{"title":"Joseph Scelfo","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"8-movimento-collezione-proiezioni","title":"8th MOVEMENT (Projections Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003eRelationships and feelings are the musical score we live by, and in the years 1988-1989, my experience sought guiding geometries, almost like musical scores directing an exciting period of new discoveries (I was 43\/44). Light and space guided me in the second half of my life. I called the collection Projections, because they accompany us throughout our existence, both within ourselves and towards others.\u003cbr\u003e\n Work exhibited in 1989 in the solo exhibition at Palazzo Valentini, catalogue with introduction by Dario Micacchi and Alfio Borghese.\u003cbr\u003e\n In 1989, I felt the desire to renew the way I had applied paint, which until then I had done by applying a coat of plastic quartz either on canvas or on wood, to go beyond the similarity with the wall surfaces that had attracted me so much for their dimensional and expressive potential.\u003cbr\u003e\n I want to return to the brushstroke, but also to an iconography different from the figurative (previous series, even if worked in an unusual way).\u003cbr\u003e \nThe moment was expanding. I wanted to focus my attention on a geometric dimension, to highlight the directions I wanted to take, within a framework of openings: the dimension of the theater wings immediately took center stage, and I began with a series structured along these lines: a space revealed in its interweavings between two opening planes. Along with the lines—which had substance—I sensed numerous interweavings fluctuating, as if for feeling and living, but within a powerful dimension of luminosity. An interweaving of axes and planes differently oriented like the paths we formally and internally encounter in life. The choice was therefore to orient myself toward a yellow dominant—specifically, I used Hansa Yellow light—which perfectly matched the luminous emotions I was representing.\u003cbr\u003e \nIn this work, the wings are narrower than in previous canvases—sometimes I've done without them—and the color green marks a visual as well as a physical separation. I imagine I could stand there, exit, extricate myself, move, or re-enter... to prepare subsequent scenes... as any viewer might do before the canvas.\u003cbr\u003e\n I exhibited this canvas in a solo show at Palazzo Valentini in December 1989, when it was still possible to display it in the magnificent ancient cellars. The catalog includes comments by art critic Dario Micacchi and journalist Alfio Borghese. Here are excerpts:\u003cbr\u003e\n Excerpt by Dario Micacchi:\u003cbr\u003e\n “Giuseppe Scelfo, in painting, starts from an idea that is a dominant, lyrically obsessive thought that possesses his imagination until it has exhausted all its significant constructive possibilities.\u003cbr\u003e \nIt can be figurative as in the cycle with the “Caryatids” (FRAGMENTS) or in that of Antigone; or abstract neo-constructivist like the latest one of the Movements.\u003cbr\u003e\n In the early 1980s, the color was applied with a mural-like effect. The medium was acrylic on plastic quartz; a material that lasted until the most recent paintings, when oil was added, making the luminosity of the image and its details more softly blended, more radiant, and more magical, softening the sharpness of the geometry.\u003cbr\u003e\n It is a higher level reached with the exploration of space operated with the cycle of large and small format movements (and here a new lyricism is maturing which, to use a musical term, could be called “allegretto scherzondo”).\u003cbr\u003e\n And it is also a higher pictorial level because the occupation of space tends towards the long duration of human time of spatial domination so serene and constructive.\u003cbr\u003e \nGiuseppe Scelfo, as a painter, possesses a singular eye that operates in a 360-degree manner, looking into the depths of space and the depths of the self with absolute harmony and symmetry: so much so that the serene image of spatial conquest and domination is also evidence of a growth path of the profound self from a closed situation to the blue openness.\u003cbr\u003e\n Giuseppe Scelfo has given himself the right culture and technique for these image conquests of his, so deviant from the official but habitual course of today's painting\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e Excerpt from Alfio Borghese:\u003cbr\u003e\n “…In order to evoke fantastic spaces, Scelfo does not follow mathematical rules and creates projections when he needs them, to always obtain an expansion of space.\u003cbr\u003e\n His is a contemporary painting and even the use of acrylic is due to the modernity of the technique, which gives a compact surface, homogeneous tonal variations with faster execution.\u003cbr\u003e \n1989 marked a turning point in Scelfo's painting; first, he abandoned classical themes, accompanied by a shift in technique from plastic quartz to acrylic directly on canvas, rediscovering the pleasure of fluid brushstrokes, transcending his connection with murals, and moving beyond the \"picture plane.\"\u003cbr\u003e\n Now, the conversation is direct, the surface no longer needs to be “screened,” the drawing is conceived on everyday images, on assembly and traced directly onto the canvas.\u003cbr\u003e\n With the MOVEMENTS, Scelfo enters the fantastic climate of emotions, setting all his plays of colors, of lines (of the many lives he would love to live) in complete freedom of themes and figures.\u003cbr\u003e\n The search for spatiality is linked to an exploration of light and the transparency of nodes; projections, the intersections of lines and planes play the main role.\u003cbr\u003e \nFrom the MOVEMENTS Scelfo draws infinite VARIATIONS, which give rise to the PROJECTIONS cycle: the colours are now toned down, the brightness increases and he begins to explore the sensitivity, poetry and ambiguity of transparencies and intersections and the body of works from 1989 sees the rhythm of large and small surfaces, especially with the last works which he also begins to execute in oil”.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203254792578,"sku":"109133","price":3600.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/001_-_8_movimento_cm_145x95_acrilico_su_tela_1989.jpg?v=1768317034"},{"product_id":"1-movimento-collezione-proiezioni","title":"2nd MOVEMENT (Projections Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003e Relationships and feelings are the musical score we live by, and in 1988-1989 my experience sought the geometries that guided an exciting period of new discoveries (I was 43\/44). Light and space guided me in the second half of my life.\u003cbr\u003e\n Work exhibited in the solo exhibition at Palazzo Valentini, catalog with introduction by Dario Micacchi and Alfio Borghese.\u003cbr\u003e\n In particular, I found myself in a period of strong personal changes beyond those of the events of the period around 1989.\u003cbr\u003e \nThe scene I was experiencing was worthy of a theatrical performance and the SCENES seemed essential to me in conveying my vision of the present: as in a theatre, I resorted to linear flows between two planes\/scenes that symbolised the directions to take and which I experienced in the infinite interweavings of existence.\u003cbr\u003e\n Naturally, the work wasn't coldly planned, but felt. In other words, I felt a strong impulse driving me toward those forms—not abstract, but concrete, I would say structural. This is a characteristic that characterizes most of my work: they are forms I sense, that live within me and are expressed in actions. They are the Forms of Being, as I've come to define them now, in 2023, with my pastel drawings. Over the course of our lives, we change, and so do our manifestations, our being, our body. The images with which we manifest ourselves cannot help but change—evolve.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203254825346,"sku":"109134","price":2400.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/2_movimento_65x95_acrilico_su_tela_1989.jpg?v=1768317035"},{"product_id":"la-perdita-del-paradiso-terrestre-collezione-dualita","title":"THE LOSS OF THE EARTHLY PARADISE (Duality Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003e Science is also used “greedily” and in this way it is destroying the only vital elements: earth, fire, air, water.\u003cbr\u003e\n Art, with its tools, can make these changes visible. Earth was once the Garden of Eden.\u003cbr\u003e\n The series of works on duality stems from a project aimed at showcasing the beauty of the things we want to live among, things we sometimes don't notice but need. Negative considerations are countered by simple, luminous colors and shapes, where duality is expressed on both the upper and lower planes: the elements of nature, the leaves, the vital elements of plants, are contrasted with the geometries of buildings that seek to appear more beautiful than nature itself, in an artificial, fleeting comparison.\u003cbr\u003e \nI chose these natural and geometric elements because they always represent the realms in which we must live and coexist to find our balance. The geometric elements blend with the curvilinear ones, almost in a mutual seduction, to captivate and deceive, overcoming, the complex simplicity of nature.\u003cbr\u003e\n The dominant green and yellow colors want to shine through in the light and positivity of actions. Let's surround ourselves with beauty; our bodies and minds will thank us.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203254890882,"sku":"109135","price":3600.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/004_-_la_perdita_del_paradiso_terrestre_cm_145x95_olio_su_tela_2017.jpg?v=1768317037"},{"product_id":"dialoghi-1-collezione-dialoghi","title":"DIALOGUES 1 (Dialogues Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003e So the Works were first born with the term “interrelations” but then were more properly defined as “DIALOGUES”.\u003cbr\u003e\n And the first work was born almost out of necessity, reliving the moments of my son's first drawings at the age of two and a half, when I put colors in his hands to let him experience the first OWN signs with his own actions. Almost like reliving myself, reminiscing about my passion.\u003cbr\u003e \nI reproduced the lines of his very first drawing, following the traces of which I continued to connect with them and to let my phantom certainties (straight lines\/illusions!) grow along these connections, elements of vegetation, the natural origin of life on earth. Then the filling of the air and space with a dense dotting, almost a veil, with the innumerable particles of oxygen that allows us to breathe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e I pondered the image for a long time when I felt the desire to somehow connect my son's drawings with my painting. But it had to be a particularly meaningful drawing! So I took out the folder where I keep all the drawings he made from about two and a half years old for a whole year. Among the many drawings, I decided to choose the very first drawing he had ever made!\u003cbr\u003e \nI wanted to see the origins of these actions, so I placed the colors—the crayons—and a piece of white card next to him. It was actually a red and blue pencil, the kind teachers used to use to grade their students' homework, and I showed him that by placing the point on the paper, a mark or several marks would emerge as the pencil moved. He immediately understood, and he began to draw lines and curves with the gestures typical of that age. Magically, he continued with energy, here and there, and I could see his surprise as he drew and stopped, amazed at what he was creating. A unique spectacle that you only see once in a lifetime!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n \u003cp\u003eWith this memory, I relived that sensation, and now I wanted to see what it produced, this time retracing it as if I were empathizing with the process of tracing those blue and red lines on the canvas, copying them. I must say frankly that it wasn't easy at all to try to retrace those gestures with the same spontaneity. In fact, it was impossible: as if to say that it required enormous attention and reflection in the hesitant and careful manual skill. The cardboard was a 20x20 cm square, and therefore, since the canvas was 70x100 cm horizontally, enlarging it required great care, precisely to the detriment of the speed\/spontaneity of the reproduction. I photographed the stages to document this second rebirth; I'll be able to have my say through him!\u003cbr\u003e\n The story now becomes complex, because the painting's gestation was not linear, but full of expectations, reflections, observations until, at times, the appropriate solutions were found, coherent but instinctive, spontaneous and graphically valid and motivated.\u003cbr\u003e \nThe genesis of a painting is never simplistic. But it has the complexity of the \"simplicity\" of the solution.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e It is clear that I enlarged the drawing proportionally until I obtained the traces in the central part of the canvas, leaving wider spaces on the sides of the group of lines, I would say the TANGLE of lines!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e And these lines had a beginning and an end: this was a structural thing, and so this had to inspire me to add my own continuation! The work, however, began in a linear key, and I had to work on this language.\u003cbr\u003e\n Needless to say, proceeding meant observing, observing and internalizing the perceptions numerous times and each time feeling the forms that could arise, a sort of “feeling of the forms”.\u003cbr\u003e\n The solution was to connect straight extensions of a thickness of approximately 1 cm to the ends of the signs, which in reality corresponded to widths of approximately 1 cm.\u003cbr\u003e\n This was the first phase.\u003cbr\u003e \nThen I had to figure out how to give meaning to these stripes. I already imagined that the space could remain white and I could work on the thin lines, perhaps doubling them to emphasize them, and on the thick stripes.\u003cbr\u003e\n To give substance to the latter, I conceived of them as generators of growth: what else than vegetation, the quintessential symbol of growth? So, along the edges of the strips, I drew efflorescences in various colors.\u003cbr\u003e\n A dynamic and luminous canvas was born, with a white background that welcomed the design dominated by lines and curves.\u003cbr\u003e\n This was the first phase, which I thought was definitive, letting it settle, as I generally do.\u003cbr\u003e\n Looking at it I liked it, it was airy, but I “felt” that it could go on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n \u003cp\u003eAnd so, after much observation, I decided to fill the background with a color that would give depth: I picked up the ultramarine and cobalt blue again, seeing which and how they might be mixed together would provide the solution. But the whole thing remained lacking something I couldn't define. The blue was interesting, but a feeling of emptiness, of lack, remained.\u003cbr\u003e\n A long time passed. Then suddenly, an insight occurred: a sort of dotted veil filling! This mass of dots could represent anything, even the tiny particles of air we don't see but breathe. And so it went, the space was filled with this \"entity,\" and with much patient work, the result was fully achieved. The work was finally finished!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255087490,"sku":"109136","price":2550.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/003_-_interrelazioni_collezione_dialoghi_cm_100x70_2023.jpg?v=1768317039"},{"product_id":"riflessi-3-collezione-riflessi","title":"REFLECTIONS 3 (Reflections Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003e This feeling made me act with pure instinct on the canvas. It was precisely a reflection of the human being immersed in the cosmos of feelings and the present world.\u003cbr\u003e \nIn each canvas of the series, I wanted to experience the pure emotions of feeling in airy space, floating among the clouds and the forces of the cosmos, or simply the emotions that arise from contemplating the sky! In motion, anyway!\u003cbr\u003e\n The previous geometry was giving way to instinct – guided, however, by awareness of the medium and the visual control that is acquired through experience and work.\u003cbr\u003e\n I mix the colors and expand them with the brush in a broad gesture. We were approaching the end of the millennium. The year 2000 was not far away, and I was experiencing major changes that I expressed through images.\u003cbr\u003e\n Ultimately, each canvas represents me, like photographs of my state, in continuous evolution.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255153026,"sku":"109137","price":2400.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/005_-_riflessi_3_olio_su_tela_cm_65x95_1991.jpg?v=1768317038"},{"product_id":"dentro-fuori-collezione-fondali-marini","title":"INSIDE OUT (Seabed Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003eInside\/Outside: we are always in two places, inside ourselves and outside, seeing ourselves and others, as others see us. I chose a female body in a surprised pose, looking at itself… sinking or emerging… The creation was long and thoughtful, starting from an informal base that allows the color to flow to the edges, where the air becomes evanescent and is lost in a thin, curvilinear veil where patient brushstrokes slowly erase the action and time stands still. A predominant monochrome prelude to the pastel monochromes of 2023. Time stands still here, the surprising moment is within us and accompanies us in every moment of life when we engage with feelings. Thus the form of these moments takes shape. The color touches and engages even the thick frame.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255284098,"sku":"109138","price":900.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/006_-_dentro_fuori_cm_30x30_olio_su_tela_2022.jpg?v=1768317039"},{"product_id":"per-terra-e-per-mare-collezione-fondali-marini","title":"BY LAND AND BY SEA (Seabed Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003eTraveling everywhere. As among the remnants of the geometric structures of previous years (the 1980s and 1990s), the depicted body is lost in the journey of time, in a seabed I created with a liquid base of color that even touched the edges, then everything was covered with linear glazes with slow, patient brushstrokes that could blend the atmosphere. I thus wanted to represent, with semi-geometric and human forms, the alternating moments of everyday life, when we emerge or sink, when we discover the horizon between the waves or the fog. The figure is elaborate and I feel it cannot be represented scholastically or realistically as in the drawings of past years or in the portraits I create, where the soul is captured through the gaze, and here the soul is represented by the entire atmosphere.\u003cbr\u003e\n Throughout this series, the color touches and also involves the high thickness of the frame.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255480706,"sku":"109139","price":900.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/007_-_per_terra_e_per_mare_cm30x30_olio_su_tela_2022.jpg?v=1768317041"},{"product_id":"monocromo-turchese-collezione-dialoghi","title":"TURQUOISE MONOCHROME (Dialogues Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003eParts clash in a sharp clash, a wedge, with no loser, and the hand uses color as an emanation of its own body and heart, in the emotion of creation. Observing it brings to life the depth of the energies from which it arises.\u003cbr\u003e\n For some time I had wanted to resume working with pastels, which I had dedicated myself to at various times, in 1981 and 1985.\u003cbr\u003e\n Now, after a series of events that always somehow impact the creative processes or, one might say, \"shape their color,\" on the occasion of the Open Studio (Rome Art Week 2022) it came naturally to pick up the pastels again and begin working on various themes, which took definitive shape during 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\n The key here was the realization that the direct action of the hand unequivocally links gesture with intention. The hand is the direct link to the heart, feelings, and emotions. To the forms and images that arise within us and long to reveal themselves.\u003cbr\u003e \nOrganically, series were born: the \"Pandora's Boxes,\" and then what I personally believe to be \"inside Pandora's Boxes.\" This gave rise to the \"Monochromes,\" a method not new to 20th-century art, but one I wanted to interpret from personal perspectives, ultimately resulting in the Pastel Collection.\u003cbr\u003e\n Each color contains an image, which is born decisive and embraces the entire sheet.\u003cbr\u003e\n The works are all on 30x40 cm cardboard.\u003cbr\u003e \nThe Turquoise Monochrome was born from the decision to also employ geometric lines, as if I wanted to somehow connect to the Projections works, a sort of allusion in a very different way. And the idea was born: the color itself suggests it with its bold yet not too dark tone, creating planes that collide. Two entities confronting each other, measuring themselves against each other, and experiencing chaotic movements within them. The whole appears as a seething turmoil, still mediated by the pulse of the straight lines. Meanwhile, inside, the movements of the hand are free, and they arise differently each time, or they repeat themselves, and are determined only when the pencil tip touches the cardboard.\u003cbr\u003e \nThis is the purpose of the work, this direct and surprising connection between the sign and its unfolding whole. This series was not photographed in its completion, but subsequent ones have been able to use this medium, in addition to video, to document the steps and provide live commentary as they unfold, so as not to fall into a silent and therefore tedious process due to the time required.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255546242,"sku":"109140","price":950.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/008_-_monocromo_turchese_collezione_dialoghi_cm_40x30_pastello_su_cartoncino_2023.jpg?v=1768317040"},{"product_id":"il-pieno-collezione-dialoghi","title":"THE FULL (Dialogues Collection)","description":"\u003cp\u003e In a continuous wandering, the hand uses color as an emanation of its own body and heart, in the emotion of creation. Observing it brings to life the depth of the energies from which it arises.\u003cbr\u003e \nThe idea arose from the desire, after creating a series of monochromes, to create a blend of the monochromes I had previously used, almost as if to condense the countless and diverse sensations into a single whole. Here too, two main elements confront each other: my duality as a human being, where forms are visualized that twist and unwind, concentrating and reflecting upon themselves. Then I felt these forms projecting into curvilinear waves, like breaths of air. Some central signs, originating in the early stages of the drawing, developed as embryonic traces, ancestral sensations from which perhaps the subsequent, or future, developments of a life arise.\u003cbr\u003e\n This image, too, is a self-portrait from March 2023! Its lines and curved flows testify to an inner connection I express with the forms of my being. Anyone who looks at an artist's works and \"feels\" them is experiencing some of the moments the artist visualized, which undoubtedly imply similarities.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255742850,"sku":"109141","price":950.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/009_-_pieno_pastelli_su_cartoncino_cm_40x30_2023.jpg?v=1768317042"},{"product_id":"proiezioni-stampa-serigrafica-a-18-colori-e-tiratura-39-copie-cm-38-8x29","title":"PROJECTIONS (18-color silkscreen print, 39-copy edition, 38.8x29 cm)","description":"\u003cp\u003e I felt a still unknown path opening up, but I didn't know where or how it would lead me.\u003cbr\u003e\n Luminous planes that open the way, perhaps traced paths, guiding axes, probes into the space of signs that seek a place.\u003cbr\u003e\n In space, traces of paths and plans that are directed with will towards the exploration of events to come.\u003cbr\u003e\n The visual idea is to determine the connection between planes and flows, with shapes and colors identified with transparencies and variations one by one, on different planes to be reproduced separately and form the overall design in register.\u003cbr\u003e\n The chosen colors reflect the instincts of light and sunshine. The planes represent spaces where emotions expand and then disperse in different directions in their escaping dynamic.\u003cbr\u003e\n The 18 colors were patiently studied and the print run was 39 copies.\u003cbr\u003e \nIn this print I could say that what I write at the beginning to describe my work is exemplarily visualized: “Space, transparency, light, are the key references of my works, together with the identification of human space, fragmented, inscrutable, yet \"transparent in its essence\".\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Giuseppe Scelfo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56203255972226,"sku":"109142","price":339.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0909\/7065\/3058\/files\/010_-_proiezioni_riquadro_cm_38_7x29stampa_a_18_colori_tiratura_39_copie.jpg?v=1768317043"}],"url":"https:\/\/cjfh11-ee.myshopify.com\/en\/collections\/giuseppe-scelfo.oembed","provider":"Venderequadri","version":"1.0","type":"link"}