CYCLVS DIEI

Meet the Artist at Opening Reception

CYCLVS DIEI (“Cycle of the Day”) collects a series of sculptures in stainless steel, onyx, cast glass and LED lights, merged with Latin poetry and contemporary music. The series is based on interconnected Latin poems, exploring a particular light of the day as a literary vehicle to reflect a range of dramatically different emotions, from the femininity of dawn to the wrath of day, from the acritude of twilight to the quietness of night. Each epigram is visually represented by a glass and steel sculpture. The words, carved in stainless steel support classically inspired torsos/figures in cast glass, reflecting the content of the poems. Built-in onyx, illuminated by LEDs, physically brings each piece to light. 

A piano and voice soundtrack complements each sculpture and provides a new dimension to the lyrics themselves, in Latin, as originally conceived and as reflected in the physical pieces. The music pieces are captured in a vinyl album, which will be presented at the opening of the exhibition through a live piano performance with Canadian composer Jonny Hetherington. 

Stefano Losi's story begins in Lake Como, where he was raised and educated in the fine arts and literature. After his graduate degree from the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan, Stefano went on to hold senior positions at various international institutions, currently serving as a Senior Official of the United Nations in New York. Stefano's creative vision took shape in his multimedia art and poetry project, "Violent Dances Fade · Choreae Violentae Dissolvvntvr," which was born in Milan in 1991 and further developed in London and New York, combining sculpture, contemporary music, and Latin poetry.  Stefano's art has been exhibited in formal and alternative spaces across Europe and the United States over four decades.  His work has been praised for its ability to inspire hope, with Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Maria Costa, calling it a "splendid union". Stefano continues to create art and poetry in Chelsea, New York, where he brings his creativity to life. 

The study of classical art and literature has always been an integral part of my life.  It still emerges in my work, filtered by a clear contemporary sensitivity.  Writer Marco Mathieu captured its essence as “Timeless. On the contrary, inside time. And beyond. · Significant. Blunt. Stirring, most of all.”

My multimedia art and poetry provides a personal perspective on the existential unquietness inherent in the human condition.  The continuous research summarized in “Arid rain”:

“I am generated by restlessness · The uninterrupted movement of the seas of Methymna

Tormented · By a continuous thirst · Powered by a rain of ash and copper

The insistent caress · Of a most terse sand · Projects · In opaque light · My features of burned soil

The thin hands smoothed by the sun

Amongst the wind · Virginal trembling · I approach my lips to yours · Livid · Wet of salt

Slowly · You bring to you my body · Now stripped of shadow

Finally free

As a god · After death I sit behind your eyes of ash”