Il predicatore

IL PREDICATORE

“Il Predicatore” by Dave Tavanti presents an encounter between ending and continuation. Living ivy climbs from the base of an old tree, its luminous infrared foliage intensifying the contrast between the dying structure it ascends and the vigorous growth it carries upward. The two presences, one declining, one ascending, occupy the same vertical space without conflict.

The composition is formally complex: the irregular mass of the ivy canopy against the exposed skeleton of the host tree creates a layered surface in which light and shadow distribute themselves with unusual density. The image rewards extended looking — the longer one stays with it, the more distinct the two presences become.

The concept behind the work

The title reframes what might otherwise be read as natural succession. The dying tree is not simply replaced, it preaches. It transmits something: a form, a position in space, a set of conditions that made the new growth possible. What ends does not remain silent; it continues to speak through what comes after it.

The relationship between the tree and the ivy is complementary rather than oppositional, but it is not without tension. The past does not simply yield to the present. It leaves behind questions, constraints, a structure that both enables and complicates what grows within it. The work holds both of these truths simultaneously, without resolving them in favour of either.