Divergent Surface 拡散する表面　[Superficie Divergente]

A white canvas with nothing painted on it. Its surface, however, is an endless series of tiny undulations that create a mysterious sense of rhythm. This work, in which the artist has made tiny convexities and concavities on the normally-flat canvas with nails, is from a series Castellani began around 1960. This was a time when Milanese art circles were alive with the atmosphere of experimentation. Castellani too contributed to artistic debate by publishing the avant-garde magazine "Azimuth".
Lucio Fontana slit his canvas and incorporated the real space on the other side of the canvas into his work. Following in his footsteps, Castellani turned to the study of surface－the single skin separating painting from the external world. It was indeed to emphasize the surface that he created an ambiguous space with the canvas undulations and produced subtle shadows by painting over the undulations with a uniform, monochrome layer of paint. As the title "Divergent Surface" indicates, the regular repetition of undulations expands beyond the canvas into infinity.