Gianluca Di Pasquale

We are pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Gianluca Di Pasquale.

The artist’s best-known works depict landscapes composed almost exclusively by tiny figures, painted with precise brush strokes inside a broad white space. Apart from these figures, a few trees, some architectural fragments, there is nothing but immaculate canvas. Yet in the imagination the white color becomes mountain, sea, an urban square, or a street. The scenarios are those of our leisure time: places of encounter and mediation between nature and civilization, where people aggregate, creating rhythms and constellations dictated by the forms of the landscape. Captured in their everyday gestures, the characters seem intent in a sort of cosmic soliloquy, while at the same time outlining the space.

The presence of plants is a characteristic feature of the artist’s work: branches, leaves, shrubs create patterns that overlap or become the background of the scene. In the large painting Le ultime foglie (The Last Leaves) - made with infinite tiny, light brushstrokes - abstraction and figuration blend into a single grand, almost musical, scenario. A magical, dreamy place where man immersed in nature resumes contact with the most solitary and intimate part of himself. These works encourage us to pause and observe, providing an immersive experience, a moment of suspension, away from the chaos and frenzy of everyday life.

In some other works, a female figure is the main actor of the scene. These mysterious women are often shown from behind, making it impossible to ascertain their identity. The clothes they wear have floral or abstract motifs, and the more we delve into these intricate textures, the more we find ourselves immersed in an unknown and abstract pictorial landscape. Sometimes, as in Rianne, the immaculate white returns to be the characterizing element of the composition, ready to welcome the body and the botanical elements in an absolute and delicate space.

Also on display are two new portraits of female swimmers, inspired by images from the 1950s. They remind the artist of classical statues: smiling and colorful women of a golden age that no longer exists, so near and so far, almost like the classical one.

Gianluca Di Pasquale (Rome, 1971) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and then spent one year at the Academy of Fine Arts of Granada, Spain. He began showing work in 1999 with the exhibition In-out at the Tatra Gallery, Bratislava. Since then, he has taken part in many solo and group shows.