Is called “Prato rosso”, the canvas donated to the Municipality of Matera by the 85-year-old artist from Salento Salvatore Sebaste.
Resident in Metaponto for 65 years, but also operating between Bologna and Milan, Sebaste thus wants to continue the line of institutional and community sharing of its creations.
There canvas will be on display in the “Mandela” room of the town hallhistoric institutional venue for public meetings, press conferences and civil weddings.
Everyone will be able to admire the work created by Sebaste way back in 1986inspired by purple red of a large poppy field on the outskirts of Metaponto.
The artist said that the inspiration came to him while lying on the poppy field and looking at the sky, thus blending the intense red of the Metaponto land with the blue and white of the traveling clouds.
The artist does not create, but interprets and decodes reality, said Sebaste, offering the user of the work many possible interpretations of it depending on their sensitivity.
The condition for receiving the red lawn, was to have to expose it because in the deed of donation there is this single requirement.
So the mayor, Domenico Bennardi, with the Councilor for Culture Tiziana D’Oppido, immediately worked to find that location close to the works of Ortega, Sebaste’s great friend, which surround the red lawn.
The mayor commented:
“Painter, sculptor and engraver, Sebaste in Basilicata was struck by the beauty of the area in 1959.
I thank the Master for this act of great generosity; after all, he was also president of the prestigious “La Scaletta” club in Matera.
I am pleased by the presence of the lawyer De Ruggieri, with whom he collaborated in the 70s, meeting intellectuals, writers and artists, such as Josè Ortega.
For this reason I wanted to place his work alongside those of Maestro Ortega, to reproduce the creative spirit of those years, when he met Levi, Guerricchio and Treccani.
I thank the manager of the Piano office, Caterina Rotondaro, for having facilitated this meeting with Sebaste.
The work will be inventoried and will fully fall within the heritage of the Municipality of Matera.
Thanks to Sebaste, researcher and creative artist and experimenter.
He never stopped, taking inspiration from the evocative territory of Magna Graecia”.
Sebaste said the genesis of his creativity and of the work donated to the Municipality, defining art as science and continuous research.
Here are the photos of the canvas.
