Xin as a child.

XIN AS A CHILD - An original piece from the series “Memories paper”; oil and pencil on paper; 29.5 x 42 cm, 2014.

My father, when young, was fond of photography. He loved to develop the images on his own. A rudimentary darkroom was set up in a closet, where he experienced the effects of developing baths on the portraits of his children. These photographs, along with other photos of memories of grandparents, pictures of the period of the war, the marriage of my parents or my and my sister childhood, all of the summer holidays, and countless other occasions to remember, they are still part of the baggage of memories of my family, kept in an old cabinet.

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.

Memory paper

“Memories paper”; oil and pencil on paper; 30 x 21 cm.

www.federicocortese.com/2016/06/24/memories-paper/

My father, when young, was fond of photography. He loved to develop the images on his own. A rudimentary darkroom was set up in a closet, where he experienced the effects of developing baths on the portraits of his children. These photographs, along with other photos of memories of grandparents, pictures of the period of the war, the marriage of my parents or my and my sister childhood, all of the summer holidays, and countless other occasions to remember, they are still part of the baggage of memories of my family, kept in an old cabinet.

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.

ORIGINAL ARTWORKS SOLD.

The sacrifice

An original piece from the series “They sleep on the hill”, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm, 2008.

In the “Spoon River Anthology” the poet Edgar Lee Masters tells the story of the people

buried in the cemetery of a small imaginary village. In Italy, the singer-songwriter Fabrizio

De André published a famous collection of songs inspired by the anthology; the first piece

of the collection is titled "They sleep on the Hill." I imagined to evoke in each of these

paintings a little story about a person or an imaginary group of people. I try to make the

story not too explicit but only vaguely mentioned. It may be a hidden love story, a

underhand secret, a family conflict or an unpunished crime. It's not too important to

understand the events involving these characters. After all, when you browse through

old family albums you discover the faces of people who have become too unknown for

the time spent, and we  try to imagine how these people have lived. What connection

linked them? They were happy? What really occupied their thoughts when the picture

was taken?

This original painting is available for sale.Contact me in case you are interested in more information about my work,

the sales prices of individual works, or the availability
for work on graphics.

Kultorvet, Copenaghen

(original sold)

From the series “Windows”, oil and pencil on wood panel, 35 x 25 cm, 2017.

The facade of a building is a sort of skin for it. A dress, a kind of embroidery where the alternation of elements (full and empty, windows, materials, structural and decorative elements) gives a different rhythm every time. In my travels I always wander if it is possible to discover this rhythm and its variations, and if it is specific for that place, or whether modernity has made us all irreparably the same. But probably behind this interest there is also a sort of voyeurism. Who lives in these rooms? Which eyes glance from there? What kind of stories and tragedies hide in those houses?

Two elegant butterflies

Butterfly form the 20's (ORIGINAL SOLD)

Hourglass butterfly

from the series “Please do not kill butterflies”, pins, oil and pencil on paper, 40 x 30 cm each one, 2017.

Please, all these dead animals ... Of course, not everyone of us can or want become vegetarian.

Sure, in some cases, maybe, the medical experimentation needs them to get results. But we really

have to kill them for our frivolous activities? ... Is it necessary to have so many pink pigs die in

front of a camera? Do we really need to dissect sharks in formaldehyde, to starve stray dogs tied

to a chain in the corner of a gallery, or to make innocent ants go crazy in twisted tubes of

plexiglass? To make these drawings, no butterfly was killed.

The color of memory

"The color of memory”, oil on paper, 35 x 35 cm.

These works come from some thoughts about classical sculpture. We know that the sculptures were

originally colorful, and that the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures, but also the pre-Columbian

cultures, favored, to decorate them, very bright colors. But the passage of time has given us these

sculptures predominantly white, so, from the Renaissance until today, the sculptural representation

of man is almost always monochrome. And it is interesting to think that if by some historical

accident, the same thing had happened with painting, today we would paint with one color, and we

would find it quite natural, just as the monochrome sculptures seem entirely correct. Obviously this

reasoning should be much more complex, but for me it was only the starting point for a reflection on

the way we perceive reality, and what is that influences it. Looking for an expedient that makes it

look colorful something that is not.

"Antinoo farnese" . ORIGINAL SOLD.

"Apollo alla Galleria degli Uffizi". Original available for sale.

"Ara Ludovisi". Original available for sale.

Contact me in case 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.

www.federicocortese.com

Psychedelic

PSYCHEDELIC. Oil on paper, 21 x 15 cm, 2016.