"Setting the immaterial into matter"An interview by Jennifer Schwarz
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October 15, 2012 at 7:56am
Carla Barchini is a contemporary creator. She first learnt from her father and then studied furniture restoration in Florence. She now has an exhibition in Beirut, Lebanon. She works with various matters (wood, stone, paper) and several techniques (marquetry, gilding, wood carving, drawing, painting). An interview.
At the moment there is an exhibition of your work in Beirut, after exhibitions in Geneva, Switzerland and in Florence, Italy last year. However, painting amateurs in France don’t know your work yet. You live in Italy and you grew up between Lebanon and Switzerland, how did you enter the world of painting?
Because of the war, I had to leave my country in a hurry at the age of 4 and thus grew up between France, Lebanon and then Switzerland, where I studied psychology. But, a few years ago, my father’s death disrupted my life plans. He was an architect and an antiques dealer and left a lot of memorabilia in a workshop he had had for 40 years in Beirut. When I went back, for the first time since my childhood, 5 years ago, I had a real awakening, I fell in love with the pieces of wood scattered all over the floor, for the pieces of furniture, the huge saws and machines, with the atmosphere. That’s when I decided to study furniture restoration in Florence, Italy, I finished in 2009. I realized I wanted to dedicate my work to creation. I prefer the word creation to painting because I often use various matters and techniques like marquetry, gilding, wood carving, which I learnt during my training in furniture restoration. I also use drawing, painting and ceramics, which I was taught by my uncle, whom I watched for many years while he worked with his ovens in Lebanon.
So your father is the source of your creative energy?
Costi Barchini, my father, used to take me on his trips to Italy. He created furniture, which he had made in Italy before sending it to Saudi Arabia where he worked as an architect. Some of those pieces went through his Lebanese workshop before being exhibited and sold in his gallery in Beirut, along with many other objects and pieces of art. Sometimes the pieces were reproduced, worked on, even transformed. By telling me about his trips, my father opened my mind to art and handicraft. For me they are a form of love, a passion but also a way of life. He brought back wood, fabric, carpet and ceramics samples from his trips. As a child, I was already using this material to create. I really enjoyed making things with my hands. It’s like setting immaterial concepts in material objects, to project one’s thought in a painting, a drawing, a box to make them come alive. It’s a way of sharing, of giving an object I made to a person to express a feeling or a thought.
I was also lucky enough to meet masters in their field during my training in Florence, from gilding to painting. Thanks to them I was able to practice techniques in “bottege”, typical artisans’ workshops in the middle of Florence. Through this experience I was able to create my own work, which I created mainly in my own home. I need a certain intimacy to work. Whether it is for a painting or an object, I like to observe and work at any given time of day or night. Today, I still work from home. I have entirely dedicated the last few years to this creation.
You also had your first exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland in 2010. Was it difficult to share your work?
Since Geneva, there has been Florence and now Beyrouth. Other people’s eyes are very important to me. They give me impressive interpretations. I learn about the meaning of my work and the possibility of really sharing emotions through my creations. Sometimes I feel like a medium, a sort of passage filled with personal experience of course but also with common ideas and emotions, which are receptive of a collective unconscious. This collective unconscious writes itself into the matter, wood, stone, ceramic, and all these forms have their own story. When I work, I feel I am working for the object I am creating, whether it is through painting, drawing, gilding or any other technique. Most of the time, I work on wood, which allows me to add, take out engrave, saturate. It’s physical, sensual when I try and find something at the heart of the matter. It’s like a sculptor’s work: taking away what is superfluous. That’s how I feel.
Are you exploring a spiritual path?
It’s more of a pilgrimage, an inner transformation as my work and my private life are intimately linked. I am an orthodox Christian through my mother and have always been fascinated by the liturgy. Something strong goes on when these chants are recited, something which has nothing to do with faith. Their echo goes far beyond the walls of the church, it’s an inner echoing which pushes one to contemplation. I sometimes remember these chants when I am creating. It was particularly the case for “Icona”. This painting on wood was created using two techniques, gilding and “bulinatura”, a hammering technique which I use on wood and which involves repetitive work, like a mantra. Each strike of the hammer gives a new shape to the wood, which will in turn be covered with cold leaf using water. This technique was much used during the Renaissance and continues on to this day. It is time-consuming and requires concentration and love, which could be the definition of praying for me. Most of my inspiration is in nature which exerts a strong attraction on me. As a witness to this strength, I wish to transcribe my emotion through the matter, to reproduce a chemistry where opposites attract to illustrate nature and its eternal creation.