Encounters and characters of the Terre Sicane
Zu Pietro, the sculptor who carves in memory
He is over 90 years old, lives in Giuliana and carves wood through “guessing”
The peasant world carved in wood.
Sowing, reaping, harvesting, grazing animals, but also hieratic figures reminiscent of votive statuettes in ancient art or bas-reliefs with glimpses of Sicily.
The creative universe of Pietro Principato, sculptor-farmer, has roots that are firmly planted in Giuliana. A deep bond with the farming village in the far south of Palermitano, where“Uncle Pietro“-as everyone likes to call him in the village-was born in May 1930. These are hands that carve a dying world, hard work, that of the fields and livestock, that Pietro knew in his youthful years. At least until 1964, when, despite his strong ties to his homeland, he emigrated to Germany, like so many, in search of fortune.
A farewell marked by an on-the-job injury that would change his life. In 1967 he suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury and underwent numerous surgeries that would force him to remain in a wheelchair for quite some time. After nine years, in 1973, Pietro returned to Sicily and shortly thereafter began his artistic adventure that will accompany him throughout his life, to this day.
To those who meet him on his doorstep, in the heart of Giuliana he says that carving wood nostalgically takes him back to his youth, spent among fields and animals. Like all self-taught artists, he lives the creative experience without filters or trappings. He carves in bas-relief using rudimentary technical means, first and foremost the knife, with which he mainly carves olive or walnut wood tablets.
His technique entirely spontaneous, unfamiliar with the laws of perspective and foreshortening, but precisely because of this his works appear sincere and direct, at times evocative: figures born of his innate imagination or as he puts it, “Guessing.”
Meeting Pietro-one of the many true and profound faces one can encounter while exploring the Terre Sicane-hearing from his voice the genesis of each work he has carved is like taking a fantastic trip back in memory. A spontaneous art, but with a rigorous creative process, that is an ode to the passing of time
Text and photos by Giulio Giallombardo
