Vivenas Stein

L’argentiera non c’è più

Cava d’oro IV (ad venas)

Various materials

Property of the artist

Are we capable, just by using our incredibly humble means, of understanding the majestic language of the mountains, the alphabet of trees and the resounding code of the brooks? (What are we supposed to build as humans, as long as we are sharing our existence with the mysterious messages of nature?)

Stefan Soravia’s artwork is inspired by the stunning landscape of the mountains, with its stories and mythologies. The artist has wandered through the Dolomites of Cadore for decades, visiting their forests and their most remote paths.

His artwork is characterised by a constant research of human interference in nature: e.g. by lumberjacks, hunters and ancient miners. Those have left historical marks, which apparently survived in this area.

These are fragments, that give an impulse to his artistic work. He joined the historic experience, its artifacts and the study of myths and legends of the Dolomites.

The casts of the rocks, the self-made basket, the stones, collected from the streams, the lumbers, burnt and wet by the weathering, as well as the finds from deserted iron mines are signs of a mysterious prehistorical language, that surrounds us.

The symbolism and thrilling poetry of this language is being researched and expressed through his art.

Stefan Soravia lives and works in Germany. His three exhibited works at Biennale Arte Dolomiti connect to the surrounding territory- the Cadore Dolomites, Mount Rite and the stream Boite. As such, he is mostly inspired by nature such as water, trees, rocks, stones and metals, and culture in relation to mountain cultural practices of the ancient Zoldo mines, the paths of hunting and grazing, that the mythical transfiguration already skilfully reinterpreted in the sagas of Carlo Felice Wolff. The pale mountains with their steep slopes, wild rivers that run through them, and woods immersed in the mysterious cycle of the seasons have been actualised and transformed into artistic experience.

Property and Courtesy: Stefan Soravia