Fibonacci moths

FIBONACCI MOTHS. From the series “Please do not kill butterflies”, pins, oil and pencil on paper, 50 x 30 cm, 2017. Original paintings sold.

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Memories from Spain

Postcards from Spain. Oil on paper, 21 x 15 cm, 2017.
Six small paintings about Spanish urban landscapes.

Postcard from Iglesia de la Trinidad, Segovia, Spain

Postcard from Plaza Mayor, Segovia, Spain

Postcard from Plaza Mayor, Madrid, Spain

postcard from Basilica de San Francisco el Grande, Madrid, Spain

postcard from Placa Reial, Barcelona, Spain

postcard from Placa Reial, Barcelona, Spain

Psychedelic fish

Psychedelic fish. Oil on canvas, 40 x 80 cm, 2016. ORIGINAL PAINTING SOLD.

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Psychedelic-fish/46606/3634990/view

A group of rd fish swimming in a psychedelic sea. The whole things becomes a dream, or an illusion...

EYES

From the series “Eyes”, oil and pencil on paper, 20 x 20 cm, 2014.

I've always been attracted by the eyes, and by the sensuality that comes from the attempt to represent their liquidity, transparency, shadows and shades of colors. Drawing the eyes is a simple exercise, but it lends itself to endless variations. On this subject I apply my obsession for decoration, and so I try to investigate what is the limit beyond which the subject of the drawing is no longer the eye, but the decoration itself. The small size allows me to combine a simple subject to a decoration exasperated. The choice of the eyes stems from the idea of the makeup, which is basically a form of decoration.

(original sold)

EYE

From the series “Eyes”, oil and pencil on paper, 10 x 10 cm, 2012.

I've always been attracted by the eyes, and by the sensuality that comes from the attempt to represent their liquidity, transparency, shadows and shades of colors. Drawing the eyes is a simple exercise, but it lends itself to endless variations. On this subject I apply my obsession for decoration, and so I try to investigate what is the limit beyond which the subject of the drawing is no longer the eye, but the decoration itself. The small size allows me to combine a simple subject to a decoration exasperated. The choice of the eyes stems from the idea of the makeup, which is basically a form of decoration.

My original artworks are also available for sale. Please contact me if you are interested in more information about my work, the sales prices of individual works, the costs of the expedition or the availability for work on graphics.

Angry moth

"Angry moth". Pins, oil and pencil on paper, 21 x 15 cm, 2014. Available for sale.

http://www.federicocortese.com/2016/09/04/please-do-not-kill-butterflies/

Me and my sister at the sea

"Me and my sister at the sea ", oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm, 2014

From the series “Family portraits”: 

I suppose that every family, as well as mine, owns his proper baggage of photographic memories, kept in an old cabinet somewhere in the house. In that place are kept the stories of the whole family,  the  memories of grandparents, the marriage of the parents, the childhood period, all the summer holidays, and countless other occasions to remember. Their appeal lies in the irregularities, in the imperfections, in the grains of dust that soiled the film, in the overexposure burning the edges and merging all the objects in an indistinct white light, in the color fading due to the passage of time. I like to think that the paper possesses its own selective memory, which unveils some elements of the image while hides or removes others, staining only parts of the scene, while the rest is left in the second floor, in black and white. Or I like to think that the fading paper misses parts of that memory, and sometimes what remains seems not to be the most important thing.

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-My-sister-and-me/46606/1917317/view

Ida in the fields

"My grandmother in the fields". Oil on cardboard, 14 x 20 each, 2000.

www.federicocortese.com

Wedges with yellow and ocher inclusions

from the series “Cuneiform writing”, oil and pencil on paper, 50 x 38 cm, 2005.

The cuneiform writing was a system that was performed impressing on the clay some particular signs with the shape of triangles or wedges, repeated in different positions in order to compose distinguishable characters. In my drawings I use a geometric form, usually triangular, as a mold impregnated with color, repeatedly printed on paper. The final layout of the forms and the colors used can generate a sentence or a meaning.

The yellow flowers

"The yellow flowers". Oil on wood panel, 45 x 60 cm, 2015. ORIGINAL ARTWORK SOLD (sold in Dallas, USA, with Zatista):

https://www.zatista.com/product/details/49322/the-yellow-flowers 

Psychedelic octopus

(original sold)

Oil on Canson paper (290 g/mq), 28 x 50 cm, 2016. Original paintings sold.

The fantastic world of animals. When I was a kid I went crazy for these small encyclopedias for children, where all the animal species were cataloged, and were represented with drawings rather than with images. Those drawings, although very detailed, left much to the imagination. It was as if some white space at the edges of the image were put there on purpose, to allow the viewer to complete, with the imagination, the work of describing that animal. Perhaps it is from this childhood passion that comes to me a certain obsession for animals, and a vice that leads me, starting from a detail or from a  certain peculiarity, to exaggerate, to overstate the decorations and the colors, to allow the polyps to emit colored and psychedelic inks. Originals available for sale:

federicocortese.com/2017/01/10/psychedelic/

(original sold)

(original sold)

Cities

The city on the river, 30 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 1991.

Red city, 21 x 30 cm, ink on paper, 1997.

www.federicocortese.com

The house of the haruspex

The house of the haruspex

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-The-house-of-the-haruspex/46606/2304610/view

Oil on canvas, 2011,  100 x 70 cm. Original sold.

The haruspex predicts the future by interpreting signs that he is able to discover hidden in the bowels of animals. The place of his work is bare, half way between the shop of a dealer and a pagan temple. The large bowls, which contain the remains of animals butchered for the prophecy, are the tools of his work. The soothsayer is sad. To him falls the task of sacrificing innocent animals, for an oracle that says nothing that is not already known.

Alphabet

From the series “Alphabet”, china ink on paper. 20 x 20 cm, 2001.

A barcode is the graphical representation of a series of numbers. What does creates the aesthetics of a bar code? It comes from lines, their thickness, the spacing.We can think of it as a language with its compositional rules, its grammar and its syntax.

I imagined to isolate these rules, separating them from the original purpose for which they were created, and I tried to change them gradually to invent a new language and perhaps new meanings.

Something in the snow

Something in the snow

Oil on canvas, 2014, 80 X 70 cm.

“I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth -

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall? - -

If design govern in a thing so small.”

Design, by Robert Frost. 1922.

 www.federicocortese.com

Erminia and Ida in the fields

"Erminia and Ida in the fields". Oil on cardboard, 85 x 56 cm, 2016. Original and prints available for sale:

http://crated.com/art/113161/ida-and-erminia-in-the-fields-by-federicocortese?product=FP&size=8%7C11&frame=BF&edge=250MA