Showcasing Italian artists: Umberto Mariani, Marcello Lo Giudice and Umberto Ciceri
Opera Gallery closes the year with an exhibition finaletitled –Andante– an Italian affair of visual poetry.
Opening November 28th, Andante, by rendition of its name,
showcases a curated group exhibition of three Contemporary Italian artists
Umberto Mariani, Marcello Lo Giudice and Umberto Ciceri whom all speak in the
slow visual language of romance. Inspired by their rich history of expressing
natural beauty, these artists explore lyrical colours and sophisticated
textures in abstract compositions with an innate Italian sensibility. The selected
mixed-media works re-conceptualize the tradition of the ‘canvas’ with new surfaces
such lenticular 3D, as well as hypnotic manipulations of fabric and coloured
pigmentation on canvas.
Umberto Mariani
is a Post-War multimedia artist whose work exudes a special affinity to the
folds of textiles. Though he studied the masters of the Romantic period and was
surrounded by the emerging movements of Pop Art and Surrealism, the most
profound influences he drew were from the Classical Greek statues that he grew
up with on the streets of Italy.
Mariani’s fascination with the delicate folds of fabric carved out of the hardness
of white marble would later develop into his own desire to manipulate the material.
He picked up his first projects doing monumental narrative work for the St. Peter’s
Basilica in Vatican as well
as mosaics and frescos for the St. Antony Sanctuary in Rome during the 60s, and
during the 70s was widely exhibited in Europe at institutions such as the
Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels and the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Best known
for his complex draperies on irregular-shaped canvases, his work explores illusions
of light and shadow created within the folds of fabric. New multidimensional canvas
works combine intricate drapery over elusive lead sheets (form of metal) where the
fabric both serves to conceal a mysterious object beneath, while also evoking
its presence.
Umberto Mariani was born in Italy in 1936. He graduated from
the Accademia di Brera under Achille Funi with honors. Today he lives and works
in Milan, Italy,
and has become the subject of academic essays by virtually every critic in Italy.
Marcello Lo Giudice
is a contemporary colourist, painter and installation artist born in 1955 in Sicily, Italy.
In his early career during the 1970s, his Conceptual series experimented with
unconventional materials like strawberries, wax and smoke. Later influenced by
his studies in geology, he now creates monochrome abstractions on canvas that
play with the chemistry of colour and medium. His paintings are structured by colours,
oils, and pigments spread thickly on the canvas; first laid upon one another,
the layers resurface in various stages of drying to form beautifully interlaced
designs that are subtle yet profound.
Lo Giudice studied at the Academy
of Fine Art in Venice, Italy,
and was apprentice to 20th Century Italian Masters Emilio Vedova (1919-2006),
Giuseppe Santomaso (1907 1990) and Virgilio Guidi (1892-1984). Today he lives
and works between Milan, Paris, and Noto.
Umberto Ciceri
applies his early studies of neurophysiology and visual syntax to his construction
of hypnotic art installations he calls “Hypertraits”. Specializing in
lenticular 3D, his panels feature silhouettes of figures and objects in
seemingly perpetual motion. Perception is broken into a multi-step process, as
viewers must first focus the out-of focus figures, then physically shift their
sight across to experience the artwork’s movement. Ciceri describes the use of lenticular
technology in his work to “provoke and trigger intense creative participation”
as a key mechanism of his artistic operation. Here, the observer becomes the
engine of the work.
Born in 1961 in Milan, Italy, Ciceri graduated from the Academy of Art
and Fashion and the Textile Design University
in Milan. For
25 years he conducted personal research on neurophysiology, perception and the
biology of sight that would be the premise to his artwork. Today, the artist
lives and works in Bologna.
With every piece created with poise and grace, the featured
artworks in -Andante- will move your senses through a slow dance of delicate
illusions.
Further details at: http://bit.ly/1ciGvat