DEUCE — Helga Aversa

In tennis, deuce is the moment when the score resets and everything begins again. Not a defeat, not a victory — a threshold. The exact point where rules are suspended and space reopens.

Questo collage nasce da uno strappo — gesto semplice, manuale, This collage originates from a tear — a simple, manual, irreversible gesture. On one side, the field we know: measured, orthogonal, a ball suspended within the precision of a game that already knows how it will end. A closed system that knows where it wants you to be. On the other side, after the tear, the lines lose their certainty: they tilt, overlap, and the balls multiply without imposed direction. The net — a boundary by definition — dissolves into curves and stops separating. The future is not yet visible because it does not yet have its rules. DEUCE is the image of that precise instant — when the old lines no longer hold, and space finally opens.

Helga Aversa is an illustrator and graphic designer. She works with agencies, brands, and publishers on projects spanning editorial illustration, illustrated branding, packaging, and live illustration. She studied Design at Politecnico di Milano and Illustration at Mimaster, and currently teaches graphic design at IED Milano. Her work often uses collage with paper and colored card — “painting with scissors,” as Matisse once said. She is fascinated by returning to hand-based processes, assembling forms, and building spaces through composition.