Testori UK is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent work by young Italian artist Pietro Ruffo from October 9th through November 14th 2008. Ruffo’s work examines the cyclical nature of human life as a study in opposition. Issues of Identity, Territory, exploitive Consumption and Creation are interlaced in intricately crafted work with layers of meaning.

In his Flag Series, the artist lays very finely drawn carnivorous animal scales and skulls on a veiled map background. As the decayed remains of inhabitants gone before echo the organic hunger of the soil consuming earlier life, the peoples’ hunger in consuming the land on which they stake claim is demonstrated in juxtaposing the elements of the soil with politically charged signs. In Ruffo’s work, the process of grabbing land doesn’t only infer conflict and aggression, it dramatically points out the human need for roots to gain existence.

His concern to evince and illustrate the ongoing dialectic between Identity and Territoriality led to the Beetles series of sculptural wall mounted installations, once again shaping flags, comprising beetles carved out of hand-made paper copies of reclaimed political or trade treaties concluded between conquering and conquered nations. Each insect is constructed and then mounted on the same paper, carefully interlaced without any adhesive substance and pinned down on a board as to resemble a piece fit for a cabinet of curiosities.

Is this a vile parasite rising out of empty and illusory promises as a symbol of exploitation, or a sacred scarab beetle spontaneously coming into being that stands for self-creation and resurrection?

As the artist finds, however you try to explain this, it is the same process repeating itself over and over again, for there is Nothing New Under the Sand.