Luciano Bartolini
Luciano Bartolini emerged as a young artist in the 1970s when conceptual and installation art still dominated the Italian avantguarde scene.
In this context, he was particularly influenced by Alberto Burri’s philosophy of 'truth to materials' – an inspiration for the Arte Povera movement.
Recently, Bartolini has produced fragile, layered works on paper, in which the resonance of Arte Povera remains. The `aura’ of the materials – gold and roughened paper, textured surfaces and collage – must be acknowledged in this light.
The formal quality of Bartolini’s work is of prime importance, yet the choice of materials has implications far beyond their intrinsic or decorative quality. The fragile, finite nature of the paper (hand-made in Tibet under the supervision of the artist), is coupled with gold (and all that gold implies of treasure, of sacred imagery, of eternity and desire), and layered with the lasting and active elements of colour, glaze and oil.
Bartolini uses these materials to construct a complex symbology. Across the surface of the work lies the primary geometric forms of the Tantric circle, the perfect square, the endless line and mysterious, incomplete letters which seem an indecipherable clue to some ancient calligraphy. These beautiful and recurrent signs reflect the artists profound understanding of, and belief in, the permanent validity of Hellenic art and mythology, of Byzantine art, and of orientalism.
At the heart of Bartolini’s work lies the complex contradiction between the capacity of material to evoke specific social and historical memory, and the power of signs and symbols to transcend time and place. Bartolini attempts to create a space for the resolution of these opposites – a utopian circle that can contain, and sustain, all contradictions. He describes his painting as a 'journey of associations…intricate with aspirations, hopes, dreams and memories.'