THE ETHEREAL

Transparency as a temporal device: The technique of solidified rain sheets in contemporary figurative painting
by Giuseppe Rametta - Giusirames

Index

  1. Introduction

  2. Theoretical context
    2.1 The ephemeral in art
    2.2 Transparency as a concept
    2.3 The immersed figure

  3. Description of the technique
    3.1 Figurative painting
    3.2 Sheets of solidified rain
    3.3 Overlapping and integration

  4. Transparency as the freezing of time
    4.1 The membrane as atmospheric ice
    4.2 The figure as a suspended body
    4.3 The paradox of frozen movement

  5. Analysis of the works
    5.1 Reclining figures
    5.2 Eyes and gazes
    5.3 Couples and intimacy
    5.4 Figures immersed in colored membranes
    5.5 Figures immersed in neutral membranes

  6. Variations and developments of the technique

  7. Technical and conservation aspects

  8. Conclusions

  9. Layered abstraction: transparency as a generator of chromatic space.

  10. Additional chapter

  11. Introduction This thesis stems from the need to investigate an original painting technique developed by the author, which combines figurative painting and solidified atmospheric phenomena.
    The heart of the research is a simple and radical question: How can an ephemeral phenomenon be made permanent? The answer takes shape through the creation of sheets of solidified rain, transparent membranes that preserve the logic of the drop, the flow, the surface tension. These membranes are superimposed on figurative paintings, generating a multidimensional visual language. Transparency is not an aesthetic effect, but a temporal device: it freezes the work, suspends it, holds it in an eternal instant.

  12. Theoretical context

2.1 The ephemeral in art Contemporary art has often questioned the ephemeral:

2.2 Transparency as a concept Transparency is a complex concept:

2.3 The immersed figure The human figure is central:

  1. Description of the technique

3.1 The figurative painting The process begins with a figurative painting:

3.2 Sheets of solidified rain The sheets of solidified rain are transparent membranes obtained through:

3.3 Overlapping and integration The membrane is placed on the painting:

  1. Transparency as the freezing of time

4.1 The membrane as atmospheric ice The membrane is conceptual ice:

4.2 The figure as a suspended body The figure lives in a different time:

4.3 The paradox of frozen movement The membrane is still, but the light makes it vibrate.
Time is frozen, but perception is dynamic.

  1. Analysis of the works

5.1 Reclining figures The reclining figures immersed in the membrane evoke:

5.2 Eyes and gazes The eyes immersed in the membrane become:

5.3 Couples and intimacy Couples immersed in the membrane:

5.4 Figures immersed in colored membranes Colored membranes introduce:

5.5 Figures immersed in neutral membranes Neutral membranes create:

  1. Variations and developments of the technique
  1. Technical and conservation aspects
  1. Conclusions The technique of solidified rain sheets represents an autonomous artistic language, in which:
  1. Layered abstraction: transparency as a generator of chromatic space.

Introduction Abstract art achieved through the superimposition of transparent colored layers is a natural extension of the technique of solidified rain sheets. While transparency acts as a temporal device in the figurative realm, in the abstract it becomes a spatial engine, a generative principle that constructs depth, vibrations, and fields of light.
This chapter analyzes how the overlapping of transparent colored membranes can constitute an autonomous language, capable of producing an abstraction that is neither gestural nor geometric, but optical, material, and phenomenological.

9.1. Transparency as space, not as surface. In traditional painting, color is deposited on the surface.
In your research, however, transparent color:

9.2. The logic of chromatic stratification.

9.2.1. Each layer is a different time The overlapping of transparent layers introduces an internal temporality:

9.2.2. Light as an active agent Light is not an external element:
it is a co-author of the work. Passing through the layers:

9.2.3. Transparency as a principle of complexity The overlapping of transparent colors generates complexity without chaos.
Each layer interacts with the others without canceling them out.
The result is a layered chromatic field in which:

9.3. Materials and processes for transparent abstraction

9.3.1. Colored membranes. Transparent membranes can be colored using:

9.3.2. Physical superimposition. Overlapping is not only pictorial, but also material:

9.3.3. Intervention of chance Transparency welcomes chance:

9.4. Poetics of transparent abstraction.

9.4.1. Atmospheric abstraction. Your abstraction is neither geometric nor informal:
it is atmospheric. It is an abstraction that arises from:

9.4.2. Transparency as chromatic memory. Each transparent layer preserves the trace of a gesture, but does not impose it.
It is a memory that does not dominate, but dialogues. The work becomes an archive of:

9.4.3. The abstract as emotional space Transparency introduces a particular emotional quality:

9.5. Relationship with figurative technique. Transparent abstraction is not a separate chapter in your research:
it is its natural completion. In the figurative part:

Conclusion of the chapter. Abstract art achieved through the superimposition of transparent colored layers represents a form of multidimensional painting, in which light, matter, and time intertwine.
It is an autonomous language, consistent with your research, capable of generating works that are not limited to being seen, but traverse the most hidden places of consciousness, the wonderful shadows of the soul, the awakenings of the most beautiful time.