FLAVIO DE MARCO. FIGURES

With the exhibition Figures, Flavio de Marco presents a series of new works made in the last two years that opens new directions in his artistic research.  While these works are in perfect continuity with the path undertaken years ago that has progressively led him to question the intrinsic value of the image and of artistic representation, they also represent an entirely new departure for the artist as he explores the figurative territories of the portrait and the nude, in addition to his more familiar landscapes.

For some years, De Marco has been engaged in actively confronting tradition.  Here he establishes a dialogue with one of the fathers of modernity who represents for him a clear reference point, Gustave Courbet.  Challenging himself against key genres in Courbet’s work, the landscape and the figure, De Marco proposes a reflection based as much on the craft as on the relationship between the artist and reality as an entity seen and returned through the filter of the artist’s emotion, and on the mystery that can spring from this wondrous encounter.  De Marco uses very diverse techniques to interweave historical artistic references and personal experiences, from drawing with coloured markers to “painting on ready-mades”, from the figurative texture to the material texture, up to the geometrical abstraction of the digital screen that is captured, however, through the skill of the painting.