String Theory: Abstract Works on Paper by Milisa Galazzi
Milisa Galazzi's String Theory pieces, with their shadows and negative space, speak to women’s work and the detritus of their lives ... “ String Theory is my visual nod to the complexities of human interconnectedness and the delicate relationships we form with one another that strengthen over space and time." MG, 2022
Milisa Galazzi’s drawings are cognitive maps, a direct route from brain to hand. This private grammar reflects her process of discovering and understanding the world through the making of a mark, a line, a stroke. Patricia Miranda, The Crit Lab, NYC
Sewing and Tortellini
“My Italian ancestors arrived in the United States in the late 1800s during the first large wave of immigration from Italy to America. My father’s family moved to the Boston area and mother’s to rural Pennsylvania. Both my paternal and maternal grandmothers were first-generation Italian Americans born in the early 1900s. Each profoundly influenced me, yet both in quite different ways.
When I was five, my father’s mother taught me to embroider and needlepoint, providing me with seemingly endless amounts of materials with which to work. She helped me organize my threads in a beautiful mahogany cigar box, given to me by my grandfather, and she frequently reminded me that “good girls learn to sew.”
My mother’s mother, my Nonna, was a fabulous cook who taught me the art of making tortellini from scratch. She often began folding the handmade delicacies in the late summer in preparation for winter holiday meals. My job was to crank the pasta machine evenly and slowly, rolling out the three-foot-long lengths of flour, egg, and olive oil dough. By the time I was thirteen, I requested a visit from Nonna so that I could finally learn to fold the tortellini. We set up shop in my upstairs bedroom and, together, Nonna and I rolled and folded the delicate noodles for three days straight. From there, the tradition continued; each year, I hand-make the tortellini in loving memory of my Nonna.
At work in my studio ...
Much of my work is directly influenced by both of my Italian grandmothers. For example, when making a String Theory shadow drawing, I hand sew the small stitches, a holdover from when I learned to embroider and needlepoint. Handling the long pieces of hand sewn paper and dipping them into molten beeswax feels just like maneuvering the long, delicate pieces of pasta from the rolling machine to the cutting and filling table. In a deeply familiar way, my hands remember these early skills.
... my body knows what to do and my head and heart follow my hands.
Light, Space, Time -- the String Theory series
Galazzi draws a continuation of loops on med-weight watercolor paper, poking holes in the drawing & then hand-sewing thread into those lines. She then cuts out the creation along the stitches & coats the piece in hot beeswax. This takes her hundreds of hours to complete. Galazzi, who majored in studio art & double minored in women’s studies & cultural anthropology at Brown University, says these pieces, with their shadows and negative space, speak to women’s work & the detritus of their lives.
Galazzi explains, “This whole body of work really references that tradition of laborious women’s work that often lacks proper external appreciation.” That’s one of the reasons I choose white thread on white paper on a white wall. I want to erase the hundred-plus hours of work it takes to make these shadow drawings as a way to speak to the invisible work of women over generations and generations—mending, fixing, sewing, taking care of children and their home.
What you cannot see is often just as important as what remains.
String Theory is my visual nod to the complexities of human interconnectedness and the delicate relationships we form with one another that strengthen over space and time. Alluding to string theory — the idea in theoretical physics that purports to be a theory of everything, from the forces of nature to the building blocks of all matter — my work visually vibrates with the use of line and shadow.
String Theory - A powerful idea that has persisted for decades.
In the world of physics, string theory, proposes that the fundamental units of the universe are one-dimensional “strings” rather than point-like particles. In fact, what we perceive as particles are actually vibrations in loops of string, each with its own characteristic frequency much like the sound emanating from a violin. Its basic tenets suggest that very strong forces occur when, via particles attached to each string’s endpoints, the independent strings become tethered together.
Consider the wondrous Waggle Dance of the honeybee, itself a phenomenon loosely linked with string theory. The honeybee’s looping, flying movement is special among animal communication systems in that it conveys concise, quantitative information in an abstract, symbolic way. As in string theory, the honeybee’s Waggle Dance only functions as a guide to fellow honeybees when each element within the dance becomes interconnected as a whole.
Likewise, Galazzi’s String Theory pieces each cast multiple images upon the wall, giving one the sense that, far from 2-dimensional, the dancing, interconnected network of shadows projected from the primary artwork more truly resemble a pan-dimensional object that is ever evolving in light, space and time.
A Perfect Blend of Figure and Ground
The haunting beauty of Galazzi’s shadow works cannot be overstated. Indeed, one is reminded of a perfect marriage of bas relief technique and the Tristan Chord; she carves those interior spaces that are challenging to see, yet are critical to observe in the foreground, and blends the overall effect with notes that linger indefinitely. With each piece illuminated by multiple light sources and hung off the wall, the visible effect is a dance of light.
Nothing is lost that may also be found.
Footprints of My Thinking
Working thus reductively, Galazzi, literally and figuratively, demonstrates the premise that what is removed is as important as that which remains.
Object, image and silhouette as a kind of multi-dimensional lace ...
The Message Between the Lines ...
“I hope that the viewer will contemplate each gesture and decode its meaning with total reliance on their own subjective emotional truth as line thus becomes language. I trust that a single moment of recognition will enhance and nurture their most cherished relationships, especially those which thrive on the message between the lines…” MG, 2022
