Franco Canova

“A september sunny and happy morning 2011”
The frames on Piovosi’s canvas, human figures carrying on daily routines or showing surprise for something left out of the frame, immortalize a tale which unties in uninterrupted iconic suggestions. “The journey”, a peripatetic poetic-narrative itinerary of all human times, becomes to the eyes of the observer the motif of a memory background that brings personal experience within the painting. An aspect of an unconscious and deep nature is picked up in the faces and gestures, in the proxemics posture of the painted subjects. Tensions of a subliminal adhesion to the wonder of life emerge in the painting. Men and women, young and unknown presences form in the eyes of the one observing anonymous subjects, who are in turn the metonymy doubles of each of us. Mirror of our impressions and reflection of our look on the world, Piovosi’s works stand out in a context that makes them approachable, understandable as aspects of our daily life.
All of it is suggested in title of the exhibition, as we are with the artist, travelling with him through an imaginary journey in that film that human existence offers at each instant. Being amazed of our own attitudes, becoming the show for others observing us, is what I think Piovosi tries to reach with his last research. Flash of others’ lives which emerge in our memory as our own experiences, looks over the far horizon searching for something that could explain the meaning of our existence, today, here, in this world.
The photo story of the artist invites us to take our time in each passage: we are always in a journey, we are always busy, and so details of our entourage are unperceived. However, the tale of these images claims for our attentive thoughts. If a caption or even a cartoon bubble appeared with every figure, we would know that they are actually talking to us. They talk about this life of ours, distracted by all the media messages, muffled by all the worries that trouble us, lost in the rivulets of increasingly difficult relationship skills. They make us think: they are silent calls to the use of a mind and a fantasy that are now too encrusted in habits and falsely spoiled of presumed needs.
Shop windows, galleries, exhibition rooms, alleys, sidewalks, pavement on which to paint with chalk, half nude women, even the portraits and the clowns are our own doubles. Piovosi explores in his creativity a dynamic movement dimension – people riding bikes, in stairways, halls or alleys- and a static steadiness (portraits, faces, clowns, close-ups) as if each picture presented a chosen instant of our stroll, in a bar, or in a café. We are within these fragments of the journey, because the artist has been able to involve our best in each external sign. We must underline this extraordinary originality of choice, of functional and painting skills, extremely rigorous in the details.
Franco Canova
Frammenti di viaggio – Metamorfosi Art Gallery, Reggio Emilia