For Indonesia-based Italian artist, Filippo Sciascia, light has been something that he uses a lot to represent some of his artworks. In his recent exhibition held at the Valentine Willie Fine Art, Bangsar, Filippo explores the power of light through his artistic representation of Caravaggio’s stunning masterpieces.
Not even the wild horses can stop the man with the artistic aura to continue on his explorations of different approaches, techniques and strategies of representing masterpieces. For Filippo, painting is something he uses to explore his complex ideas about the problem of image identification and creation and of course, his attempt on answering rhetoric questions on “how the eyes see the world.”
“Light is something that shine. For this exhibition, I chose something that is close to my background, which is the light. I like using light to represent my artwork because it’s similar to putting spotlight into a picture,” says the suave painter Filippo Sciascia.
I had the same misconception on why using Caravaggio’s masterpieces this time and not say, Leonardo Da Vinci? Well, this is what Filippo has to say about choosing one of his favourite artists, Caravaggio:
“Both Caravaggio and I share the same passion about light, thus I the Italian Baroque. The video re-enactment is part of the art itself, only this time I’m not involved directly as a model, but rather I am the cameraman behind recording the whole process.”
Sharing the same stage is Roberto Zabetta. By depicting facial expressions, Roberto’s paintings reveal the most profound truth about the nature of human beings, which can be hidden behind a mask. The most basic theory about these images are the “breakaway” from their usual surroundings, temporality, three-dimensional form and colour.
Largely derived from his involvement with the palliative care of cancer patients at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South Kensington, the drawings are often infused with graphical language of medical records of a diseased eye with the salving notation of charts surveying the order of the universe and nature.
His recent exhibition often depicts a face in the middle, while infusing other characters and culture from the East. “The painting is more to a personal memory. I was travelling to Japan at that time. The expression you see here is the expression I have as an European, while the women dressed in kimono on both side represent the Asian culture I had in Japan. It’s about confrontation,” says Zabetta.
So, is the artistic journey a lonely process or a much happier tone? “I would say it’s a public process. In France, artists would gather and spend time together with each other. This is the time, when we share our ideas and exchange them. Most of our artworks are influence by each other,” says Zabetta.
