"Everything is so damned interrelated...and you are here".
On Thursday 26th of April, we inaugurated the first solo exhibition in London of Rome based artist Massimo Nota @ Art Lobby, curated by Alessandra Migani.
The show received a warm welcome despite the persistent rain and a grey sky.
I am publishing here my piece of writing on the show and images of the artist's work.
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| Massimo Nota's exhibition poster |
These
black sounds are the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all
know of, and do not understand, but which furnishes us with whatever is
sustaining in art. Black sounds: so said the celebrated Spaniard, thereby
concurring with Goethe, who, in effect, defined the duende when he said,
speaking of Paganini: "A mysterious power that all may feel and no
philosophy can explain."
Federico
García Lorca, The Theory and Function of
Duende
Massimo Nota, originally from Rome, is a prolific
artist/illustrator whose world is imbued with visions. Nota’s creative act
reveals an instinctive gesture that he follows spontaneously on the surface.
Here words and images overlap in layers. Each artwork, either on canvas, brown
paper, cardboard, iron plates or wood, (re)presents an amazing arrangement of
drawings, collages, acrylic paint, watercolour and paper sheets.
Looking deeply into the surface, we can distinguish
original drawings, recycled papers, old book sheets found in flea markets and
old dusty archives. Nota magically blows the dust off them. Once they were lost
and forgotten and now they are placed in a new space, with a new function.
The artist doesn’t narrate a story, but many stories,
or better, a shred of stories/events that coexist at the same time. His
drawings are like children’s drawings but usually crude, cynical, humoristic.
They are stripped of any romantic view and rather scratched. His freehand lines
recall those cave drawings left by our ancestors.
In fact Nota’s distinguishing marks are primordial,
powerfully leaving a trace of their passage. Here we can find reminiscences of
artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring or the more contemporary
David Shrigley. They definitely share the same language.
Nota confesses: “I am constantly searching for the
spontaneity of sign”. Therefore it’s a sign free of schemes and rigid rules;
it’s pure energetic instinct. A gaze above the surface exposes the multiple
layers of his work where everything is interrelated. Each image is “merely a road by which pass, in every direction, the
modifications propagated throughout the immensity of the universe” (Matter and Memory by Henri Bergson). In
this way, Nota’s childlike state of mind discovers a powerful enlightenment
that we can surely share with him by looking at his work.
Alessandra Migani,
2012
A selection of exhibition views:
On Saturday 28th of April, children and teenagers were attending a workshop run by the artist: "How to make an artist's book".
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| Photos by Alessandra Migani |
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| photo by Fleur Donnelly Jackson |
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| photo by Fleur Donnelly Jackson |
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| photo by Fleur Donnelly Jackson |
Biography
Massimo Nota (Notamax) graduated as an
illustrator at the "Istituto Europeo di Design", in Rome. He
collaborates with many Italian newspapers, such as "La Repubblica,"
"Smemoranda," "Nessuno Tocchi Caino," and
"Avvenimenti". He has been awarded many prizes in national and
European graphic and satiric competitions and his productions have had exposure
in Italy, Spain and former Yugoslavia. He uses both traditional graphical
(watercolour, acrylic, indian ink) and digital techniques (Illustrator,
Photoshop). Animations are realised in Flash.
“Everything is so damned interrelated… and you
are here” by Massimo Nota
April
26th - May 27th 2012.
Private
View 26th April, 6-9pm
curated by Alessandra Migani
Unit 1, Queens Parade, Willesden Lane, NW2 5HT, London
gallery opening times: Sat - Tue, 10am - 6pm
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