Marco Belfiore, Lupo Borgonovo, Elena Ricci, Federico Tosi

We are pleased to announce the group show On Paper, presenting four Italian artists who share the practice of drawing as a constant part of their research.

The series Random Access Memories by Marco Belfiore (Rovereto, 1971) is made of bizarre drawings in an illustrative and provocative style, inspired by Picabia’s erotic “machines” and technical illustrations from the early 1900s. The ironic reference to computer RAM in the title –with its functional impermanence, emphasizes the discrepancy between such memory and that of human beings. The hydraulic structures invented by Belfiore are closed or interrupted circuits, mnemonic labyrinths scattered with everyday objects on a grid of graph paper. The second series, Genderpathy is the improbable merging of two terms. The potential for gender identity to shift and elude certain definition – according to geographical, historical and cultural variables – turns us all into mutable yet leading characters of this alleged “party.”

The two series of drawings by Lupo Borgonovo (Milan, 1985) stem from images of antique items that are removed from their context, conserving only a distant memory of it. The O series takes inspiration from a collection of plates at the Metropolitan Museum in New York; the Tour series, on the other hand, starts from still lifes belonging to the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam. In the first series, the motifs of the ceramics are reproduced through an act of repetition, tracing small circles of ink until the images almost vanish in the thus created pattern: the gestural practice is similar to a mantra. The second series references the lemons recurring in 17th century’s Dutch still lifes, that are allegories of preciousness and the exotic. The artist isolates the fruit in a white space, like planets in motion left alone in a concentric dance.

Elena Ricci’s (Rome, 1973) pastels on paper depict a world in balance between rational and irrational, realistic and dreamy. She says "I’m interested precisely in the borderline, the threshold between these two worlds, which are never clearly separate, but continuously merge into one another. They are like bridge images, triggering a close relationship between the visible and the invisible. The use of pastels is one of my preferred techniques since it is the only one that keeps the qualities of the pure pigment intact: the color is vibrant, bright, powdery, sensual. I began using this technique many years ago, after having seen the visionary works of Odilon Redon, who is still one of my artists of reference.”

For Federico Tosi (Milan, 1988) drawing is an almost daily practice, with which he records an eclectic flow of ideas. Various impressions converge in his research: many come from his travels around the world, where the artist hungrily observes everything, creating subtly ironic or grotesque images. Others stem from pure imagination, often connected with scientific or anatomical research, with a constant sense of memento mori. In this exhibition we present a large drawing of a galaxy made entirely with markers; another one titled Slime Lapse which shows the intricate pathway of a wandering insect on a large sheet of paper, and a series of smaller drawings featuring unexpected subjects.