Italy - GAETANO K. BODANZA

Bodanza chooses to represent a combined narrative, a kind of epic in acrylic paints where the heroes and the second leads tell the story and chronicle of popular cultures. The main rule adopted by the eye is the short circuit, cohabitation causes the epic tone of the scenarios to explode, the panoramic view opens up to the cinemascope invented by the artist. A rambling and unclassifiable pop, with a film-like soul but pictorial results, curious to experiment using forms of language that are pop’s means of action and privileged emotion.

Characters with an overwhelming imaginary vision, that seem to come straight out of the paint tube, so dense is their substance; they are then shaped by digital technology to leave no smears and prefer a formal virtuosity with an air of plastic and resins in the creation of unusual sinister and at the same time burlesque creatures.

The picturesque landscapes that he represents are crowded and teeming with shapes, gestures and looks. Removed from the context of a crowd in which we have to seek them out and recognise them, here they stand out against saturated monochrome backgrounds, like passport photos from an alien world. From the crowd of hominids, insects, cartoon characters and toys Bodanza extrapolates brightly coloured portraits which, from the magma of traditional painting, become a part of large digital canvases and take tangible shape in large fibreglass sculptures. There is nothing realistic about the alien characters that he represents, but they look at us with piercing eyes and dialogue with us through gestures and expressions from which we could draw a curious handbook about human feelings.

His personal trait is that he acts within a reality that is much more extensive than the real world, recreating stories as though everything were perfectly plausible. Everything becomes necessary and credible in the world at pop temperature, the subject/object takes up the spotlight of its gaze and produces chemical energy, an analysis of reality, new dialectical boundaries.

The coexistence of language is the other focal point for Gaetano Bodanza. There has never been a predetermined border, drawing and painting interact with the processing of digital software, sculpture experiments with materials and technologies. However the work seeks the limit of its development status, highlighting the deceptive nature of technique, that virtual theatre in which to invent worlds through other worlds.

Text by Chiara Moro