gestures to the ongoing exploration of what it means to see and to be.