Shatto Gallery is pleased to present Italian Quartet, a group exhibition showcasing artworks by Italian artists, Edoardo Cialfi, Frank Dituri, Mauro Manetti, and Massimiliano Poggio, as they create a distinct identity for themselves as unique artists through contemporary art that goes beyond social and cultural limitations. On view from March 2 - 30, 2024 at Gallery B. 

 

Suggestions Between Landscape and Symbol   

Art Critic, Davide Silvioli

 

The languages practiced by the four artists included in the exhibition constitute a case for reasoning about how some aesthetic categories, having an ancient art-historical origin, keep on being important in the contemporary art scene. In the works by Cialfi, Dituri, Manetti and Poggioni, they correspond to the tradition of the landscape and of the symbol; two visual domains deeply rooted also in the Italian artistic background. In particular, it is interesting to note how they are addressed by the artists, who relate them and highlight their evocative power. Landscape becomes a symbol of elsewhere and the symbol seems to introduce a mental landscape. Indeed, in each practice, although respecting individual aspects, there is the search for a point of balance between the interior and external worlds, between reality and its representation. So, these four authors, even if working independently, now are spontaneously developing an exploration characterized by a similar sensibility, corresponding at the basis of this group show. Despite the differences in the techniques used by each one, such as drawing, painting, or photography, it is possible to feel, in every case, the same expressive temperature. So outlined, the project offers a confrontation both with the characteristics of each research and whole of them, letting emerge similar thematic and stylistic features. Therefore, the bigger shared aspect by these four artistic directions is to be found in the investigation of the secret of things, of their second life. From this point of view, the works on show can be considered a translation of this tendency. 

 

This attitude, in the works by Edoardo Cialfi, is evident thanks to the corpuscular quality of the surface due to the use of spray painting. This methodology gives the landscape views depicted in his works, sometimes dark and others sunny, the property of being perceived as if during a process of appearance or disappearance. So his paintings seem to foretell about something hidden beyond the limit of what usually can be seen.

 

The expressions of nature are the privileged subject of the photographs by Frank Dituri, capturing its beauty and eternity. The photographer, ever through a very poetic way, focuses on portions of landscape, as parts of sky, terrain, forests and horizons. By this approach, he succeeds to portrait, demonstrating a romantic gaze, the incomparable magnificence of an absolute natural dimension, to which a human being feels to rejoin himself. 

 

The tension towards the absolute is repeated in the works by Mauro Manetti, who practices a personal investigation on the tradition of the icon. Dialoguing with art history, his work, from a stylistic perspective, resounds with a remote mystery. This, without direct references, is expressed through representing anatomical parts seeming to come from ancient iconographies and also by the reformulation of symbols and allegories characterized by an arcane echo. 

 

The sense of the metaphysical is strong in the paintings by Massimiliano Poggioni. The artist represents natural places and urban contexts, portraying them as being in a condition of stasis, to the point of making them perceived as conceptual entities. His language, therefore, brings together figuration and thought in the same visual alphabet, creating views where silence and balance dominate. It derives suspended atmospheres, having an unusual harmony.