Data / Ora
Date(s) - 05/04/2025 - 12/04/2025
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Luogo
Villa Venino
Categorie
I discovered the paintings of the Piedmontese painter Pier Tancredi De-Coll’ in 2023: the journey through his work began with the canvas entitled The Room of Dreams, a painting of no small size created through the use of acrylic paint. There were no doubts, uncertainties, misunderstandings: the first work proposed to me had launched a lyrical, chromatic, musical, almost dreamlike message, a mirror of all that precious experience, of that world that the artist possesses and that in his works he wants to communicate to the observer. Meanwhile, it is important to underline the precise choice of themes that De-Coll’ investigates in his painting: they are the Interiors and the Figures that live in them, expressing in color that particular vibration that the painter was able to give to the material, remembering that these works are were created with the acrylic on canvas technique, a “difficult” technique for some painters and “easy” for others since as everyone knows, the material and body of acrylic is not like oil paint.
In fact, a precious alchemy sometimes takes place in his works as they possess that touch and that breath that would make one think of the ductility of the oil, its elasticity and transparency while in reality, they are works born with painting spread with acrylic colours, a modern technique invention. For me, this is not a secondary point since the first enchantment is already revealed to us, the magic that brings us poetic thoughts towards the paintings created by our artist. Returning to what was said at the beginning, The Room of Dreams was the first canvas observed, the first interior, the first story capable of leading the thought towards the spaces and colors of memory: spaces told because they were lived and deeply loved, felt, touched, desired.
Only those who have had the opportunity to live within certain environments are aware of the value of space, its weight, its substance and poetry which will remain in their life forever. Pier Tancredi De-Coll’ transformed all this into painting and his memory became a light and precious colour, a living existential story, ready to be experienced. A story that has ancient and contemporary echoes, empty and full, spaces and figures that are its presence. Over time, I had the opportunity to dialogue and compare notes through the use of the telephone with De-Coll’, a man who has a voice with a full, confident tone and who is very passionate when asked to tell his story, his education. which appears in no way separable from a dear, very dear place which was and is the space of his home, an ancient Savoy residence built in the 17th century.
This place should not be forgotten for the artistic fascination it exercised on our painter: the history, the spaces, the objects and the colors are the presences that he renews through always different registers and compositions, within his paintings which are evidence of encounter. There have been many encounters, references within the history of art, clearly visible to the attentive eye that observes his work: Matisse, Bonnard, Laurencin, Dufy, Gilman and many other artists of the 20th century up to some masters of Italian Pop Art (we recall here a curious homage not devoid of irony towards Mario Schifano with the work Essi, present here in our book).
We talked about the Interiors of De-Coll’: and the canvases dedicated to the theme of the figure? Of course, the theme of the figure lives in the spaces of his paintings because for him space is the container of emotions, of memories but we have here, before our eyes, several works that tell different stories where women and men are protagonists in color: Two women and flowers from 2012, Vernissage from 2020, Cardio sentimental from 2022, Sursum alba from 2018, Figura harvest from 2020 and Algida ematica from 2019. Then there are two bright examples that illustrate the theme of still life: Caraffa, eggs and lemons from 2023 and Spring, always painted in the same year. These two works are almost meditations which in the light of the chromatic material become poetic epiphanies where one almost seems to hear the echo of the stories of a great Italian artist of the 20th century, creator of sublime compositions: Felice Casorati. In this book, a sensitive story is told that Pier Tancredi De-Coll’ has delivered to the material and forms of painting, the language he chose and loved.
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