Federico Vezzaro

"Acidic matter gives and takes life. It is a tyrant. I believe it is the best metaphor to grasp the concept of time. In time, it manifests. In time, it creates. In time, it destroys. In time, it annihilates!"

Federico's signature

About
Rust Art

About Rust Art

A new form of groundbreaking artistic endeavour. The colours come from within the material. The chemical process renders a pure spontaneous and unpredictable outcome.

It is the symbiosis and interaction of elements, brought together by the artist that underpins this alchemy. It is irrational, yet the process is contained within a systematic, precise methodology. This is rust art, this is Federico Vezzaro’s signature.

Humble Iron, Acid Etching, Oxidation

The original material is humble iron, which has accompanied humanity for millennia, one of the true engines of technical innovation. Its true identity comes from the aggression of the acid. A true act of violence.

This aggression somewhat mirrors those initial conditions of creation: electrical exchanges are created, exploiting environmental conditions such as humidity, oxygen, and temperature. Electro-chemical-physical transmutations occur. The plate begins to live at this moment. First, the form is created, then life is given to it. Through the violence of the acid, life is conferred. The same impulses (acid etching), but calibrated and distributed differently: the colors that emerge are breathtakingly beautiful. The hues, always different, are enchanting. They won’t last. Decay is inherent in their very nature. To prevent this from happening, the process is obsessively, maniacally suspended, halting that becoming.

“The challenge? To make stable a system that by nature is susceptible to even the slightest variations… Through countless mistakes and deteriorated creations, I succeeded”

Making the Unstable Stable

Years of fieldwork, empirical testing, sleepless nights haunted by the problem to solve, meticulous observations, parameterized under standard conditions and daily annotated in order to observe and extrapolate the trend of an electro-chemical-physical process. Then cataloging hundreds, thousands of sequential photos, videos, timelapses, and drawing conclusions through both a physical-practical-realistic approach and a theoretical-mathematical one.

Stabilizing rust and fixing the color is like conducting an orchestra, where every single step tunes, unifies, and harmonizes an aspect in favor of the whole system, creating a sublime, subtle, and vibrant harmony. The entire process, from the first brushstroke of acid to the final waxing polish, consists of about 30 steps, depending on the finishes.