ALESSANDRO PESSOLI – LIKE A FREE LIFE
2018-04-23Pessoli’s work offers a fusion of sense and nonsense, blending private and public. Fed by references to popular culture, cinema and theatre, religiousimagery merges with allusions to art history, from the Italian Renaissance to American Pop Art. Typical of Pessoli are his investigations of how personal histories intertwine with larger historical narratives. With this new body of work Pessoli continues to explore both his interior life and the physical reality of our world, and how they subsequently interact on the canvas.
As the paintings show, this approach results in human figures and animals being transfixed by a precipitate of anatomical parts such as eyes, mouths, penises and objects like guns, fruit, ice cream and emoji. Even minutely copied drawings of his children find their way on to the paintings. In one painting, a crowned chicken carries a slice of pizza on its back, its neck pierced by a banana, while the artist’s portrait and a popsicle appear among its feathers. This abundant diversity is exemplified by the techniques used: oil paint, silkscreen, stencils and spray paint intermingle to describe details in a realistic manner or to dissolve them into abstraction.
Opposite – Fired Figures, 2018
Exhibition runs through to April 28th, 2018
Xavier Hufkens
107 rue St-Georges | St-Jorisstraat
B – 1050 Brussels
Belgium
