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Venice Biennale Preview: Nicola Verlato

Posted Jun 3, 2009

Exhibiting at this year's 2009 Venice Biennale in the Italian Pavillion curated by Luca Beatrice and Beatrice Buscaroli, will be new Italian talents alongside established stars such as Sandro Chia. We take a peek at the "metaphysical obviousness" of Nicola Verlato.

Nicola Verlato was born in Verona in 1965. His first approach to art was in a convent (at Lonigo, a small city not far from Venice), where he learnt how to sketch bodies and restore church's frescos.

In 2001, after studing 'conservatory Lute' at the Institute of Architecture in Venice he relocated from what he describes as "Italian ignorant elites in power" to New York's creativity freedom where he now lives and works in Brooklyn.

The move obviously worked as he went on to attract the attention of both the public and several curator's attention, creating several solo and group exhibitions in Berlin as well as his new adopted home - New York.

The Entropic Principle, 2003, oil on canvas, 150x150cm,
Private collection, Birmingham, AL, USA

Nicola Verlato's artworks capture the unexpected meeting of the Renaissance's formal rules with a video game theme. Starting from a computer graphic, he connects Michelangelo's working process with a Hollywood mega-production.

Subjects are politically un-correct, brilliant and dramatically contemporary. Rappers and burlesque porno divas become saints and martyrs, mothers are represented as Dante's devils, and skulls and blue jeans offer unexpected visuals.

 


Still, 2008, oil on linen, 92x 122.5cm

Comics, cinema and rock music are all inspirations for Verlato who uses traditional rules with a touch of Dalì surrealism, creating his own "metaphysical obvious" - a contemporary and unconscious gallery of the new visuals and archetypes born from the Internet era.

His forthcoming show at the Venice Biennale 2009 will showcase Verlato's next steps as an artist as he replaces the obviousness of daily life with his own fantasies.

See more work from Nicola Verlato at www.nicolaverlato.com

For more in Swide's Venice Biennale Series see www.swide.comArtists/Venice-Biennale-Preview--Masbedo

Giuliano Federico

 

TAGS: venice biennale nicola verlato luca beatrice and beatrice buscaroli italian pavillion sandro chia art artists new artists italian artists masbedo online magazine fashion magazine