CARLO ANFUSO indissolubly links his artistic production to the professional experience of psychomotor teacher, naturopath and master of Contemplative Energetic Meditation. For Anfuso, in fact, the goal of the artistic work is the achievement of the well-being of the individual, through the use of shapes and colors that invariably produce positive effects on the human psyche. In his work, Anfuso applies the use of "chromotherapy" (color therapy), through the combination of colors matched in optimal sequences to infuse feelings of happiness and well-being in the observer. The observation of colors and shapes, both real and symbolic, causes mental associations in the individual that induce us to experience pleasurable and revealing sensations of a joy usually hidden in the folds of the soul and suffocated by the interference of everyday life. For Anfuso, in fact, the well-being of the soul and the body is obtained by digging deeper into the "self" and getting rid of social conditioning, reaching the awareness of the existence and importance of what Freud called the "ES", that is to say of all those unconscious and instinctual impulses, unaffected by moral or social rules (the so-called "Super Ego"), which must be rediscovered and freed through the sublimation of the work of art, not understood as an imitation of reality but as a tool to overcome the anxieties that reality itself provides us. The unhappiness and the psychic pathology take over when the social and family conditionings become too overwhelming, so as to suppress the Ego and stifle the true identity of the individual. This anxiety is usually circumvented and hidden by the "mask" of Pirandellian memory, which the individual is forced to wear in order to be accepted socially, but which deprives him of his true essence and the realization of the deeper Ego.

​

 

The conflicts between man and nature, as well as between the masculine and the feminine, are overcome thanks to the resolving power of eros, sensuality, emotion, the ability to capture moments with lightness and carefree. Art is therefore a fantastic representation of the existing, through significant and symbolic subjects, in which anyone can project his experience identifying himself and interpreting the representation subjectively.

​

 

It is no coincidence that the artist who most influences Anfuso in his work is certainly Gustav Klimt, the protagonist of an artistic revolution that broke the classical canons of art and moral customs in vogue until the early twentieth century. Klimt in fact introduces a realistic depiction of naked bodies, although immersed in an almost unreal context of backgrounds and garments, through the use of color and ornamentation (for example, with the use of gold) which allowed to create a surface of indeterminate sensations, rich in symbolic figures, such as spirals and circles that represent a feminine element, and rectangles and vertical figures that symbolize the masculine one.

 

 

Another important influence in Anfuso's work is that of "Fauvism", that is of the "wild" use of colors, pure and unmixed or shaded, an expression of vitality, exuberance and expressive immediacy, evident in the reproduction that the artist makes of "Joy of living" by Matisse, where the intertwining of surreal bodies and colors expresses how, in a hypothetical "primitive" world, happiness is represented by the absence of the conditioning of civilized society.

 

 

In "Danae" the self-titled painting by Klimt is reproduced, in the reinterpretation of the famous "erotic" cartoonist Milo Manara: it depicts the myth of the beautiful Danae, imprisoned by her father in a bronze tower to avert the prophecy that if she had been seduced, he would have been killed by his nephew; but Zeus, infatuated with the young woman, had nevertheless managed to penetrate the tower in the form of a cloud, fertilizing Danae with a shower of gold. The painting thus represents the unconscious sensuality and is a metaphor for universal fertility, and the strength of passion in spite of external impositions.

​

 

In "Sissy" the suffering of a young woman who refused to live an imposed reality that led her to a suffering that cannot be accepted, is exorcised by wearing a transgressive and unconventional "mask", shocking and disturbing to the society, which actually hides a deep unease and suffering.

​

 

In "Madama Butterfly", the protagonist of the famous tragedy of Puccini, the young geisha Cho Cho San, married and abandoned by the cynical US official Pinkerton, is portrayed in the dreamy and poignant wait of the beloved, wrapped in a whirlwind of emotions and irrational illusions, expressed by the colors and spirals of shapes that, like a tattoo, appear engraved in the flesh and soul of the young woman.

​

In "The Joy", we see represented different characters, immersed in a dreamy and enveloping background, portrayed in moments in which they let themselves be carried away by the emotion of the moment and by the ability to realize what they want, without being influenced by what surrounds them, by judgment of others or from the concerns of an uncertain future: music, passion and art give us those tools to emerge from the sea of ​​indifference and homologation to finally savor the deserved moment of happiness.

​

 

SCULPTURES IN CERAMIZED LAVA STONE

​

 

In his continuous search for artistic experimentation, Carlo Anfuso also devotes himself to painting on ceramized lava stone, in which the two primordial elements of the earth and of the Sicilian artistic and artisan tradition blend together to tell the beauty, history, values, and the very nature of our island: through strong colors, such as the bright red, the sunny yellow, the intense green or the cobalt blue of the sea, traditional, chivalrous, mythological or popular devotional subjects are portrayed: "Ulysses and Polyphemus", "The labors of Hercules", "Achille", "Templar Knight", "Ruggero the Norman", "St. George and the Dragon ", "S. Michele Arcangelo", "Sicilian paladins ", "Nativity".

Another aspect of the works in lava stone by Carlo Anfuso is the reworking of shapes and colors in an essentialist key: images with pure colors, without shadows and shades, which, emphasizing the essence of the shapes and the elementary chromatic spots, through a immediate mental association succeed in arousing in the observer that "pathos", a liberating emotion that awakens the most profound and authentic aspects of our "I", until the attainment of well-being and healing of the spirit and the body.

 

The depicted subjects have therefore precise symbolic references: the "Venus of Botticelli" represents Eros and spiritual beauty as the driving force of creation and life, "the Fish", symbolizes luck and fertility, due to the infinite number of eggs and because he lives in water, the source of life; "the Peacock" represents immortality (his flesh was considered incorruptible), the cosmic unfolding of the Spirit (it brings together all the colors of the iris in the fan of its unfolded tail), as well as the right and incorruptible man ("Like the peacock , which shines with innumerable sparkles, the righteous man shines with virtue, and as the song of the peacock puts the serpents to flight, the righteous man puts to flight the devil with his prayer", Saint Augustine); "Fusion": represents the cosmic forces on which the principles of quantum healing are based, in which it is possible to catalyze the largest form of energy, that is, consciousness, able to overcome the limits of the body, leading to identifying one's "omega" and to go beyond the various "stargates" towards the realization of the mission of one's Soul; "The Tree of Life", which in the Kabbalah represents the laws of the Universe and the connection between heaven and earth; "Cosmic Perceptions" symbolizes the qualities of inner perception (the "cosmic senses") of which every human being is naturally gifted and which connect him to the transcendent dimension; "Mary", "Lusy", "Sofy", sensual female figures, connected to the liberating power of Eros and beauty, a true connection between God and the matter and driving force of the whole world.

 

​