In Orazio’s third show with Court Tree Collective, his series entitled “Heads” pays homage to his experience as a sculptor, both in the images within the series and by the materials he uses, all made by hand.
This series is inspired by ancient Roman mosaics of the heads of boxers and fighters and most importantly by the archaic stone carved heads of Gargano in Puglia dating from the 10th century BC.
His technique references the “feeling” of fresco. He uses an earth palette which includes handmade lime paint, pigments, graphite and shellac. The creation of these materials in the studio is an essential component of his process, allowing for a certain immediacy in his work.
Orazio is an instinctual artist, a painter of sculptural forms in which whole worlds exist. The head here is not literal, but archetypal; a simplification of form. It becomes a kind of container for vast terrains of color, gesture and markings in which we also discover subtle passages of great beauty leading us inward. His language is multi dimensional – a landscape, a dreamscape, a mindscape, making the work at once monumental and intimate, archaic and contemporary.
-Linda Marchisotto
Opening reception from 5-7pm March 9th, and the show will run through March 30th.
