The shapes and the soul

The act of painting in Scolamiero’s work has, for many reasons, the true value of a spiritual exercise, and, because of that, importance that goes beyond the single paintings or the single objects represented. The perfection and economy of the movement give rhythm to the brushwork and support the hypnotic, amanuensis-like dedication to the paper. The drawing often seems to be a direct projection of the gesture, yet the attention concentrated on the symbolism must be investigated not based on its ethical or aesthetic autonomy, but instead, in relation to the means by which Scolamiero investigates another origin of painting: the sense of space. The color, even when it is dominated by darker backgrounds, tends to amplify the depiction’s surfaces, giving breath to the empty spaces, to the distances between the lines and the shapes, to the thinning of the atmosphere in which the objects seem to waver as if they moved in a three-dimensional painting.

Stefano Catucci

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