In the current cycle, the artist proposes a key interpretation aimed at the distortion of the object itself: the goal is to overturn the observer’s perception to unhinge the conventional meaning attributed to a symbol, in order to develop a personal analysis over the complexity of human nature.

For this purpose, the icons of war are estranged and decontextualised. The use of colour changes the perception of the object itself and through the methodical and serial repetition of forms, either obsessively ordered or deliberately disordered, the customary idea that they represent is erased.

We are witnessing the birth of a holistic representation, where notions of peace and war coexist in a complex totality far more significant than what the individual forms represents alone.

The Anti-Tank Barricade, well known as “Cheval-de-Frise”, is a pivotal symbol, which has been reproduced over the years in different sizes, colour and materials. A classic emblem of the limit beyond which we are able to push ourselves, facing a considerable degree of difficulty. In Ceribelli’s work, however, the anti-tank barricades, in the artwork “War and Peace Structure”, are displayed in a collective tangle where they become a pile that seems to have been accumulated and abandoned. As inert, once perceived in the complexity of their whole, they lose their original function as limit and barrier. We no longer consider them as obstacles; on the contrary, the artist creates a counterpoint to our sensibility and the barricades become a symbol of surrender and of peace.

The artist brings together a serial repetition with the symbolism of the circle figure, also fundamental to his personal poetics. The circular figure is, by custom, the emblematic form of cyclical, infinite and perfect time. But the mathematical constant that gives dimension to this shape is pi, an irrational number with infinite decimal digits that never repeat themselves. A circle, seemingly so perfect and unchanging, is a great container that gathers infinite possibilities of development and interpretation, without a beginning or an end.

The work “Untitled” also offers a deeply personal point of view to the viewers. The method chosen by the artist, acrylic stamping on paper, is a diptych whose parts are mirrored and contrasting. On the other hand, the lightness of the paper must support the heavy references applied by the stamped subjects: the “Cheval-de-Frise”. This work refers to the principle of Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which highlights the essentiality of balance between opposing and complementary forces. Like the forces of war and peace that live within us, the artist invites us to embrace responsibility and consciousness.

Paolo Ceribelli does not base his artistic research on a militaristic notion, nor on his intent to impose an overarching position. The critical analysis of the self and one’s own inner wars is objective and constructive. In this exhibition, the artist takes a further step in his research and self-analysis, strips away his fears and he materialises his inner struggles. The need and desire to go beyond one’s limit is perceived in the stampings of the work “Cloud,” in which Ceribelli enacts the liberating gesture that approaches disorder and abstraction. He is finally free to break the rigid mechanisms of stubborn perfection that have always been part of his poetics.

The inclination to war and the desire for peace are forces that coexist in human beings and they condition our interpretation of the surrounding reality. In the exhibition “Erased”, we witness the erasure of customs to make room for our perceptions. This results in profound personal searches and in the awareness of our inner struggles, which are the starting point for self-improvement. As a matter of fact, it is the viewer who decides to consider what may seem like an unequivocal message as a declaration of war or peace.