ItalianLia brings us to a small village just north of Teramo. There are few houses perched on the hill and out the air is so cold that seems to come from nearby mountains. The Mark Rodomonti’s house has a long history: it is the sum of several buildings of different ages and, before becoming a private residence, was also a convent of nuns. Inside is a labyrinth of different levels. On the ground floor leads to the cellar, a real prehistoric cave, where Mark works with iron and paints. In a few steps we are in another room where we find another workstation this time dedicated to metalworking. We climb and reach the highest and sunny room, where, however, is the workshop for making glass. Having so much space enables our guests to manage with ease the different types of research that leads, studies ranging from painting, to sound installations for the recovery of abandoned objects. Marco is always looking for new techniques, new tools and processes that will enable them to transform discarded materials into new objects from the cycle of use. This research is self-taught, constantly experimenting and realizing only the tools and equipment of his laboratory, as the turning dish that used to cut glass made from an old turntable. With him we speak aboout his passion for art, the ethical, which means attention to recycling, the teaching of art to aim people with mental disabilities, the sense of a life spent in refining an artistic journey that is both ethical and social.
To close our meeting and witness the ever warm welcome of Teramo friends, we eat lunch in front of a welcoming open fire: rustic noodles, mixed and cut by hand by Marco, seasoned with a robust and tasty sausage gravy made from Cristina, the inevitable Lia’s cereal bun and finally a slice of a chocolate cake.
A quick look at your home to understand that you have interests in many fields, would you tell us something?
Let’s say I work mainly in painting. I always painted, since I was twenty, it is my biggest passion, but I’m mostly interested in art. In addition, I carry on a research for recycling, an ethical duty that prompted me to look into various possibilities mainly for recycling of glass, but also of can. I spent years developing a technique that would allow me to dissect the bottles, I have to say I succeeded.
In addition to painting, there are also other artistic expressions that you experience?
In parallel, just for fun, some ten years ago I found myself constructing sound objects with iron, I name those sound sculptures, self-propelled objects that produce sounds of amplified sensors, very suggestive.
For me, painting and installations are as one. Installations with the sounds are related to painting with which I began, informal painting: I was very interested in the relationship between music and painting, I think the research of Kandinsky, even if he did it with the scientific spirit and for me painting is a consequence nature of emotions, and moods.
At first I spent much time on a canvas, then I started to paint very quickly and instinctively, the large watercolors you see here at home come from there . For me painting is basically a vent, violent and immediate, although lately I’m experiencing a different attitude: I like to work on drawing, perspective, lights and shadows. At the same time informal portraits I’ve always done – the figurative has always interested me – and, coincidentally, a few months ago I started a new research field dominated by stylized human figures, a discourse that attempts to explore the spiritual condition of humanity. Headless men mostly wandering in the desert landscapes, or scattered here and there, people with a long neck ….. with his head in the heavens among the stars. It is a subject that fascinates me in this last period I can not paint anything.
When did you realize that painting was your path?
As a kid I was a great dreamer, I believed in art as the only instrument of revolution, I believed in success. I had a so great passion that I believed that all roads were open. I thought it was just a matter of time, having to wait to reach a certain maturity and, therefore, I have always worked on the quality of the method. Now I realized that it is difficult to emerge.
What school did you attended?
I did the Art College and then the Academy of Fine Arts, two years in Bologna and two in Rome.
Was the academy experience important?
Important as they are years when you can devote yourself entirely to art, but you instill in the minds patterns from which, then, is difficult to get out.
I find they are ridiculous and unnecessary schemes, all labels. When I realized it I had a crisis because I realized how difficult it was to reconcile the informal figurative painting, I did not know what to do … but I felt that both languages belong to me, I remember I did a show in a cloister in Teramo where I showed informal and figurative canvas paintings and because it seemed right to me to show sincerity, and as a whole, the complexity of a person. Maybe I was wrong in doing exhibitions in Teramo… Art for me has been a conviction.
Why a conviction?
Because art is not compromise, is a mental practice that invites you to have rigor and purity. To paint, to do things that will have the force, at first you must be pure, pure to say regarding the content, you must have a deep desire for expression. If you are not intact there is little to learn … Maybe, I have sacrificed too much to the art imagining that over time the quality of intent, the freshness of the message would be there at all… I always thought that truth is beauty, .
I feel I am a sincere person, and this cost me a lot. I never mediated my language for political, economic, or even worse style, on the contrary, I often use my art to say openly what I thought. For this reason I say that art has been a conviction, has certainly influenced the dramatic situations of my life.
Do you still think that art is your condemnation?
Now I have accepted it. I also had many satisfactions, and I still have them, but it’s like being a journalist who writes and writes articles that nobody reads then: at the end you risk of wither yourself. I feel of being in a kind of dead end, but it’s too late to change course.
When you first started, thinking about the high art school, did your family supported you?
My family did not understand what I was doing, but I did not even hindered. I was very determined in what I do, and they have accepted it. As a boy, up to 20 years, I have done nothing else but drawing and dirty canvas and so in the academy times.
At the same time I also became interested in crafts: when I bought the welder it was love at first sight … I started making metal objects that were also selling well.
In this work, as well as your experience in restoration, did you to exploit what you learned in the academy?
Not much work was done in the academy, in Bologna was all very conceptual. I had a professor of reference, D’Agostino, with whom I went to drink a glass of wine at the winery sometimes. It was also nice because it left me very free. He was a supremacist, white on white stuff like Malevich, never said anything, and I thank him for that. I have always belonged to this manuality, this need to play with substance, it was not derived from the studies.
Among the many things that you did is there something you care about in particular?
Last year I held an art workshop for people with psychiatric problems: it was great! They did beautiful works – the subject was still life – with a great final show. For me, those two hours a week were always beautiful.
Speaking, however, of my work, I am very satisfied with the sound installations, I’ve done several in recent years, with the glass, iron … very attractive interaction with public …
What do yo make when you need inspiration?
My research is a constant, it does not need inspiration. For the painting often they are things that happen, both at home and in public life, that make me want to externalize. When I paint I like to improvise: I do not even have time to think about where to put the brush, what to depict, I like starting from scratch. It is a method that I use not to be false or contrived. Sometimes, ideas, tensions build up for days until I find myself painting without even knowing why.
To learn more about your tastes, have you some websites that you like us to consult?
Consult is not the right word … I’m passionate about art, I like design, especially when it binds to recycling, constantly curious, there are many smart people that works around the world.
Magazines?
No, I do not buy magazines if they come across in my hands I look – Tema Celeste, Flash Art – but I do not care much, certain magazines make me nervous, of course, except in rare cases, the artists pay to be listed, the critics are paid to write nonsense … all fake … our culture is in the hands of people who have turned art into empty aestheticism … I think of people like Achille Bonito Oliva and Sgarbi… Art is another thing, especially at times like these where we would both need to give voice to people who say something. I am sickened by the band of critics who administer the world of art, they’re all interior designers, nothing else. We should begin to criticize the critics, since they depend on the emergence of this or that kind of discourse. There is political will in all this and it saddens me, especially the confusion that is generated in new generations. Of course, art is an interpreter of social problems and, from this, the void … I do not know, I do not see energy, life, I only see furnitures, simple virtuosity. We need real people, no more good pictures.
Books?
I have read many essays, Hermann Hesse, Sartre, Nietzsche, August Strindberg, Kandinsky … Also, I have a passion for the artists’ autobiographies. I really like John Fante, Bukowsky especially for their writing. I read many physics and chemistry textbooks: I understand very little but it fascinates me so much.
Film?
I watch many, but I have no favorites. I like Woody Allen, Jack Nicholson as an actor, but also many other … Troisi, Totò.
The city where would you live?
It is nice to live everywhere. If I have a choice, I would live in the countryside or mountains, but apparently, I still can not do it.
Music?
A bit ‘of everything, especially Chet Baker – I’m also learning to play trumpet – Brian Eno, De Andrè, especially the last things, Branduardi, classical … I listen to everything.
Art?
I really like Pollock, for his energy. Kandinsky, however, I was always fascinated by the relationship between color and music. I like the rustic, I like artists who do pure research. I like all great artists, each artist is a person who in good and evil expresses itself I don’t think I have particular tastes as well as acknowledging the artists that I feel closer. Truth is beauty, I have always believed… I love the quality of language, the thickness … I love the power of the extreme passion that makes works unique.
For doing your job, what are the important qualities to have?
The most important thing is patience, especially in waiting for the results. Then, you must believe, believe what you are saying is so important that it be worth to be watched and appreciated. Ultimately I would say perseverance and self-confidence. Unfortunately, as they say, the patience has a limit, I am discovering it in recent years.
A quality that you don’t have and would like to grow?
I wish I could promote myself better, knowing how to propose to others, perhaps even knowing how to act in front of others. I wish I could put a mask, be cold towards what I do, as if I were a salesman, a simple seller.
What would you like to do next?
My dream is to create a recycling workshop, a research center on the ability to recycle and create new objects. More than a laboratory, a school in which to test the re-use, teach, work with others, exchange ideas.
Instead, a concern?
My biggest concern is related to my economy. I wish I could work in peace and serenity.
Would you give us the name of some people you’d like to us know?
Massimo Piunti, an artist full of interests, of him I like his great passion for the land. Jorg Grunert, a German artist who was before in L’Aquila and now lives in Spoltore, near Pescara. Sergio Florà, who I do not quite understand he would mean with his painting, but I appreciate him for his simplicity and spontaneity.
Photos by Pippo Marino