The work of Federico Maddalozzo is based on the perceptive and identifiable analysis of pure colour.
In his latest project which provides for four site specific installations, the artist concentrated on the individual and uncertain nature of vision.
Favouring light materials: paper and cardboard items, piles of sheets, chromatic samples Pantone, aluminium, and operating directly on space, Maddalozzo takes the attention away from the look, structure and weight of shapes, and concentrates the attention towards the perimeter and the surface of the objects.
In Maybe #05 the light reflected by the photons of a whole wall covered by hundreds of coloured cards, protruding from the wall in two opposing inclinations, redesigns space and traps the gaze in a destabilising optical mechanism. The uncertainty which pervades the perception, the impossibility for our eyes to recognize how two identical chromatic surfaces exposed with different inclinations, inevitably leads us back to complex themes which cross the individual's psychological balance. The illusoriness of reality and the uniqueness of the experience, just as the invisibleness of emotions, are the codes tinged by Federico Maddalazzo.
Using the medium of paint, Darren Murray reproduces conventional and banal landscape images taken from calendars and travel brochures. Colors are extremely intense, with a restricted palette, almost exclusively composed of primary and secondary colors, completely unnatural. On a uniform, flat and homogeneous pictorial background Murray traces the outlines of the base elements; instead, the parts of the landscape in the foreground, like silhouettes, are full, uniform, monochrome, and painted without any use of chiaroscuro. Only a few details closest to us (flowers, birds….) are portrayed naturally.
The four landscape canvases exhibited are taken from Chinese calendars. The antiperspectiveness, the creation of depth through various levels and the spasmodic attention to detail that denotes traditional oriental representation of space find an original chromatic counterpoint altogether western in the pictorial work created by Murray. The choice of commonplace sources of his subjects shows how Murray also pays attention to the topic of a "commercial" use of stereotypic images that risk standardizing methods of figuration. The young artist from Northern Ireland adds an original and independent voice to the dialogue between Western art and art of the rest of the world, articulating the composition of a possible dialectic between different traditions and representative modalities.
Federico Maddalazzo was born in S. Vito al Tagliamento (PN, Italy) in 1978. He lives and works between Berlin and Pordenone. In 2003 he won the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa scholarship; in 2004 he took part in the Fondazione Antonio Ratti X Corso Superiore di Arti Visive (visiting professor Jimmie Durham); in 2006 he won the DAMS award.
In 2004 he presented an impressive site specific project at the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Contemporanea di Monfalcone in the exhibition "Lavori in corso: Chimera, Griffith, Maddalozzo" edited by Andrea Bruciati.
Darren Murray was born in Antrim (North Ireland) in 1977. He lives and works in Belfast. In 2005, together with other artists, he represents Northern Ireland in the 51st Biennale of Visual Arts in Venice.
In 2004 and 2002 he has two solo shows at Kevin Kavanagh gallery of Dublin.
In 2006 he participates in "Dog have no religion. Artist from Northern Ireland" at Ceco Museum of Fine Arts of Prague. |
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