Roberta Filippi
To intrigue, to amaze, but also to attract and stimulate the viewer's attention through dynamic, fresh, colorful images. They are tales of an ever-changing everyday life those of Oscar Piovosi. The artist paints by series, very often in dialogue with each other, almost a thematic continuity that evolves and is enriched with details. Ordinary people in the waiting rooms of stations or airports, people on vacation taking photographs, those who look up at the sky contemplating who knows what. That of travel is a recurring theme for Oscar Piovosi, the fascination of curiosity, discovering something new. And in painting it unwittingly becomes the narrative of one's own experience. An objective, but engaging tale.
A photographic cut of the image, colors decisive in tone but blurred, almost contaminated with each other when spread on the canvas with broad, overlapping brushstrokes. Instinctively, blue predominates, synonymous with escapism and infinity, not only as background but also as detail, in clothing or objects. The light that illuminates and enhances the forms also establishes the direction of the viewer's gaze and thus the way to read the story.
Scenes of everyday life, where the place remains generic while the subject fits into that context with its own personality. Anyone looking up at the sky can point his finger and point, but everyone points to something different, and everyone feels his own sensation, relives his own moment. Anyone stopping on the street sends messages with a cell phone, but each one tells something that is uniquely his or her own. Characters with whom anyone can identify and revive their own memory.
An almost metaphysical and suggestive dimension, a desire to discover in the gazes of their characters the beauty of every moment of our existence. The meaning of these paintings is never obvious and superficial, rather it invites social reflection, analysis and introspection. Art is for Oscar Piovosi the pleasure of being able to express himself, telling something about himself to share with others.
GROUND Series - 2018
In the painting cycle "Ground," Oscar Piovosi recounts the life and work of street artists, the so-called madonnari, whom he portrays intent in the making of their creations. The artist continues that journey into everyday life that is the common thread of his entire production. "Ground" means earth, ground, floor, and contrasts with the previous series "Up" in which he portrays ordinary people looking up, pointing to the sky. Two opposite terms, but for that very reason linked by a continuity of meaning. If with Up the looking up indicates going beyond, imagining something different and far away from us, with Ground the looking down is instead a digging in, the desire to analyze the human figure through someone who tells himself, tells his way of life, all those moments and aspects of everyday life on which we very often do not dwell. A different point of view, one of the many facets of our existence. A chromatic continuity binds the subject in the foreground and the background, the city silently observing without disturbing, or going about its daily frenzy.
An almost metaphysical dimension can be perceived in the blue and violet hues, interrupted by details in bolder, warmer tones, such as red or yellow that hint at reality. A dark and continuous mark contours the figures, gives strength to the image and lets the attention fall on the subject: always with his head down, the street artist does not show his face but his soul.
With his usual curiosity and attention, Oscar Piovosi carries on the theme of the journey into ourselves, fixing on the canvas unusual moments of our existence. He creates dynamic and fresh works, entering with simplicity and humility into the personality of the character he depicts, going in search of his essence, telling his story in a figuratively objective way but with a personal and engaging emotionality.