Michele Tocca

Studiolo #10

Studiolo Project, 2014_Milan. Curated by Maria Chiara Valacchi

Executed at different times, in different places and circumstances, each of Tocca's works tells about the encounter between things and painting. Within these paintings, tropes, traditions and genres are continuously researched and tested. A continuous inquiry exists between the processes of translation (nature and artifice, morphology and perception, determinacy and indeterminacy) and matter and light - diverse densities, reflections and fissures contribute to create forms as in a bas-relief.

Yet intention and research always give way to intuitions and sensitivity in front of the motif. However personally significant, objects, places and phenomena never take on any symbolism, never mirror any personal feeling or impression. With their physical, tactile participation, the paintings address the very process through which objects become expressive and metaphoric for us, questioning our experience of things to encourage a critical meditation on  the necessity of sur-le-motif painting.