De Rebus Naturae series

2025 Bust cm 59x83x50 cm
Textile sculpture – Bust modelled with organic materials, plastics and acrylic fabric.

The Anthropocene marks a geological epoch in which human impact on the climate, ecosystems, natural cycles and the geology of the planet is so profound that it leaves indelible traces in the history of the Earth. In this time, nature does not return to its original state: it mixes, becomes contaminated and takes on hybrid forms, revealing the end of the separation between nature and culture.
Mutans Mater embodies this radical transformation, a symbol of a new sacred: impure, incomplete, surviving. It does not promise salvation, but invites us to remain attentive to the changing world, despite us. The metamorphosis of the work is visible and ongoing: as the bust contracts, the acrylic canvas-skin slowly replaces the body modelled with organic materials, transforming what was once living into artificial matter. The gesture is dramatic: it bears witness to the ongoing struggle for dominance between nature and artifice.
Within the belly of the work, microplastics have taken over: they infiltrate the tissues, alter them and make them foreign to themselves. Organic and artificial matter intermingle, and the body becomes a fragile and obstinate hybrid, a reflection of a process that tears away the original. Plastics replace flesh and organic tissues, devouring what was once alive. Yet, in their decomposition, they become part of a transformed, contaminated and inevitable cycle: from silent invaders, they become components of the matter that nourishes humankind and Nature, reflecting the ethical responsibility of the Anthropocene and the fragility of life on Earth.

Mutans Mater thus becomes an icon of a suspended time, between destruction and regeneration, between memory and metamorphosis, between awareness and resistance.