OSVALDO MARISCOTTI: New Meaning
by Estelle Lovatt
"Hmm .... What is it? What's it of? Is it part of a computer? A piece of a motherboard? The insides of an electronical hardware circuit component? A CPU? A modem?" I ask because as soon as I saw Osvaldo Mariscotti's latest artwork I knew what it was a painting of, what Mariscotti was trying to represent. Then again, I might be wrong but, like you, I bring my own baggage ....
Like most people I've never seen the insides of a computer. However, I have seen all sorts of electronic parts through the eyes of an inquisitive 7-year-old child who dismantles everything electrical to explore its mechanics, what's inside them and how they might work. Today, this is how I see Mariscotti's art however subconsciously.
Much in the same way that if Manet were alive today, I do believe that as he was so into Social Networking, he'd also be encouraged by our technological age, and would himself be Tweeting and Facebooking whilst painting 'Music in the Tuileries Gardens'. And Da Vinci would be fascinated by the Internet, arranging its rogue elements into 'Vitruvian Man' compositions, structuring today's world within the artist's world. And so, intuitively, Mariscotti got bitten by the byte; the characters in Mariscotti's canvas balance the pictorial surface through an energetic revolution born out of a painterly rebellion, from Genesis to Generation X, because this is what a good artist does; he embraces the contemporary world whilst following in the footsteps of art history. Whilst, as Mariscotti says, making "a concerted effort to remain independent of other artists' views and forms of expression, in order to remain original."
Alluding to current technological developments and abstract modulations of systematic awareness, Mariscotti brings a sophisticated spatiality to his deceptively simple grids and rectangles that are positively informed and inspired by the history of art. Within a Mondrian-like grid, harking back to the Dutch Golden Age (I especially think of the lovely Jacobus Vrel's, 'Woman at a Window, waving at a Girl', c.1650), it is the juxtaposition of graphic components in Mariscotti's 'Matrix' that cuts across art history and is transformed by him into his own hieroglyphic-like pictorial diction where, what looks like the beginnings of life - strands of cells studied under a microscope, would excite the Ernst or Pollock within a Josef Albers reductive, yet educational, square.
Mariscotti also has a code of lines that Kandinsky (because of his synaesthesia) would have found appealing as they resemble the synthesizer chip, encoding a circuit board-like pattern to his abstract canvas like sound files on a sound card. Mariscotti says, "'Color Symphony I', (CSI), makes explicit reference to the musical qualities inherent in [my] work. Creating a melody of color in the same way that music makes use of patterns, 'CSI' displays patterns of forms and vibrant colors that create continuity from one section to another section. This tension creating illusions of vibration, which, to the trained viewer can be perceived as a musical composition." Mariscotti stores brush marks like 'bytes', or 'data' (narrative), 'encoded' in the pictorial composition ('circuits'). What at first looks like abstract compositions soon resolves into figurative studies of sensory implication insistent on the formation of human flux that, parallel with the buzz of technology, are bound in paint, as Mariscotti takes 'elements' and installs them into his canvas, re-contextualising them within 'Metal Series', actually a single work - the same work, exposed with numerous different coloured lights.
The implication of using metallic paper both suggests and obscures a monochrome panel - perhaps a digital circuit, maybe a converter, chip or connector, slotting into a socket into a slot into a quasi-patchwork image of pattern, carefully mixed colour and texture that maps out a diagrammatic sub-superstructure; the mechanics (weave) of a pictorial surface. I can't help but describe Mariscotti's latest work in electronic terms, as part of a 'unit'; a core component capable of (re)calculating results for a wider visual computation (the canvas), that (re)assembles Futuristic values and symbols.
Mariscotti, also highly Primitive and Romantic, can reduce the visual trickery of Pop Art and Neo-Plasticist De-Stijl into something of Minimalist physical juxtapositions with Renaissance objectivity, that organises architectural forms of platforms and screens, as an architect would. I'm convinced that Mariscotti's training as a civil engineer enables him to see his art as a mathematical equation that needs to balance. And much like in any equation, there are variables and operators, although this is not just about symmetry. As Mariscotti structures an understanding, an interpretation, of our world that exists beyond the motif, it is the energy and friction of vibrations of his paint that makes an underlying tension create spatial rotations suggestive of time as a result of our environment. In 'Color Variations Series, #9', I see postmodern elements of our digital age, of layering, translucency, and hyper-complexity on which to hang your own personal narratives. That's what I did. And here, in Mariscotti's paintings of myriad cities and empires of social space and common ground, I see key changes of colour and abstraction that challenge our journey, through his journey, which he says, "starts with the exploration of light and perception, soon veering me towards scale and dimension." 'Gold Supreme', makes me feel that "great statements deserve a great scale."
In contrast, 'Black Beauty Series, #1' (Untitled 1432), is painted entirely in a Reinhardt-black and later worked on with oils. Mariscotti explains, "This notion of color as melody reinforces the linguistic character of my work. I like to think of my work as a language, a means of communication. I create shades of color and form that when brought together result in new meaning. This meaning is particular to every individual. It pretty much allows itself to interpretation." (This is where I come in.) "In a way, there lies the beauty of abstraction. For a single work can appeal to multitudes for differing reasons. The abstract notion takes the shape of whatever's most meaningful to the individual staring at the work."
Sometimes I question, and worry, when an artist becomes repetitive and too transcriptional. Although, then again, that's what I like about Warhol with his Marilyns and soup cans, and Lowry with his matchstick men. To me, repetitiveness means an artist knows exactly what he's looking for, and he finds it, and re-finds it, over, and over, and over again. Whilst navigating and exploring Mariscotti's canvases I thought, wouldn't it be great if he worked within the ideology of space, in the round, in 3D? And he does. Beginning to work with a panoramic content that hints at oscillations within modernist Kinetic sculpture, Mariscotti explains, "Traditionally, I like to work with oils. However, when looking for new textures and experiences, I like to try other materials. Some of my latest works are made in acrylic, in particular fluorescent acrylic. I'm fascinated by the way light reacts with the pigment. For that reason I decided to try exposing some of these works to different color lights. The results were remarkable! And made me explore further the role that light plays in our perception of art." This is emphasized in '2050 I & II', which are two versions of the same work, '2050 II' is the actual work. The canvas has been painted in black and later worked on with acrylics. '2050 I' is the same work exposed with dark light, turning Caravaggio-ism into Conceptualism.
Mariscotti's blocks and lines demarcate the route you take to go around his canvas. The space between you and his artwork poses questions that, like a New York Colour Field Abstract Expressionist, would absorb you through the topography of his canvas. As Mariscotti describes, "When I paint I don't necessarily 'feel' anything; however I do 'think' about many things. Painting is a medium for me to express and represent intangible thoughts and views about subjects which I find significant. I like to play with the idea of an ordered chaos; seemingly dissonant events that somehow converge in ways that help us determine the path we should follow." It is through the interaction of Mariscotti's shapes, as architectural communities, that allows abstract compositions to emerge through processes of painterly improvisation and open-ended restructure of format and style. Not simply flat surfaces, Mariscotti is both Artist and Adventurer.
© Estelle Lovatt July 2013
