Exhibition
Carlo Rea | Forms and Harmonies
12 Dec 2018 – 23 Jan 2019
Address
- 46 Albemarle Street
- London
- W1S 1JN
- United Kingdom
Tornabuoni Art London presents the first solo show in the UK of the Italian artist Carlo Rea.
About
‘The fundamental theme, which is always present in my work, is the ow of time, understood essentially as movement in space.’ – Carlo Rea
Rea continues the Italian post war tradition of working with non-traditional materials – plaster, wood, gauze and ceramic, among others.
His delicate relief paintings are motionless, yet they seem in constant flux, morphing from painting into sculpture, from canvas into clay. Despite often being monochrome, his petal-like forms create a harmony of tones and shadows. His installations combine the delicate and the durable, and his body of work de es traditional categories.
Rea’s work also crosses between the visual and musicaldimensions, exempli ed by his sonic installation ‘Senza Titolo (Coppia di di usori)’, 2018, which will be shown in the gallery. Trained as a classical violinist and violist, theartist embraces the notion of musical time and chromaticrhythms in his work. Some of his simplest works create a luminous surface vibration by stretching gauze veils over stucco to give a moiré e ect. Their undulating surfaces seem to move as the viewer changes position.
Tornabuoni Art London seeks to distill the range of Rea’s artistic production and bring this artist to the British public for the first time.
The exhibition catalogue includes an essay by Professor Bruno Corà, Curator and President of the Alberto Burri Foundation in Città di Castello, Italy, who has been a longtime champion of the artist and his fascination with expressing the ow of time in the visual realm. As Corà writes:
‘With his awareness of the instability surrounding our lives and of an equally unlimited impermanence of being, Rea fuses his own thought with Heraclitus’s essential sentiment of panta rei: an instant yet eternal time ows through everything – every gesture, every sensation and every thought.’