Page 26 - WTP Vol. XII #2

“My paintings have dwelled on the relationship between reason and emotion;
instinctive gesture and its rationalization. Re- cently, I felt this gesture taking the lead. The rationalizing part felt more like a comment than a dialogue with the instinctual impetus. To address this, I devised a process that breaks down my usual way of working by superimpos- ing many layers of paint, one over the other. After my first intervention, laying out with instinctual brushstrokes a composition on a canvas, I overlaid a sheet of plastic on which
I painted another painting, with new, thick brushstrokes. Then I apply gentle layers of glaze to these brushstrokes, until they became almost like objects acquiring their own per- sonality, independent from the original com- position. At this point, I gently lift the plastic sheet and set it alongside the painting, peel- ing off the new brushstrokes, and integrating them back into the original composition. What originally had been an instinctual gesture re- entered the composition in a calculated way, to dialogue with the underlying painting.”
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ruggero Vanni