In the fifty-eighth chapter of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, the founder of Taoism, there is such a sentence, which reads: "Woe, where blessing depends, blessing, misfortune lurks." The meaning of this sentence is that good things and bad things can exist and transform each other, and under the effect of different conditions, bad things can become a good thing, and good things can also become a bad thing.
For many things, we can look at it from two sides and multiple angles, and at the same time, it also reminds us not to get into the horns of the bull when we encounter things, but to learn to reconcile with ourselves. If we compare our personal love and hatred with the earth we live in, each of us seems insignificant, the earth is experiencing serious natural disasters all the time, it still exists for countless times, these natural disasters are harmful to the earth, but also healing, just like a rainbow representing hope after a heavy rain.
Marco Matal, an artist from Italy, has proved with his work that what sometimes seems bad can become a good thing, so how does he turn a bad thing into a good thing?Let's take a look, I believe that after reading this artist's works and his creative process, it will not only bring you visual shock, but also bring us profound inspiration.
Marco Matalal is a woodcarver, however, this woodcarver has not cut down a single tree, nor has he damaged the ecological environment, and the wood he uses to make woodcarvings is a tree that has been damaged by natural disasters, including storms, mudslides, and forest fires, etc., every time a large natural disaster occurs, millions of trees will be destroyed.
The woodcarver collects trees damaged by natural disasters and cuts and collages them into huge wood carvings. For example, Marco Matalal's wood carving, completed in November 2021, is based on a natural disaster in northern Italy in October 2018, a terrible storm that destroyed 42 million trees in the forest.
Three years later, Marco Mataral spent two months making a huge wood sculpture using more than 2,000 trees damaged by the storm, and thanks to this wood carving, Lavarro in the Trentino region of northern Italy has become a tourist attraction.
A terrible storm that destroys tens of millions of trees is a bad thing for both humans and the planet, and Marco Matalal's wood carvings are like a little light in the night, making this bad thing look less bad. Marco Mataral's wood carvings allow us to see the power of nature, but also the power of art to transform decay into magic.
Marco Mataral has always believed that wood is the bridge between art, people and nature, so in recent years, he has created many wonderful large-scale sculptures using trees damaged by natural disasters.