Carlo Fantin

U Have 2 Name Him Jesus #Annunciation

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Carlo Fantin was raised in Italy, and his mother was devoutly Catholic. His earliest significant exposure to art was through the iconography of religious figures in The Basilica di San Marco, in Venice. The way The Virgin Mary and "endless numbers" of saints were venerated in paintings and sculpture, was powerful. Eventually, Fantin also became fascinated with the parallels between religious worship and contemporary obsessions. So many saints are worshipped in Italy, Fantin says, and any given worshiper's predominant preoccupations will lead him to be especially devoted to a particular saint (or vice versa, one supposes). Within a working analogy of the internet as modern-day religion, and social networking as contemporary churchgoing, we follow "modern saints" such as blogs and YouTube channels, and can find always another Virgin Mary to adore amongst celebrity Twitter pages. Fantin's current vein of work, iconographic imagery in a "lacework tapestry" of hand-cut paper--not unlike a Basilica's stained-glass windows--is crafted with a precision and intricacy that evokes obsessive fervor.