Date: Mar 4th 2014 11:51a.m.

Contributed by:
laurafitch

It’s difficult to maintain the idea that one’s problems are important in the grand scheme of things when observing the cosmos on a clear, dark night. When compared with the length of time it has taken for the light of even one of the myriad stars to have reached one’s retina, a lifetime doesn’t seem nearly as long as it might have earlier in the midst of a busy afternoon.

In his solo show at Galleria Continua, award-winning artist Giovanni Ozzola contemplates our place in the vastness of the universe and the concept of the infinite itself in  “La Theorie des Cometes.”

Each individual work is a contemplation on being swept up in something larger than oneself. Entering the gallery, the viewer sees Beijing Winter, a small photo of a door open just a crack, with a slice of light revealing a red slash of shower curtain. It’s a clear invitation to enter a different place of perception, and the willing viewer is rewarded with thought-provoking and beautiful pieces that stimulate the mind as well as the visual aesthetic.

As the viewer turns from Beijing Winter to the right, a vast expanse of 98 copper plates etched with flowing lines trace numerous seafaring routes of the past. To the left, the viewer sees a large-scale video installation of three automatic doors slowly sliding open and shut to an anonymous but pristine and peaceful landscape of sand dunes that stretch toward the sea.

Both are symbolic of moving toward the unknown, exploring something new and uncharted—essentially living a life. If the viewer needed any more prodding as to realizing the artist’s intent, she gets it on the wall opposite the video installation, in which a tangle of ropes loop through each other, forming a …