My painting
“Mirror of our existence and of a dreamlike world”
How can one talk about himself and about his artistic inspiration? How can one tell many people, often so different, his own motivation and personal aspirations while being truly sincere and on the same wavelength?
How can one be really himself, freed from the usual clichés? Dear friends, this is hard work!
By emptying your mind and trying to speak freely such a thing is not impossible.
I shall tell you now the reason why I have decided to present this report, quite unusual for a magazine about fishing.
“Mirror of our existence and of a dreamlike world”
How can one talk about himself and about his artistic inspiration? How can one tell many people, often so different, his own motivation and personal aspirations while being truly sincere and on the same wavelength?
How can one be really himself, freed from the usual clichés? Dear friends, this is hard work!
By emptying your mind and trying to speak freely such a thing is not impossible.
I shall tell you now the reason why I have decided to present this report, quite unusual for a magazine about fishing.
For years many among you have been reading my pieces, know my passions, and can therefore regard my article as the sequel to an open debate.
I hope others will find the answers to the many questions I am so often asked at my one-man exhibitions. For example, “why do you paint like this?”, “what is the meaning of this picture?”, “what is your technique?”, in addition to several other questions.
The world of painting involves a varied environment, where endless styles are part of it, reflecting the most peculiar psychological motivations.
Sailing in this “infinite sea”, known as painting, I am trying to free myself, and make an effort to explain who I really am and what my dreams are. My inner desire is to communicate with whoever is looking at my paintings by using a language, which is as spontaneous as it is universal.
In my opinion, painting as well as music, does not require any specific knowledge or cultural education to be understood. If you like a picture, and find some sort of satisfaction in the colours and images you see, then an instinctive symbiotic relationship between the artist and the audience has already been established.
There is no need for finding explanations or any other reasons to dignify the work of art. The contact with the public has already started! Later every one will interpret the painter’s world his own way, following one’s needs and sensitivity, then becoming one of the “inhabitants” of this world.
I am deeply convinced that when a painting needs clarification to be understood by the audience, this means the instinctive relationship is just not there. The artist’s world and the audience’s understanding of it remain two distinct realities. The painting is only passively understood on the basis of private intellectual standards. There is no such misleading commonplace as the need of a cultural background in order to express judgments. In my opinion, an excess in education could at times be a strong intellectual influence and inhibit the genuine reawakening of emotions.
The Birth of Venus, by Botticelli, any of Caravaggio’s Madonnas, Van Gogh’s landscapes, Modigliani’s female figures, are few of the masterpieces that move you. They get inside your soul, like a kind of universal of music, going beyond ethnic, social and cultural differences. They are without a need for any explanation. This is magic!
In each work the artist’s originality is clearly perceived as if he was next to you to experience that unique moment, that exclusive feeling.
Referring back to my painting, what the critics say about my works that I appreciate the most, is that my style is original and does not follow any specific school or trend. It expresses a free and independent personality.
You may like it or not, be it defined a masterpiece or just rubbish, each of my works fully represent myself and does not need any theory in order to justify itself.
Nature and water, the source and origin of life, are the main sources of inspiration for my works. Inspiration only, because my aim is not a faithful representation of the real.
When I work colours and subjects start to live. My artistic expression is then subordinated to my own world, where everything is instinctive and often primitive.
Stylized landscapes, sunsets or sunrises, in all of my works, are for me like a goal, a peaceful heaven where I can find my shelter.
The fishes I always paint are not to be considered as a representation of the real, but as an intellectual exaltation of an ancestral life coming from the water.
They are active subjects, silent witnesses of the perfect balance of nature, our companion in this travel, sincere friends, progenitors, and brothers at the same time.
The female or male subjects, often lonely (but never alone!), always unfinished and intentionally hybrid represent a personality in constant development, they are like main characters, but still subordinated to the context in which they act. They live in a special world, sometimes as if they were its owners, always positively influe nced by it, in perfect harmony with all of the elements.
These subjects also have some features that are typical of other species, such as wings, palmate hands, or tentacles similar to snakes. I do not mean to create some creatures that are autonomous for the simple fact of being different, but my only goal is to paint the continuous evolution of nature.
Therefore, life becomes the result of interaction and constant mutation. Each thing has to be regarded as part of a whole living organism, never still or unaltered, but always mutable.
Looking at my paintings you will notice straight away the definition of my stroke, the importance of movement and colour in creating an image.
Therefore, life becomes the result of interaction and constant mutation. Each thing has to be regarded as part of a whole living organism, never still or unaltered, but always mutable.
Looking at my paintings you will notice straight away the definition of my stroke, the importance of movement and colour in creating an image.
The final result is instinctively understandable, simple but not simplistic, like a language based on symbolic elements that interact with one another, but always different in lines and space.
To give an example, it is easy to see how my idyllic landscapes can be either the scene where the action takes place, or subordinated elements, surrounding humanoid creatures, in circular spaces, in restrained spaces that are drawn by movement.
Landscapes can be the main background for the work, in other cases they are strictly contained in defined spaces to give shape to wings, bodies, tresses or fins.
Also landscapes are contained in spaces created by the movement of the main subject, or in circular spaces, like windows on my dreams.
The pure, sharp strike witnesses my personal aspiration of intellectual clarity. Mine is a world where equilibrium reigns, easy to interpret, devoid of uncertainties, where priorities are a certain fact. Colour, then, is the main element. Maybe it is because I am a positive and optimistic person, that I always see the world in vivid colours.
Colours are life for me, like music and fulfilment of our soul. Definite and bright colours, that one next to the other build a harmonic system. They are straightforward because they are easy to understand.
My dear friends, I think I have been telling you too much now!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this message, the paintings are what matters, not their explanation. If looking at them you somehow feel tied to them, then it means that I have been successful in communicating my emotions to you. I hope you will be interested in looking at more of my works, so please get to know me better and log on to http://www.francescovenier.it/
Francesco Venier
