The invisible present

I remember when the term “invisible present” saw the light of day.
On a day of “creative need”, we performed an experiment: we silently watched one of your videos of about 10 minutes, featuring your artwork and music chosen by you (present on the Home page).
We decided that when it ended, “while still hot” we would write down what it had prompted in us and out of a long list came out “the invisible present”.

An oil painting was born from it and than a solo exhibit, and now we are thinking about a traveling exhibit. At the time you asked me: “Marina why?” Why was this definition so strong that it went beyond time, so much so that is always seems relevant? I think the invisible present… is you Tina.
You have the ability to give life to something that is not there, which is really only hidden, and this happens in your paintings and in human relationships.

In your art it is as if the painting needed to have oxygen and light, you can tell from your winds, the sea currents, the lights which are always in movement and one minute they are one colour the next moment they are different… And yet the artwork is not a video! But you can also tell from the subjects of your artwork, which are never just what you see… but they imply… stories.
From those oranges thrown on the table, that seem to evoke your father upon returning from the market, who seemed to tell you with a gesture: “Look at me women, look at how handsome and good I am!”, or “Una storia, tante storie” [One story, many stories] where a bench in the corner of an old wall makes each of us think of our own past and its uniqueness.

Many times the protagonist of your solo exhibits is the emotion.
How can one forget that elderly lady who, upon seeing a painting of yours that depicted a woman who was looking at her house, said “that’s me and that’s my house”, or that couple where the wife couldn’t peel her eyes off one of the paintings and she kept crying and saying: “that’s me!”, the piece depicted a corner of a house with an abandoned doll, face down, or the one who saw God in that small white dot in the “Risalita” [The way back up].
Some years ago you decided to introduce the concept of the “invisible” barrier in your university seminars on evolutionary psychology, a concept that’s very dear to you as you had experienced it on the field.
You were referring to that barrier which always separates disabled people from healthy ones, even the ones who sincerely believed they didn’t have one. (See psychology in all the seminars)

Overcoming barriers was one of the many reasons that brought you closer to Mojoca (Movement of young boys and girls off the streets in Guatemala) and made you adhere to Amistrada, which is the international friendship network which supports the Movement’s projects. Even there you looked for our invisible present, it is clear in the text “Io e le ragazze di strada del Guatemala” [Myself and the girls from the streets of Guatemala] always against the current to look for understanding, relationships that weren’t in pre-established schemes: you write “what do an Italian disabled woman and a Guatemalan street girl have in common?” (See text and link in Contacts)

Therefore the invisible present is you for your ability to see it at the time already, to understand and express the “unsaid”, to find the synthesis and the truth from yourself and in the people and things that surround you, with the ability to bring the best out onto the surface.
Of course, people admire you for your diligence in life, but they love you for your ability to bring out “the best in them” to light: that part of them that gets them to make peace with themselves, which motivates them to hope and fight, which makes them feel less alone.

Whether you use a brush or a dialogue.

If everything and more is what you are, a way of being and living life, your website could not have been called other than www.linvisibilepresente.it