The investigation into the limits of two-dimensional representation and painting’s ability to transcend its constitutive boundaries is at the origin of the creative tension underlying a constant, albeit now sidelined, line of contemporary artistic research – one that springs from both an instinctive and speculative need to explore the mysterious illusionistic essence of painting. In an era where the digital proliferation of images seems to have eroded all space for manual skill and the physicality of the painterly gesture, it is interesting to encounter artists who choose to reclaim the corporeality of the creative act, reappropriating the material dimension of chromatic application without surrendering to matter and without abandoning conceptual reflection. Monica Mazzone’s exhibition Body-Broken-Bodies, hosted in Bologna by the young research gallery Studio La Linea Verticale, fits precisely within this area of investigation, performing a subtle deconstruction of the viewer’s perceptual certainties through a language that, while traceable to a geometric abstraction, seems to question almost subliminally the emotional neutrality of its own framework, which at first glance appears so rational.
Monica Mazzone, “Body-Broken-Bodies”, installation view – first room, courtesy Studio la Linea Verticale, Bologna
The exhibition space, paced by an essential layout, welcomes the visitor into a contemplative dimension, where the works impose themselves as enigmatic presences that require a prolonged gaze to delve into their sensual chromatic pulsations and the multiple paths suggested by the iridescent morphology of what appear as geometric objects trapped in an intermediate state between two-dimensionality and projection. What strikes from the first impact is the coexistence of formal rigor and perceptual elusiveness that characterizes the images painted by Mazzone—compositions with multifaceted geometry where drawing meets color in a productive collision that generates paradoxical spatial depths. The paintings on display depict, in fact, articulated purely theoretical solids with impossible perspective construction, where the black outline—traced with surgical precision using oil paint that emulates ink—defines chromatic territories that become increasingly ambiguous the more one looks at them, despite the unequivocal presence of the drawing that circumscribes them. The artist employs a palette dominated by pastel hues, applied with very fine brushes using a technique so meticulous it evokes the vaporous effects of an airbrush. The peculiarity of these color fields lies in the almost imperceptible chromatic transitions, where one tone blends into another with a gradualness that challenges the logic of visual perception, bringing forth from the pictorial surface what we might define as imaginary particulate planes that escape the Euclidean definition of space.
Monica Mazzone, “Body-Broken-Bodies”, installation view – second room, courtesy Studio la Linea Verticale, Bologna
Also noteworthy is how the apparent mathematical perfection of the composition—reminiscent of certain crystalline structures or geometric algorithms—is constantly contradicted by a component of unpredictability of biological matrix. Approaching the canvases, in fact, that drawing which at first strikes for its impeccable precision reveals the tiny but eloquent imperfections of manual work, such as micro-variations in the intensity of the mark and subtle drips of color that testify to the artist’s physical involvement in the “materialization” of her mental image. This dialectic between control and error, between rational planning and gestural indeterminacy, gives the works a paradoxically vital and unexpected vibration for a rigorous geometric composition.
Monica Mazzone, “Body-Broken-Bodies”, installation view – second room, courtesy Studio la Linea Verticale, Bologna
The conformation of the figures, moreover, subtly evokes their identification with anthropomorphic silhouettes, without ever falling into easy formal analogies: these are rather resonances, vague allusions to the proportions and postures of the human body, which seem to emerge almost involuntarily from the compositional structure. It is as if Mazzone, starting from a rigorously formal approach, allows a bodily memory to surface that vivifies from within the impersonality of geometric abstraction. In this regard, Rosalind Krauss’s observation about Mondrian’s neoplastic grid comes to mind, in her view an emblematic structure of the modernist ambition in the field of visual arts, which always hides, in its folds, a repressed spiritual or bodily dimension. Fundamental in Mazzone’s works is also the role played by the luminosity of colors applied in small strokes so close as to merge, creating an effect of internal irradiation at the origin of the almost iridescent quality of the surfaces. The artist’s compositions thus appear suspended between harmony and mystery, between familiarity of forms and perceptual estrangement, in an unstable equilibrium that keeps the observer constantly alert.
Monica Mazzone, “The Lemon Tree”, 2025, oil on board and aluminum frame, 92x122x2 cm, courtesy Studio la Linea Verticale, Bologna
The exhibition path is completed with a series of monochrome bas-relief sculptures, created by overlapping geometric metal silhouettes cut by hand from sheets of anodized aluminum. These three-dimensional works seem to translate into the field of volumetric physicality the same issues addressed in the pictorial works, but with a more simplified and direct language. When compared with the delicate chromatic stratifications of the paintings, these sculptures appear less refined in their transitions and intentions, as if the artist had chosen to reduce the syntactic richness to focus on the essentiality of the formal message. In conclusion, Body-Broken-Bodies presents itself as both a rigorous and poetic exploration of the expressive potential of an abstract language that does not renounce dialogue with the bodily dimension of human experience. Monica Mazzone’s work commands attention for its ability to combine extraordinary technical expertise with deep conceptual awareness, offering us a significant example of how contemporary painting has not yet exhausted the arguments for reflecting on itself.
Info:
Monica Mazzone. Body-Broken-Bodies
15/04 – 30/05/2025
Studio La Linea Verticale
Via Dell’oro 4b – Bologna
www.studiolalineaverticale.it
Graduated in art history at DAMS in Bologna, city where she continued to live and work, she specialized in Siena with Enrico Crispolti. Curious and attentive to the becoming of the contemporary, she believes in the power of art to make life more interesting and she loves to explore its latest trends through dialogue with artists, curators and gallery owners. She considers writing a form of reasoning and analysis that reconstructs the connection between the artist’s creative path and the surrounding context.
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