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Lot Essay
'The image is often structured through a dense sequence of phrasing or compositions of grids, and the constellations of points, gothic and baroque architecture, precisely gauged constructions of empty and full zones, squiggles and parallel arrays, checked patterns, or informal landscapes bordering on frottage, and a whole series of interventions on the surface and the background.' SERGIO RISALITI
In Giuseppe Gallo’s Gli Amanti (I) (Lovers (I)), a rhythmic mass of semi-abstract forms mingle and dance against a sun-drenched backdrop. Reminiscent of leaves, on closer inspection these fragments closely resemble a wealth of figurative icons, from ladders and chess pieces to strange, unknown creatures. The invigorating chromatic spread, which transitions from dank greens to fiery reds, has been burnished into surface by the artist; the forms are embedded using his signature encaustic technique, enclosing the colouration of the oil and acrylic paint within a wax seal. The title of the work suggests two lovers coalescing in an enrapturing moment, capturing a transitory coexistence with movement and fluidity.
Achille Bonito Olivia has written about Gallo’s work as an unexpected epistemological interruption. ‘Gallo leads the eye of the world towards a surprise,’ Olivia writes, ‘played upon played upon flowing and halting, the fluidity of the colour and the pause of a recognizable element. A sort of musical movement assists his painting, an andante ma non troppo rhythm of an opera that foments both abandon and attention. Inside the frame there is an interwoven dynamic neither able to be codified nor foreseeable, fruit of a sensitivity which tempers the estrangement of the figures with the cordiality of the matter, the metaphysical intensity with the calm of the surface. The latter is always presented in a flowing manner, without the antipathy of clots or the resistance of excessive irregularities. When it does take on the giddiness of irregularity it is mellowed in the sinuosity of the curved line’ (A. B. Oliva, ‘Painting is the Place of Complexity’, https://www.giuseppe-gallo.it/uk/ texts/giuseppe-gallo/testi/giuseppe-gallo_aoliva. pdf [accessed 6 September 2017]).
In Giuseppe Gallo’s Gli Amanti (I) (Lovers (I)), a rhythmic mass of semi-abstract forms mingle and dance against a sun-drenched backdrop. Reminiscent of leaves, on closer inspection these fragments closely resemble a wealth of figurative icons, from ladders and chess pieces to strange, unknown creatures. The invigorating chromatic spread, which transitions from dank greens to fiery reds, has been burnished into surface by the artist; the forms are embedded using his signature encaustic technique, enclosing the colouration of the oil and acrylic paint within a wax seal. The title of the work suggests two lovers coalescing in an enrapturing moment, capturing a transitory coexistence with movement and fluidity.
Achille Bonito Olivia has written about Gallo’s work as an unexpected epistemological interruption. ‘Gallo leads the eye of the world towards a surprise,’ Olivia writes, ‘played upon played upon flowing and halting, the fluidity of the colour and the pause of a recognizable element. A sort of musical movement assists his painting, an andante ma non troppo rhythm of an opera that foments both abandon and attention. Inside the frame there is an interwoven dynamic neither able to be codified nor foreseeable, fruit of a sensitivity which tempers the estrangement of the figures with the cordiality of the matter, the metaphysical intensity with the calm of the surface. The latter is always presented in a flowing manner, without the antipathy of clots or the resistance of excessive irregularities. When it does take on the giddiness of irregularity it is mellowed in the sinuosity of the curved line’ (A. B. Oliva, ‘Painting is the Place of Complexity’, https://www.giuseppe-gallo.it/uk/ texts/giuseppe-gallo/testi/giuseppe-gallo_aoliva. pdf [accessed 6 September 2017]).