Paola Angelini : Image Outside of Time

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery is pleased to represent emerging Italian painter Paola Angelini in Asia. The gallery will present her first solo exhibition in the region Image Outside of Time in November, and an Art Talk will be held to engage the artist in an in-depth conversation about her practice.Known for her symbolically loaded canvases filled with anachronistic atmosphere, Angelini’s aesthetics exudes a kind of quiet dissonance that at once encapsulates and destabilizes the viewer. The psychological charge of Angelini’s works situates her in the lineage of early 20th century Italian pioneers, most notably of Magic Realism and the Roman School, who put forth new figurative styles that penetrate the human psyche with enigmatic elements, laying the groundwork for the rise of Surrealism.

Adopting a similar approach, Angelini wants to peel back the layers of our mass media culture through the use of age-old symbols and metaphors in her oneiric images, prompting us to look for the original image of our existence. While our world is increasingly shaped and defined by science and technology, there are more than one way to understand our reality other than math and data, and her work has a way to tell us where to start.

As a result of her study of ancient Greek philosophy and psychologist James Hillman’s introduction of a mythical way in understanding our contemporary life, the new body of works in this exhibition sees the artist deepen her investigation on iconography on a spiritual and psychological level through the use of recurring subjects, pensive palette and phantasmal compositions. Inspired by Hillman’s writing that “to get out of time, one makes image”, the title of the exhibition calls for a way of seeing and imagining that breaks away from our time-bound, categorical mind in order to reveal the mythical being within us that is referred to as our soul. Image Outside of Time is about uncovering the unique image of the soul that outlines our innate character, emotion and desire, the “I” that is free of the concept of time, social mores and scientific rationalism.

In Angelini’s dense compositions, overlapping subjects verging between human and statue inhabit a hauntingly silent space, alluding to apparitions or fragmentary glimpses of a dream. Deeply fascinated by the spiritual power of ancient icons found in frescoes, medieval mosaics, antique sculptures and tapestries, the artist excavates symbols from these imageries to construct an alternate world independent of the timeline of our physical reality. As suggested by its title, Idol (2024) is populated by spectral figures who symbolize forgotten knowledge and value from the ancient times. These idols, with their inexplicable ability to access our subconscious, continue to appear in other works, such as The Room of Philosophy (2024) and Under the Sky (2024), like recurring dreams. At times flat, at times filled with volume, Angelini’s figures seem to be in a constant state between emerging from and dissolving into the background, moving in and out of existence, refusing to be framed by space and time.

The atmospheric intensity Angelini creates through the treatment of tones and light elicits near-religious responses. Often working within a tight chromatic range around a dominant tone, the artist juxtaposes acid colors with earthy hues to create light that seems to emanate from within the figures. The incandescent globe of light in The Room of the Sun (2024) transmits mysterious energy throughout the canvas, as if to animate the statue-like figures from their stillness. In its nostalgic aura, the artist imagines Night giving back the light to humankind, a rumination on the concept of time. With a similar palette, Angelini creates a meditative space in Alter Ego (2023-24). Again, light is decidedly unrealistic, and it is used in a sculptural way to render the subjects as objects, paying homage to the figurative language of the Roman School from the early 20th century.

In much of her works, materiality plays an important role in Angelini’s visual language. The unique texture of her works stems from a long, self-developed preparation process, where the artist applies multiple layers of rabbit skin glue and plaster on the canvas, cracks it by hands after drying under the sun. The result is a skin-like pattern when paint is applied on the other unprimed side of the canvas. The distinct tactility harmonizes her seemingly incongruent compositions of shifting scales and perspectives, allowing her fragmentary subjects derived from ancient imageries, art history and personal memories to come together.

At once surreal and familiar, Angelini’s affective images insist teleological questions in image-making itself, asking the true values of our visual languages from the ancient past to the present. These images collapse time and space, creating a kind of void that is long buried inside each of us. Through her practice, Angelini asks, “what image is really worth to make? How can images guide me to the truth and beauty?” The artist aims to offer a moment of silence away from the overflow of data and information, to rethink the nature of our existence by reconnecting us with something greater than ourselves.

Art Talk

Date: 16 November 2024
Time: 3:30 – 5:30 pm
Venue: Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery
Language: English
Register now: rsvp@kwaifunghin.com / 2580 0058

The Art Talk, Image in Our Time, explores Angelini’s interest in ancient imageries and the relationship between image and time through a contemporary lens. While the artist creates images beyond the boundary of time, they prompt us to rethink the value of an image in our image saturated culture today.

Angelini, Dr. Anna Kwong, Art Historian and Senior Lecturer at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as well as Ms. Catherine Kwai, Founder of Kwai Fung Hing Art Gallery, will join in the conversation to discuss the artist’s inspirations and examine the development of the concept of image throughout the history of art. A particular focus will be paid on the artistic movements in the early 20th century Italy that greatly influenced the artist and inspired the development of Surrealism, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year and remains influential to this day.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

In her visually complex paintings, Paola Angelini weaves personal memory, classical philosophy, art historical references, ancient and contemporary imageries into seemingly discordant yet profoundly silent compositions. Angelini’s practice is founded upon the rich tradition of Italian art; and her personal approach to figuration and enigmatic imageries place her in the lineage of influential artists from the Roman School and Magic Realism in the early 20th century.

Born in 1983, Angelini lives and works in her birthplace San Benedetto del Tronto in Italy. She obtained a BA in Painting from Academy of Fine Arts in Florence in 2008. Then, she went on to study visual arts with artist Bjarne Melgaard and curator Marta Kuzma in 2011 and 2013 respectively at IUAV University in Venice. She exhibited at the Norwegian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in an exhibition titled "Baton Sinister" in collaboration with Bjarne Melgaard. In 2017, she obtained a MA in Fine Arts at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent, Belgium.

In 2014 and 2016, Angelini participated in the Artist in Residency program at the Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale (NKD), Norway, as well as the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa residency in Venice. She has had solo exhibitions in different cities in Italy, such as Vicenza (Fondazione Coppola), Venice (Ca’ Pesaro), Milan (“Italian Painting Now”, Triennale Museum), Urbino (Palazzo Ducale), Prato (Palazzo Pretorio Museum), as well as other countries like the USA and Norway.

Angelini is well recognized in the Italian contemporary art scene. Among the awards she received is the Level 0 award at Art Verona (2014 and 2019) selected by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (MART) and Ca’ Pesaro Museum in Venice.