Painting of the Balestra Madonna with Morganti’s touches of red and "Acceleration"

A little while ago, to prepare myself for working on one of my ‘Relating’ works (those ‘Sedimentations’ that are created by relating to the palette of another artist), I started considering this painting of the Madonna by Balestra that had been above my mother’s bed and consequently right in front of my eyes for years. After painting a series of paintings relating to the colours I had found on that canvas (colours that had changed so much over time), I decided to return it to its original colours, getting the eighteenth-century painting restored, eliminating the yellowish varnish and adding my own small gesture. In the miniscule places where some micro-detachments of paint had occurred, showing the underlying rough canvas support, I decided to rectify the situation with my red. This was the same red I then used to start my ‘Sedimentation’. That colour added artificially to the Balestra painting, placed there as a final touch, became the beginning of a new painting for me. It was almost like saying that without his painting, mine would not have been possible, without me appropriating his work there would have been no new beginning, or rather no continuation. Through a form of expropriation, I decided to incorporate the original painting in the total body of my work. The work consists of the Balestra painting with my ‘Acceleration’ alongside it, which puts together the blues and pinks that I predominantly saw in the artist’s painting.

Relating
This series of pictures regards all of those paintings which sprang from an external request. They thus derive from having come into contact with the mood of someone else’s palette and of having displayed the chromatic impressions one layer on top of the other or placed alongside one of my pre-existing paintings. Usually it is a question of having related to another artist’s painting, but what also occasionally happens is that I compare myself with another language, for example a literary one, or that I am inspired by a city. This series of paintings can also spring from a form of commissioning, in other words the work I am weighing myself up against can be determined by someone else.

Painting
Opere pittoriche a olio o acrilico su diversi supporti, ma prevalentemente su tela