Maurizio D’Andrea’s art does not belong solely to the domain of painting, nor can it be reduced to theoretical speculation. His work is an embodied form of thought, a visual dramaturgy, an inner experience. At the heart of this research lies a radical idea: the artwork does not represent something that already exists, but rather it happens, it unfolds before the viewer as a symbolic and transformative event. Within this perspective, D’Andrea’s practice revolves around three fundamental axes: the unconscious as stage, the symbol as act, and the artwork as pharmakon.
Traditionally, the unconscious has been conceived as a hidden archive: for Freud, a reservoir of repressed memories; for Jung, a collective storehouse of archetypes and primordial images. D’Andrea distances himself from both views, proposing instead a dynamic and performative vision: the unconscious is not a hidden container but a stage in action, a dramaturgical space where psychic forces do not remain silent but come alive in the very moment the gaze encounters the work. It is not an inner cave to be explored, but an invisible theater that takes form in the aesthetic experience itself. In this sense, the unconscious is never a pre-written content waiting to be uncovered, but a living drama that unfolds anew every time the artwork is seen.
On this stage, the symbol takes shape, but no longer as a mere sign pointing to a hidden meaning. In D’Andrea’s painting, the symbol frees itself from the role of coded message and instead appears as an act. Like language in the sophistic philosophy of Gorgias, the symbol does not describe but acts: it wounds, seduces, heals, unsettles. It is a gesture that leaves its imprint upon the viewer, independent of rational interpretation. Every line, every color, every compositional tension does not “stand for” something else—it works directly upon body and psyche, leaving an emotional and perceptual trace. The symbol, then, is not a key to decipher but a performative force, a living experience that transforms whoever faces it.
Crowning this vision, the artwork itself emerges as a pharmakon, in its ancient ambivalence of poison and remedy, wound and cure. D’Andrea’s art never promises a reassuring resolution: it stages emptiness, disquiet, and the complexity of psychic energies inhabiting both the individual and contemporary society. Yet precisely this encounter with crisis opens a space for regeneration. The work destabilizes while it also heals, because it compels the viewer to linger in the unstable zone where pain and transformation coexist. It is not an experience that resolves but one that opens—an invitation to face one’s inner depths in an unprecedented way.
The pharmakon of art, therefore, is not a simple aesthetic antidote but a process of ambivalence that passes through crisis in order to generate renewal. To stand before one of D’Andrea’s canvases is to accept this tension: to be wounded in order to be reborn, to dwell in emptiness in order to discover a new fullness.
In a cultural era where images are too often reduced to consumable commodities, D’Andrea’s work restores to painting its primal force: that of a symbolic event which acts upon both psyche and body, which does not represent but happens. The unconscious as stage, the symbol as act, and the artwork as pharmakon are not merely theoretical categories, but lived experiences that unfold before his paintings. In them, art returns to its highest vocation: not decoration, not illustration, but an encounter that transforms those who take part in it.
Author’s Website: www.dandreart.info
