Maria Positano's practice is driven by the creation of physical artefacts and manipulation of organic matter.
She deploys elements associated with rituals and ceremonies: these include the elements used [fire, burned wood, metal and wax] and the processes applied [metal working, wood burning, casting].
Maria Positano’s work evolves around symbolic containers. She seeks the layering of symbolic meaning projected onto the object of worship, which turns inanimate matter into the icon. The object, as a result of an alchemical process, or shamanic investiture, becomes a representation of the human striving to unconceal the unknown thing.
Exploring the individual´s psychological engagement and immersive experience with the object, each artwork creates a charged space. By juxtaposing transient materials and bold imagery, abstracted and symbolic, crafted object and sharp finish, she wants to create the experience of the self-reflection on the notion of being human.
Our contemporary understanding of anthropological, historical and visual codes becomes in her work a channel for unified communication between worshippers and the worshipped. Within this process emerges the figure of the archetypal Demiurge [artist, shaman, alchemist, smith] who becomes the intermediary for powerful and insightful mediation of the spiritual territory into the physical realm.