Dormiveglia VI

Dormiveglia VI is one in a series of nine paintings (three of which are in The Met collection) whose Italian title translates to a transitory state between sleeping and wakefulness. Made at a pivotal moment in his career when he was working towards a major retrospective of his work, the series attests to Clemente’s reflection on artistic beginnings, journeys, and transformations.

Born in Naples, a Mediterranean city with Greek roots and a syncretic culture, Clemente spent formative years in India before settling in the 1980s in New York where he became part of a group of artists who found renewed potential in figurative painting. The faceless female figures at the center of this series stand at the edge between land and sea, with objects or shapes replacing their heads. The artist has said that they relate to "a lot of traditional images about having a foot in this world and a foot in the other world."[1] Akin to the mythical female figures that recur in the work of the Symbolist painters, they possess an equally traceable affinity with the iconography Clemente encountered in India. In each of the paintings, the repetition of motifs amplifies the oracular or transmutative qualities of the beings at their center. In this work, a standing figure reaches for an owl-like bird that appears in lieu of its head and stands atop a reclining figure who cups a bird in its hand.



[1] "Interview with Francesco Clemente. Dormiveglia Show," departures.com.