Francesca Calzà
Discover the talents of T.O.E. Art Market through a series of exclusive interviews with the artists on our platform.
Let us explore together the artistic practices and research carried out by the authors who enrich our community with their unique works. Each week, we invite you to learn more about the challenges, languages, themes and stories behind their work and get in touch with the creative minds that make T.O.E. Art Market a vibrant and dynamic showcase.
We are here in the company of Daniele Cabri. Let's start right away with a few questions to get to know you better!
Francesca Calzà - Could you tell us a bit about your artistic journey? How did you get into art?
Daniele Cabri - I remember that as a child, I lived and expressed myself through drawing. My very first emotion — dazzling and all-encompassing, like molten lava — was the moment I received my first drawing album. On the cover and back was the image of young Giotto, tending to his sheep as he traced a perfect circle on the ground. I often fantasized about that image. On those pages, with a bold and assured hand, I began to draw the world around me: my small hilltop village, fields plowed by tractors, farmers raking and hoeing, grazing animals, houses, and fences.
That line — so confident and spontaneous — has stayed with me to this day, finding its way even into my most recent works on animal skin, which I continue to create. The beginning and the end are one.
Francesca Calzà - What encounters, cultural references, or moments have had a strong impact on the development of your research?
Daniele Cabri - My close relationship with a cousin, a professional sculptor, was fundamental to my approach to art. I worked as his assistant, learning from him as we spoke and collaborated. At that time, summers brought another influence: a painter who rented a room from us and painted en plein air, inspired by the Macchiaioli and Impressionists. At first, I merely observed him at work, but soon, under his guidance, I began practicing with him, learning how to apply color. These relationships were my first encounters with creativity. However, the true turning point came when I participated in workshops organized by the Municipality of Modena. There, I met artists such as Massimo Kaufmann, Paolo Icaro, and Hidetoshi Nagasawa. This was followed by a brief foray into filmmaking, after which I decided to move to Milan.
In Milan, I immersed myself in the city’s cultural scene, building connections with artists like Liuba and curators such as Ivan Quaroni, Luca Panaro, Giuseppe Frangi, Martina Cavallarin, Erika Lacava, and Maria Chiara Wang. These encounters were a profound source of learning and dialogue, an experience that remains with me to this day. This journey culminated in the definitive exhibition of my work with hides at Studio Cenacchi Gallery in Bologna and in my participation in the Equidistanze artist residency in Filetto, Ravenna, an initiative organized by Alessandra Carini of the Magazzeno Gallery.
Francesca Calzà - Are there any constants in your work? What drives you to explore these themes?
Daniele Cabri - My constant focus is the human being in all their existential complexity: their memories, their inner conflicts. I am tethered to figuration and am only now beginning to feel the need to break free from it. I love storytelling through images or sequences and am in perpetual pursuit of that single image that resonates with me as an epiphany.
Francesca Calzà - How do your cultural roots and personal experiences influence your artistic practice? Can you provide any examples?
Daniele Cabri - My roots have a profound influence on my work: they shape the very lines I draw and form the stylistic hallmark of my practice. Looking back, I feel as if I can see the "same" lines I traced as a child. Equally important are the schismatic doctrines and alternative medicine practices I encountered in the late 1990s during a period of personal crisis. These experiences allowed me to rediscover parts of myself deeply attuned to the sensibilities of the ancients.
I am instinctive, moving like a native of the land, feeling and living through images that, as when I was a child, demand to emerge. I engage physically in my work, participating in its creation as Ligabue once did. In recent years, my practice has revolved around seeking a balance between personal factors and those connected to my genealogical family. From this intricate relationship, works have emerged that are intrinsically linked to the pursuit of psycho-physical well-being. These works are often accompanied by performative events that I would liken to ancestral or shamanic rituals. They are psychic and magical acts, reminiscent of the ones Aleandro Jodorowsky portrays in his films or healing rituals, yet deeply rooted in pre-Christian civilizations.
One emblematic example is La Latebra, a large hut clad in animal hides, burned and etched with fire, where I depicted my entire village: people from my life — both living and dead — alongside animals and objects. The exhibition was inaugurated with a performance and concluded with another, both conceived as true rituals.
Francesca Calzà - Can you share some details about your creative process?
Daniele Cabri - Now, I am working with fire on animal hides. I engrave, carve, and burn the hides using an oxyacetylene torch, creating effects reminiscent of sanguine or charcoal drawings. I depict the people from my village, which is on the verge of disappearing. It is a collective work meant to enact a ritual of preservation for the living, while simultaneously exposing the decay of time and the finiteness of humans and all things. I have chosen to do this through the pure, unadulterated line of drawing, leaving no room for distractions. There is no color except for the ochre and dark brown tones of the hides—the colors of the earth itself. Drawing is the origin of everything, the means by which humanity first sought to capture and impress the essence of things onto the mind and into dreams.
Francesca Calzà - How does a piece come to life? Do you always start with a predefined idea?
Daniele Cabri - In the past, I would only begin a work when I had a clear, defined image already formed in my mind. Now, at sixty years old, I often surrender to the creative flow. Many works become installations during their creation process. I now feel truly free. Certain mental constraints have finally shattered. Some of the fences in my mind have at last broken down.
At present, due to personal circumstances, I am unable to fully devote myself to working on hides or to give them the time they require. My creativity, however, has shifted toward memoir writing. Soon, I hope to publish a novel about my village: a work that gathers the ancestral memories of that world and intertwines them with present day reality through connections and allusions.
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