Luca Caccioni. If it is true that the night brings advice

The night, which has always been a place of rest and silence, is the inspiring muse for Luca Caccioni’s work, on display at the OTTO Gallery in Bologna, with the exhibition entitled “Se è vero che la notte porta consiglio (If it is true that the night brings advice)”, opened during Art City Bologna 2023 and ongoing until April 15, 2023. The artist returns to the gallery eight years after the solo show Dessins de chambre (et d’autres) (2015) and three after the group show L’Ospite (2020), presenting a series of new works in oil on aluminum support made during work sessions that ranged from deep night to the first light of dawn.

Luca Caccioni, Tutti i pesci di Ovidio, 2021, oil on aluminium, cm 80 x 80. Photo Luca Perticoni/Eikon, courtesy the artist and OTTO Gallery, Bologna

They are characterized by soft colour fields, as if to represent the clear light glimmers present in the mind and in the gaze, from which vibrant signs and words emerge, excerpts from poems and almost visionary images from a reality that appears continuous and discontinuous at the internal and within the thought of the man-artist, who finds himself reflecting during the night on the essence of things. Caccioni’s research continues and evolves with respect to the languages elaborated in the past, through the creation of these works, far from references to well-known pictorial styles, but distinguishing themselves for an expressive novelty, for a new way of communicating emotions, sensations experienced in the intimate.

Luca Caccioni, A bee dance circuit (the desire to draw von firsch), 2017, oil on aluminium, cm 60 x 60. Photo Luca Perticoni/Eikon, courtesy the artist and OTTO Gallery, Bologna

The colour, spread over the entire surface without discontinuity, creates a suspended, balanced atmosphere: an apparently rarefied, liquid environment, as if to recall the flow of memory, the flow of thoughts, which at night make themselves felt again, return to knocking on the artist’s mind, silent, but at the same time sonorous and in flux. The images seem to be marked by the poet Giuseppe Rosato’s verses, in the poem “Ancora il treno”:

…S’avverte il trapassare dei paesaggi / da un grigio, grigio nero, luce, buio, / e la notte più densa quando il mare / s’incurva e s’allontana…

Luca Caccioni, Se guardi bene c’è il bottone, 2017, oil on aluminium, cm 60 x 60. Photo Luca Perticoni/Eikon, courtesy the artist and OTTO Gallery, Bologna

The pictorial space is subdivided and punctuated by elements with brownish backgrounds, which, like notes, compose a melody from single sounds on the pentagram composed of continuous colour, either wrapping themselves around themselves or re-emerging from the depths of the aluminum support. This music then recalls the words and evocative verses of the night and of the artist’s feelings.

…E già sono deserto. / Perso in questa curva malinconia. / Ma la notte sperde le lontananze. / Oceanici silenzi, / astrali nidi d’illusione, / o notte. (from the poem “O notte” by Giuseppe Ungaretti)

Luca Caccioni, Go to the ruines II, 2022, oil on aluminium, cm 42 x 60. Photo Luca Perticoni/Eikon, courtesy the artist and OTTO Gallery, Bologna

The sign in Caccioni’s work plays a central role; it is the protagonist of the works, in the form of images and words. Since the twentieth century the sign has been full of intrinsic meaning, bearer of reality and essence, of the concrete and the spiritual. This is precisely what happens in the artist’s works, which tend towards a transcendence of thought and being, on art, on painting, on nature, on life. Walking through the exhibition space one can admire the succession of works, in the alternation of formats, from the smallest to the largest, from the largest to the smallest, with a discontinuous but at the same time homogeneous trend.

Luca Caccioni, Absolute painting, 2022, oil on aluminium, cm 40 x 40. Photo Luca Perticoni/Eikon, courtesy the artist and OTTO Gallery, Bologna

Observing the works, one perceives how the artist works according to techniques of addition and subtraction of color, which allow the creation of compositions with overlapping images, but also essential, almost sparse, which tend towards infinity. The brilliance and glow of the color fields comes from the aluminum support, which reflects the light in a soft and suffused way within the artistic creation. The artist’s work demonstrates the strong potential of the night in his creative thinking. The night, by reconciling a profound reflection on all existential problems, has always proved to be a universal source of inspiration for the various artistic forms.

Info:

Luca Caccioni. Se è vero che la notte porta consiglio
03/02/2023 – 15/04/2023
OTTO Gallery
via d’Azeglio 55 Bologna
www.otto-gallery.it