NATURAE

The exhibition NATURAE Visions between reality and imagination sees the return of two artists already known to the public at the PUNTO SULL’ARTE Gallery: Ottorino De Lucchi with his virtuous flowers in watercolour-drybrush and Marika Vicari with her graceful watercolours on paper, with a total of around 60 new artworks.

De Lucchi and Vicari’s works, created for the exhibition, create a sophisticated dialogue in which analogies and differences intertwine, overlap, distinguish and underline each other. It is Nature that conquers, taking the main role in the artists’ works, highlighting a distinct characteristic in the singular artistic-aesthetic vision which, compared to the language of each of them, attests to specific principles and, for this reason, renews, again and again, the mystery of its unchanging essence. The two artists’ new series create a moment, an instant of absolute time which, in the unrepeatable nature of its proposal, cancels any contingent space-time process and transports the public’s gaze into a complex succession of thoughts, fantasies and definitions. They are able to demonstrate how the natural element is still capable of striking and inspiring the observer’s imagination and feelings, intriguing and motivating them in accordance with a universal poetry and lyricism.

The set-up designed specifically for the occasion will allow the works to highlight the individuality of De Lucchi and Vicari’s viewpoints, but also to establish a set of connections that open unprecedented expectations and interpretations capable of going beyond the specificity of their independent vision. In the expositive journey, therefore, the continuous alternation of their intense expressiveness allows them to alter the aspect of the natural image (and imagination), to live it in a way that allows one to activate different atmospheres deeply which, in the end, find a point of coherence and congruent similarity.

An historical link returns in Ottorino De Lucchi who, taking on the “classic” still life as a subject, amazes the public with that imperfect perfection in which fiction itself can almost surpass, with the mastery of the painter’s hand, the same reality that it attempts to describe. The hyperreality of his painting astounds with its method: well-finished, punctual, attentive, it leaves no room for distraction, not even the observer remains immune to it, forced to a continuous and constant inspection of the pictorial image to understand where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. Marika Vicari, on the other hand, rarefies every composition, which, between whites and blacks, and indeterminate additions of a single colour, evokes recollections and memories of lived and explored landscapes. Her proposal refers to a lyricism of conscience and inner reality in which the truth is alluded to in an indeterminate and barely mentioned definition. Everything remains suspended: the horizons are broken, the details interrupted and the precision, strong in its tension, remains hinted at in a frangibile decomposition. Her forests, her trees are clarified by their beingness as necessary metaphor for our existence and our human history. In a reading of ancient Romanticism, a reflection of actuality is launched that is not suffocated by the adulation of fashion.

The works of the two artists define two natures that know how to find a point of equilibrium and respect by mutually granting each other their respective shortcomings, weaknesses and fragility; feeding on the peculiarities of its stylistic, expressive, intuitive particularity. The comparison between Vicari and De Lucchi is granted in a mutual interpenetration which, in the name of a silent, strong and energetic poetry, strengthens the visual pact with another possible lyrical reading of (our) world, placed out of all time and far away from every contingency of the present.

A BILINGUAL CATALOGUE, in which the exhibited works are reproduced, and with the critical text by curator Matteo Galbiati, will be produced by PUNTO SULL’ARTE.

Biographical Notes:

OTTORINO DE LUCCHI was born in Ferrara, on November 8th, 1951, at 3.50pm. After graduating from Chemistry (1975), he continues his studies in Pharmacy (1977) at the University of Padua. During his life he has always pursued artistic activity interposing it with the profession of university chemist. After visiting the work of Andrew Wyeth, during his sojourn in the United States, he became passionate about the technique and virtuosity of Wyeth’s “drybrush” paintings. Drybrush is a technique that requires great mastery and concentration. The ratio of pigment-binder is optimal both in terms of transparency and vividness of colours. In his works De Lucchi portrays elegant, bright and lively still lifes. The glazes and the concentration of colour obtained directly and through the careful removal of colour allow results which are not obtainable with other painting techniques. The striking contrasts caused by the touches of light has surprised many Italian and foreign enthusiasts so much that Ottorino De Lucchi has been invited many times to illustrate the technique in academies and art institutes. His original technique has meant that for years he has exhibited at prestigious Italian and international galleries, including in France, Spain and Germany, but also overseas, in the United States. He lives between Padua and Folgaria.

MARIKA VICARI was born in Vicenza in 1979. Graduating with Honours in Painting (professorship Prof. Carlo Di Raco) from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 2003, she then graduated in 2005 in Design and Production of Visual Arts at the Faculty of Design and Arts at the Venice University of Architecture. The subjects of her works are filiform trees suspended in indefinite and dreamy mountain landscapes. Her technique, which is constantly evolving, has involved the production of works on poplar boards while, starting from 2019, she began experimenting on cotton paper with an increasing watercolour presence. This new medium adds grace to the forests she portrays by feeding the metaphor with the human being and its fragility, transience. She has studied and worked on site-specific projects with international artists, curators and photographers including: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mona Hatoum, Antoni Muntadas, Armin Linke and Angela Vettese. Since 2000 she has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Canada and China. For years her works have been presented at sector fairs in Italy and Europe. She lives and works in Creazzo (Vicenza).