Born
in 1959, Tobia Ravà is an Italian artist of Jewish culture, who lives and works
in Venice. He attended the International School of Graphics in Venice and
Urbino and got a degree in Semiology of the Arts at the University of Bologna,
where he studied with Umberto Eco, among others.
He
has exhibited his works since 1977 in Italy and abroad, in well-known galleries
and museums such as the Olympic Fine Arts in Beijing, the Galerie Am Park in
Frankfurt, Sist’Art Gallery in Venice, the Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery in Tel
Aviv, Rome, and Milan, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, the
HUC-JIR Museum of New York, the Venice Biennale, Basel Miami. He is also
present in important private and public collections in Europe, United States,
South America and Far East.
Tobias'
work relies on a wise study of ghematria, the theological science that
describes how the Hebrew language assigns numbers to letters
. The
fact that each word corresponds to a number, the result of an arithmetic sum,
reveals how words or sentences with the same numerical value are connected in
meaning.
The
key of his work is the semantic correspondence between the represented image
and numbers
. Tobia Ravà has therefore created an artistic genre
that is defined ‘
aesthetic conceptualism
’: “to the tight logic of
the ghematric paths and the different levels of interpretation of the work, he
adds the captivating aspect of shapes and colors”.
M.L.Trevisan
The
artist loves to represent imaginary or existing landscapes, natural places or
urban environments, human and animal figures, cosmic visions or abstract ones.
Only after he can visualize the image, the artist fills it with symbolic
letters and numbers,
creating a real genetic code of the work that defines the subjects
both formally and conceptually
. According to the Lurian
Kabbalah, to which Tobia Ravà refers,
the artist's aim is to reveal the
light
, illuminate the eyes and soul of the viewer.
Looking
at the masterpieces of Tobia Ravà, each one of us is led by beautiful images to
reflect on certain values: from the conservation of the environment to the
history of knowledge, from the mystical atmosphere of places to the infinite
space of the universe
.
Tobia Ravà -
Transcendental algorithms
(pdf file)
