The exhibition started with a quote in Gabrielle Rifkind’s book ‘The Fog of Peace’ which starts:
“We are most likely to understand more about the smell of politics and human behaviour if we start at the kitchen table, and, according to Hans Blix, the wise ex-head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, peaceful relations between states ‘can and must be practiced both at the conference table and the kitchen table”.
We hope that in supporting this exhibition you will not only find wonderful works of art to enjoy and also to use, but know that your purchase is supporting these charities in their progress of supporting others in areas of conflict.
During the month of December I was a guest of Hektor, a farmhouse that hosts artists in residence on the incredible island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. In this time I had the opportunity to observe the vulcanic landscapes of the island and immerse myself in them through observational drawing.
In recent years, I have developed a series that I called ‘Terra di Dio’ after the Rossellini’s masterpiece.
These images are guiding me to conduct a visual research on volcanic islands that for me have always been an idyllic symbol of curiosity and mystery.
Like in Tarkovsky’s “Zone” the landscapes here are taking the shape of a psychological site, every place is real and fantastic at the same time. This is the point at which psychology and geography collide. These are territories of communication with the subsoil , a Dante’s otherworldly dimension that invites us to pass beyond the bounds of our own, established and thus-far limited self, to understand ourselves as, like the land, always in flux, ever in process, elemental and eruptive, ancient and renewed, splitting and spilling only to reform.
These works on paper are fragments of landscapes made of light and coarse salt, a point of view on the landscape that evokes the gaze of an eighteenth-century traveller; to return to know how to look at that landscape enjoying its richness.
During the last year I have deepened the research on the Mediterranean landscape, especially I stopped for a long time in the salt pans in western Sicily. The salt is extracted from the salt pans by evaporating the sea water and the salt by precipitation remains on the ground where it is then collected by machines or by hand by workers.
The process of salt production is a metaphor for the artistic process of inner synthesis of shapes and colours. Like a hunter gatherer again here the painter is harvesting the fruits that the landscape can offer.
These works of pure projection are transformed into an archetype of original landscape, individual that has as reference the outside world but that then in the mental space of the studio crystalizes and is then collected.
Arcipèlago is happy to present a new exhibition of works on paper. A collection of twenty-two watercolors specifically realized for the Italian winemaker @scarbolo_grave for their new bottle’s labels, in collaboration with the studio Designwork. Scarbolo is based in the region of Friuli in North East of Italy. With their work, they wish to share the most authentic character of their lands, in all its forms. Therefore, they invited me to create the watercolors reproduced on each bottle. This series of artworks on paper can be seen as a return to the origins, to the simple beauty of a landscape that keeps in itself so many myths, lights, and tones. A resistance to civilization and domestication. A metaphor for how wine gradually reveals, step by step, its complex character, hinting at its most indomitable spirit. As the title “Areore” evokes — a jubilant cry of the traveler who after a long trip abroad returns home and is served with good wine — this exhibition is a colorful and joyful celebration of the drink of Gods and of those who create it.
“These works on paper are fragments of landscapes made of light and coarse salt, a point of view on the landscape that evokes the gaze of an eighteenth-century traveller; to return to know how to look at that landscape enjoying its richness.
During the last year I have deepened the research on the Mediterranean landscape, especially I stopped for a long time in the salt pans in western Sicily. The salt is extracted from the salt pans by evaporating the sea water and the salt by precipitation remains on the ground where it is then collected by machines or by hand by workers.
The process of salt production is a metaphor for the artistic process of inner synthesis of shapes and colours. Like a hunter gatherer again here the painter is harvesting the fruits that the landscape can offer.
These works of pure projection are transformed into an archetype of original landscape, individual that has as reference the outside world but that then in the mental space of the studio crystalizes and is then collected.”
This series of small oils on canvas and panels are a combination of observation and imagination that are reflecting my sense of wonder and a lack of artifice that can be discovered only from life. To penetrate the secrets of nature it is necessary to give free rein to the abstract processes of the mind and to find expression for direct emotional responses. To capture the essential elements, we need a probe to pull out the mysterious and profound nucleus.
This body of work has been generated in a residence held in west Sicily around the Nature Reserve “Saline di Trapani and Paceco” during the summer of 2022.
“In the frame of the vast natural park, it is possible to move only on foot in order not to scare the wild animals and these constraints led me to choose a fast and easily transportable way with which to work outside: small-format panels and canvases and techniques that predispose to synthesis, a poetic of the essential.
Lost in the pinks, browns and blues of the salty marshes, my journey took me to many different places around the natural reservoir working along the banks of the marshes under different shades of light and in the hinterland, where the golden fields are drawing sunburned dry hills and valleys. In this “painted journey,” I am following in the footsteps of painters such as Thomas Jones, Turner, Whistler and many others that started to build a new visual imaginary that has always inspired me. Thomas Jones is the first painter that inspired in me the idea of “discrepancy” in the landscape. If we cease to look at the landscape as a product of the human activity, we see an impressive amount of undecided spaces, like he has done in Naples in the years 1778-1779. It was then that he developed his landscape painting, not as a mimetic picture of reality, but as a structural and geometrical projection of forgotten pieces of the city, neglected fragments which he framed on paper.
My love for art history and the tradition of painting led me to investigate and study also the modern and contemporary art and artist such as Giorgio Morandi, Richard Diebenkorn, Etel Adnan and Llse d’Hollander among many others are bearers of a new and contemporary vision of the landscape.
My purpose was to give back the immediacy of the real. I used to work tirelessly from life, outdoors, quickly and intensely, constantly moving from place to place and looking for different lights and sights.
This body of works draws attention to the immediacy of the plein air, of the image achieved in a flash, quickly grabbed and then revised at the studio.
The procedure starts with painting from nature. Paint and draw, because drawing becomes a complementary experience to painting, permitting one to collect a series of notes, and a plot to work on.
Back in the studio, I had the chance to develop and rethink at the first glimpses and add layers and intensity to the paint surface to obtain a more elaborate picture. In my pictorial work, I am finding an ever greater dialogue between oils and watercolours that allows me to move between the two techniques while maintaining the same freshness, transparency and fluency. One technique enhance the other and gave me signals on the way through. The more time I spend listening to my paintings, the more I understand and create a dialogue around their becoming. They suggest the path to take that for everyone is different and unpredictable.
Each technique has its characteristics, mood and character that must be understood. Paint has a life of its own if you allow it to express itself, it will surprise you by showing its character. Oil painting can be used in many ways, from the technical point of view is the most complete and versatile of all painting mediums because it allows fluidity but also higher materiality and intensity of colour. In addition, it allows you to work spontaneously on any type of surface. On paper, panel and canvas the drying changes but remains the same spontaneity and colour vibration that makes the surface appear as just painted. Watercolour is very gentle, delicate and emotional, and has all the potential of oil painting but the big difference is that it is full of light. That’s the life of the painting…”
from the serie ‘Terra di Dio’ printed by @stamperia_arte_albicocco
Every unique piece is printed with 2/3 layers of colour. As usual with monotypes, I’ve used a roller to apply the colour and some brushes and rags to remove and add paint from the surface. The thin layer of wet ink is incredibly sensible and every mark and good accident of the process remains present in the print. In this series I’m going to experiment with different ways of suggesting temperature, movement and contrast, masking out and pulling out the light from the paper.
Francesco Poiana’s diaphanous and dream-like renditions of Italy are like memories, both contemporary and rooted in history. Working en plein air in the Italian landscape, these recent paintings are spontaneous, visual notes that speak to the past as well as something of our contemporary concerns…
Francesco Poiana 