Gino Scarpa - Five Relief Engravings (Posterula Editions, Urbino)

Folder containing 5 relief engravings.

The work draws on an informal aesthetic language. The devastation wrought by World War II left a profound mark on Western civilization, which in the visual arts also resulted in an inability to communicate. For some artists, this challenge resulted in a total rejection of any visual language, which resulted in the birth of Informal Art. The various Informal movements are certainly linked to American Abstract Expressionism, especially with regard to the gestural component, but they go further in their rejection of any figurative element, even geometric. Their research focuses instead on the material with which they compose their works. Throughout his long career, Venetian-born artist Gino Scarpa experimented with various aesthetics. In this collection of engravings, he clearly leans toward an informal style.

Gino Scarpa's Informal art fully embraces this aesthetic, moving clearly between the two main poles of material and gesture. In this series of etchings in particular, the artist lets the material speak for itself, employing a relief technique that allows color to develop even in the third dimension. Color thus takes on body and life, almost as if it were a biological entity with its own generative force. Indeed, the figures are traversed by streaks that seem to be filled with the lifeblood that drives their growth and development, as if they were plant organisms. The painter's gesture is expressed by giving freedom to these organisms, directing them into sinuous and flexible forms, harmonious despite their formlessness. Indeed, it can be said that Gino Scarpa's Informal art, as is evident from this collection, truly lacks the instinctive character that distinguishes other artists who have expressed themselves in this particular medium. His compositions are always carefully calibrated, especially in the use and arrangement of colors, always aimed at creating harmonious and balanced dialogues. Moreover, precisely because of this sense of composition that Scarpa cannot renounce, the artist also introduces geometric elements to construct the space suitable for his organisms. All this generates a refined contrast between the suppleness of the material and the rationalist rigor of the lines and geometric shapes.

Gino Scarpa was born in Venice in 1924, where he grew up. He studied architecture in Venice and printmaking in Malmö. He worked for several years as a mountain guide in the Dolomites, until he moved to Copenhagen in 1958, where he established himself as a full-time artist. He moved to Oslo in 1970 and became a Norwegian citizen in 1978. Known in many countries and having participated in a long series of exhibitions, Scarpa is represented in various museums and galleries around the world, including the Museim of Modern Art in New York, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, as well as at the National Museum of Norway with the painting Daggry (1978), the sculptures Signum (1972) and Bølge (1973), and with several prints. He has received numerous awards and has been represented at the Venice Biennale three times.

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