Five works. Some guys are saving paintings from water and fire. These are not common paintings, their authors are Bellini, Canaletto, Guardi, Tintoretto, Sebastiano del Piombo, Tiziano, … all Venetian Masters. In the background, we can see that Venice is where all this is happening. A disaster, something very bad occurred, the water has risen, a church is burning. These people are saving, or maybe stealing these masterpieces. Some works have been seriously damaged.
Are they saving orstealing these masterpieces?
In some of these scenes, the young men seem to make every effort to keep the works safe from the water, in some others, they carelessly drag them. Sometimes they are working around ripped canvases and they appear crass, it looks like they have bad intentions.
The same fate.
We have talked about the subject of the works but what about the medium? They are drawing on paper, acrylic, and markers, the paper has been glued on a wooden plank. The corners show tracks of a burn (see the first image). Then, they also seem escaped from something bad and survived. They are like what they depict, they shared the same fate.
Venice means roots for me.
We said everything is happening in Venice, we have clear signs of it. Venice is in no way a common town, but for me, it’s, even more, a special place. My family comes from Veneto, although my parents left those places before me and I was born in Milan, they have always spoken the Venetian dialect at home. In many ways, Venice means roots for me. My teacher in painting was Venetian, and Venetians as well are my beloved ancient masters: Tiziano, Tintoretto, Veronese, Tiepolo,… I deeply love Venice, for me, it’s the most amazing place in the world, the place where I hope I could return to live someday.
Paintings of paintings.
I name it: Boxes in the box, it’s something that you’ll find continuously in my work. I’ll be more clear, my photos are photos of photos, I take the first shot, I manipulate it and then I take the second and final shot. Another exhample, in the Reframing series, the painting is only the final frame, they are paintings of other paintings, or paintings of photos of other images. Every image contains other images that contain other images.
I use a photo to talk about the Photograpy, a painting to talk about the the Art of Painting.
Conclusions.
In the beginning, I wanted to talk about the status of the painting in the visual art landscape. From the main medium to a technic considered somehow old and surpassed and always less considered in contemporary art.
I guess that, later, unconsciously the idea of Venice always struggling to survive in its precarious balance, merged with the original idea. And the great artistic legacy of the Venetian master could play perfectly the role of what is the best in this Art.
As I said Venice is more than Venice to me, it’s my root. I hate to talk about personal stuff, but to say it shortly my mother has a memory loss, and I’d like to save her memories as more as possible.
The great power of the images, is also that sometimes you can talk about things that you do not hold completely, you can depict an insight, a glance on inner world, a fleeting idea.
