#1. Welcome to Humbravana
Humbravana (pronounced- “om-brah-vah-nah”)
is a place, a land that exists.
Where exactly it is, or how to get there, is a mystery.
I first consciously entered the world of Humbravana through this intaglio print, called ’The Transformative Force’. I choose this image first, as I did in my book, ‘A Place Called Humbravana-The Life and Art of Imero Gobbato’, because it was a portal for me, an entrance into another world, another reality.
The book I published was a major attempt to introduce Imero Gobbato, an exceptional artist, to the broader world and to share an intimate view of the place he brought into being through his extraordinary talents. It documents how he created the world of Humbravana through a lifelong commitment to bringing into form, primarily through sound, symbol and visual interpretation, what he imagined. With inherent talent, practiced skills and the tools of an artist, the land and seas of Humbravana emerged, characters developed and a story began to unfold. Imero explored the deeper meanings of life and existence and created—or perhaps found—a place of beauty, awareness, wisdom and kindness. The place he wanted to be.
“Humbravana was born very early, before 1938-40 is when it developed, because I wanted to get out. I wanted to get out of that terrible, terrible situation in Italy, 1940-45. To simply be in a world that made a little more sense than a world that is insane, where there is no solution, where you can’t escape, where the war will drag you to this vortex of a certain nation, of a certain group, of a certain society. So I wanted to get out. Because I had a strong fantasy, especially when I was younger, to have the capacity to believe, that was when Humbravana was born. I had the imagination and the graphic facilities to explore, and I continued to go there for many years.”
-Imero Gobbato
I first gazed upon ‘The Transformative Force’ when it was the black and white version of the print, which Imero had titled ‘The Four Elements’. I discovered the print in a tattered, old artist’s portfolio, tucked away in a flat file at Harbor Square Gallery where I worked. On the outside of the portfolio was a tiny sticker, a return address label used on mail envelopes, with Imero Gobbato’s name and address printed in small type. I was already aware, and admired, the artist’s light-filled paintings of the coastal seas, for which he long has been highly regarded and collected, but this work was very different. I was immediately captivated, taken in, transported, perhaps even transformed. I knew immediately that I needed to explore this multi-dimensional place so strangely encountered through a two-dimensional print. I needed to get to know Imero Gobbato.
The Four Elements
“There is always the fascination of circular things because it is something that is all around us in planetary and universal forms. The earth circles around the sun, the moon circles the earth. I and many other artists, when we get into the metaphysical, when we try to describe something a little about the simple matter, we start to concern ourselves with circular and spherical forms.”
-Imero Gobbato