Pelle di foglie (Sguardo a terra), 2003

From the time he began walking in the woods of Garessio, Penone has investigated the relationship between man and nature, between growth and creation. He identifies in this dialectic an encounter between two different temporal dimensions: the cycles of seasonal growth of the plant universe and the irregular, concentrated time of human work that modifies, shapes, or even interrupts the flow of life of that universe.

The first works that establish a relationship between natural forms and the artist’s body, dating from 1968, are experiments with tree trunks, marked in their growth by a bronze cast of his hand, where the cast becomes interwoven in the wood, surrounded by a cubic form of metal mesh, and will rise with the tree’s growth. [...]