Artists

Filippo Caramazza

A wall in Naples - Studio wall, 2009

Caramazza calls upon the deep reserve of painting itself, not as relics of the past, or shards, but rather as reminders of the endlessness of signification embedded in these works. Masterpieces from the past are disassembled and reassembled, occasionally stripped bare to just one element. Many become beautifully painted still life works of props or origami made from the pages of past auction catalogues. Others are trompe l'oeil of studio walls with taped postcards or blu tack and some become folded canvas, lumpy and obtuse.

 

We are presented with simulations of the almost endless catalogue of a museum of the mind, a veritable gallery of the image. The adventure of the image is both cast as entanglement but also as the potentiality of release, it is on this edge that the work steers its course. Each series appear to announce their unique posture in regard to painting and appropriation.  It is not always clear what is at stake in this; is it a case of humour, cultural exhaustion, irony, or even a procession of despair?