Fabio Marullo on Suspension and Figuration Plants During Lockdown

During the COVID-19 quarantine, Italian artist Fabio Marullo reflects on how suspension—both pictorial and metaphorical—shapes his work. In a video response to Artribune, he discusses his ongoing research project Figuration Plants, initiated in late 2016, which unexpectedly forced him to change direction multiple times. He describes arriving at an unexpected place, the opposite of what he desired, and compares waiting to a form of vigilant inaction, akin to the rare flowering of apocarpic plants at the end of their life cycle. Marullo is creating a new series of oil-on-linen paintings and installative works that explore the tension between fullness and emptiness, perception and abstraction. He aims to convey landscapes—mountain scenes and vistas where these plants exist—as manifestations of a constant equilibrium underlying existence, where nothing is ever absolutely empty or full, but everything is in becoming, leading to flowering or a new beginning. The article is part of Artribune's civic information effort during the pandemic, asking artists how they are working and spending their time in lockdown.