532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel presents Whispers in the Twilight, a show of brand new paintings by Italian-born artist Fulvio Gonella.
Since his teen years, Fulvio has been enthralled by art brut. Traditionally, art brut artists “create their works for their own use as a kind of private theatre,” as Ian Chilvers said. By contrast, Gonella’s works are oriented at the viewer and comprise a kind of public theatre. His paintings take innovative approaches to aesthetics, mixing the tenets of art brut with elements of street art and folkloric imagery. Gonella’s artwork has three essential aesthetic dynamics that come together to create a unique symphony of colors and forms.
The first of the three elements is the almost aggressively crude signifiers. Using a wild mix of paints and colors, liquids, crayons, and found objects, Gonella creates works that might strike as primitive, yet underneath there lies a sophisticated understanding of form and visual structure.
The second thread of the metaphorical tapestry that underpins Gonella’s work is vibrancy. Different works by the artist combine different vibrant factures in what some describe as “a joyful roundelay of texture, color, and shape.”
And the final component is whimsical verbal elements that surface either in paintings’ titles or even as text in paintings themselves. For instance, “Coffee Slave” features its title emblazoned across the canvas in primitive-looking lettering, sloping down over a cup of coffee, with the humanoid character drawn towards it as though sucked by a magnet. Such verbal element adds some humor that nicely offsets the savage visual approach.
The exhibition is open until November 6th. For any further information, you can contact the organizers by e-mail at info@532gallery.com
The information and photo content was provided by 532 Gallery’s press office.
