Aristide Gattavecchia pittore e scultore

The walk - 1987
tempera on plastic 80x54
- ON EXHIBITION IN ROME VATICAN GALLERY from 24 to 28 June 2024
- EXHIBITED AT THE TRIENNALE DI ROME 2023 - MUSEUMS OF SAN SALVATORE IN LAURO from 1 to 15 December 2023
- EXHIBITED AT THE FIRST EDITION ART PRIZE PALLAVICINI IN BOLOGNA FROM 9 TO 18 SEPTEMBER 2022

Two distinct floors, representing the division of social classes. Above, slender figures, enveloped in light, walking elegantly, upright.
Below, awkward bodies, moving in a dark tunnel.
There is no possibility of improving one's status, the dividing line is clear and has no openings.
The artist was very sensitive to social issues and inequalities.

from "The poetics of differences" in search of a new Humanism - edited by Stefania PieraliceV Triennial Exhibition of Visual Arts in Rome - ed. 2023 "

La Passeggiata" follows a psychological restlessness, a mysterious discomfort expressed with limited means in the pictorial field divided by a clear caesura.
In the two-tone Scanavino-style composition, oblong and slender figures with Giacometti-esque bodies walk at a calm pace. A graceful atmospheric sheen envelops them and, like the wounded mind, is then tinged with a deep black.
The narrative beauty advances despite the clear division of the planes: the white colors return little by little, they accumulate on top of new details, they develop a suffocating state of mind.
Desperate propagation of the dark fog, a shroud extends; black and white has lost its silhouette, the clear lines slip fleetingly.
Dense and pasty brushstrokes paint static bodies in a vague haze.Renegades are born. Like achromatic nightmares, they move massive and inelegant in the unequal society.
Crude representation of the disillusionment of human bonds, they are detached from the perfection of the Empyrean, they reach the soot of the Underworld.
From the brilliant screen at the top, the commanders decide the fate, the truths, the common rights.
Stuck in another ungraceful night where the darkness has never been so bright, the obedient fall from the immeasurable height, retreating, only a dark road ahead with shining souls to lead the way.
Locked in the silent, all-consuming struggle, they forget that they are their own darkness and their own light.

Introspection - 1984
tempera on plastic 65x45
- ON EXHIBITION IN ROME VATICAN GALLERY from 24 to 28 June 2024
- exhibited at Medina Roma 2020 (event: Premio della Lupa)

In an attitude of prayer, the main subject sees his most intimate part coming out of himself. So he can observe it and analyze it deeply.

Thoughts II - 1948
tempera on cardboard 46x32
- EXHIBITED AT ARTEXPO NEW YORK from 4 to 7 APRIL 2024
- included in the Atlas of Contemporary Art ed. 2021 DeAgostini

7 mask-faces are represented, clinging to each other, suspended in time. No mouths can be seen but only black eyes, which make them look similar to skulls.The red color that "dirties" them reminds us of the horrors of war.

It was 1948 and the past sufferings were still vivid and painful. The Artist expresses his profound anguish of existing. The thoughts that crowd the mind are like lifeless heads, which float in a surreal dimension which is nothing other than pure subconscious .

The salt pans of Cervia - 1976
mixed media on cardboard 65x70

EXHIBITED IN PALERMO spazio Experience from 20 to 27 April 2024

"Le Saline di Cervia" is a work with a dark and mysterious atmosphere, in which the landscape horizon almost dissolves into evanescence. Through transportive brushstrokes, the artist has expressed the ugliness of the vision he has of the world in itself, marked by the profound changes brought about in its era by wars, consumerism and the loss of individuality. The salt pans, traditionally a symbol of prosperity, here become a metaphor for the unstoppable transformations that afflict a society not yet ready for change.

The Bruna 80 - 1980
mixed media on 30x24 plastic

EXHIBITED AT PALAZZO XIMENENS-PANCIATICH – FLORENCE, ITALY (June 9^th-11^th2023)

"Gattavecchia experienced the wars and profound crises that shocked the twentieth century, a century in which the individualism of artists reached its peak. His works tell of violence, fear, loneliness, incommunicability, marginalization. An expressionist like Munch, the woman emerges from the darkness, marked by the diaphanous light and with a gaze resigned into the void: yet those red plump lips do not hide her beauty and passion”.
(comment by Professor Vittorio Sgarbi)

Study of Bodies I - 1976
tempera on plastic 65x48
included in the Atlas of Contemporary Art ed. 2021 DeAgostini publisher

The artist dedicated himself all his life to both painting and sculpture. He often depicted in his paintings the depth and volume of the sculpture he would later create.

Indifference - 1979
mixed on cardboard 24x43
exhibited at the Rome Triennale 2021

"Five male faces created with the sole use of brown colors stand out on a monochromatic surface.

Four are closer and only one, almost like a figure in the background, appears in profile, with his mouth open.

The choice to represent the eyes half-closed, in the explicit desire not to create empathy, nor suggest a relationship with the external user of the canvas.

The lack of communication and indifference also exists between the five characters: they are close, but each is closed in on himself, in their own silent selfishness.

Presented with extreme formal stylization and typified as if they were masks, these faces become symbols of the alienation and isolation that grips contemporary society."

White Vases - 1990
mixed media on canvas 76x46
exhibited in Venice European Pavilion 2019

For Gattavecchia the bottles represented people. He saw them as containers, sometimes white, sometimes black, but always impenetrable, mysterious, suspended in time and space.

The Bruna - 1960
charcoal on cardboard 40x30

The Artist was able to leave us very important signs of his human relationship, in works like this, which is a remarkable portrait of great strength. (Prof. Vittorio Sgarbi). Here too, although physiognomic elements return to identify the subject, the sense of introspection always prevails in the complex brushwork, in the accentuated synthesis, in the insistence on monochrome.
A strong feeling pervades this face that avoids the gaze , as if he didn't want to show his inner suffering.

Winter Landscape I - 1991
mixed media on canvas 75x95

When the Artist created this painting, he was 84 years old and already ill. He perceives his near end and paints panoramas without colours, without presences, wrapped only in the grayness and cold of winter. For the Artist the theme of abandonment becomes more heartbreaking and intense!

Together - 1987
mixed media on plastic 70x50

This painting deals with the theme of homosexuality.
In those years homosexuality was still seen as a deviance or disease, so it was necessary to hide and live it exclusively in a private place.In the painting, the two lovers find themselves in a closed environment where they can hug freely.

Naked - 1983
mixed media on canvas 80x65

Night - 1961
charcoal on paper 22x40

The work represents a landscape of his beloved city, Cesena. Here the investigation into nature disappears to leave room for the expression of an existence, for a profoundly spiritual image in the profile of the town which stands out against muted glows.