del Monaco - France
Contact: del.monaco.art@gmail.com
Chimeras
Wild nature
Oil on canvas 50 x 61 cm
Oil on canvas 50 X 61 cm
Iris iridis
Memories of Pan
Oil on canvas 50 x 61 cm
Oil on canvas cm 53 X 30
Fertile nature
Wild Embroidery Triptych
Oil on canvas 50 x 61 cm
Oil on canvas 46 x 33 cm each canvas
His Biography
The Critique
Ruggero GERVASONI, brilliant painter from Bergamo, trained at the Giuseppe Balbo Academy in Bordighera, famous for his monumental “monochromies,” friend and mentor of del Monaco, defines her pictorial work in these terms.
Del Monaco's painting may, at first glance, recall a certain atmospheric painting of the 20th century, meaning here the disorienting and dreamlike atmosphere of René Magritte and Giorgio De Chirico, especially of the metaphysical period.
But the reading of a painting—as of a poem or a musical piece—is not univocal and absolute, indeed it is often multiple and heterogeneous. Perhaps it is worth recalling once again Duchamp's famous motto, when the illustrious Norman said that paintings are made by those who look at them, precisely in the act of looking at them.
Therefore, if someone can see in del Monaco certain references to a painting of suspension and waiting, realized, among other things, also by a certain magical realism of the twentieth century, I prefer to see in it a fine work of introspection and evocation, typical and true of some of the authors I just mentioned, but which the painter puts into practice with entirely different intentions.
Because here it is not so much about dissecting the contents of the unconscious or unsettling the public with incongruous juxtapositions, but rather about creating forms, on the edge of abstraction, almost enchanted islands, where, certainly, a certain atmosphere vibrates, but which does not want to be disturbing and perhaps not even dreamy but simply to represent states of mind, memories, expectations. Figurative fragments (hints of architecture, columns) are joined with abstract fields and references to everyday or biological details (a spotted coat like that of a leopard, for example). From Magritte to Pop Art, then?
In a certain sense, yes, but even here distinctions must be made. Del Monaco is not interested in a representation—exalted or fiercely critical—of the contemporary world and its images. She is rather interested in retrieving what is magical in reality and in the human mind.
She herself, moreover, wrote in a brief self-commentary on her work: “Walls of the past, indelible marks of memory, architectures of the soul, as essential as they are ephemeral...” Here, in my opinion, is the point. To stop, in a moment, in a painting, the instability and fleetingness of life, to try to eternalize, in light and impalpable forms, the concrete but very fragile reality of life.
The painter carries out this operation with coherence and awareness, achieving forms that are the result of rigorous studies and long reflections.
It will therefore not be superfluous to recall some biographical data that will help us better understand her artistic path:
Del Monaco obtained a diploma in decorative arts studying the theories of Paul Klee, earned a degree in architecture, and was for years a professional dancer performing in many television shows.
Is there not perhaps something light and ethereal, I would even say dancing, in her delicate yet precisely calibrated paintings?
Born in Paris, to parents originally from central-southern Italy, she attended the "La Sapienza" University of Rome and obtained a degree in architecture in 1983. Later, enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, she graduated, under the direction of Marcello Avenali, with a thesis dedicated to the German painter Paul KLEE.
This study would guide her work toward the essentiality of the stroke as a "line in motion," fundamental to her research, originally graphic and which, over time, would remain the primordial force of her painting.
The theme developed is that of a rigorous symbology of the different forms of inert matter.
INERT MATTER!
Stones, inlays, fabrics, jewels... everything that preserves the marks of time and with them the hidden meanings.
The symbolism derives from daydreams, or configurations of the intellect. The symbolic artist transfers them into an immaterial cosmic context, which responds to its own laws, giving them a new meaning.
The poetry that emanates from this unreal space gives del Monaco's painting an atmosphere as ephemeral as it is immutable.
Thus, common experience becomes individual, strongly characterizing the work on the canvas.
It is a return to the source, to the fragile, almost invisible bonds that intimately conceal the painful path of becoming.
This work of the intellect, for a new codification, does not take place without passion but on the contrary, it is through the ephemeral nature of its themes that this artist is illuminated, it is through the apparent fragility of her atmospheres that she is strengthened and defined.
His Curriculum
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
- 1994 _______ NICE (FRA)
ABELA HOTEL
Exhibition « Drawings, Pastels and Oils »
- 1995 _______ MOUGINS (FRA)
Exhibition – ROYAL MOUGINS –
- 1996 _______ VALLAURIS (FRA)
« Festival Pearls » Gallery 52
- 2000 _______ CANNES (FRA)
Exhibition « Walls of the Imaginary »
GREY D’ALBION Gallery
- 2001 _______ DUBAI (EMIRATES)
Exhibition – ART PROMOTION –
- 2006 _______ LIBREVILLE (GABON)
Exhibition – ART PROMOTION-
- 2008 _______SAINT PAUL DE VENCE (FRA)
Exhibition – MAS D’ARTIGNY-
Art Seiller and Lavagna Galleries
- 2008_______SAN REMO (IT)
Exhibition « The Time of the Ephemeral »
SANTA TECLA-
- 2010 ______ SAINT RAPHAEL (FRA)
Exhibition “ Fragility of Being”
Villa – LES ASPHODELES –
- 2011 _______ SAINTE MAXIME (FRA)
Exhibition « Compact and Ephemeral »
Hall of Honor – JEAN PORTAL -
- 2018 _______ TURIN ( IT)
Exhibition « The Games of the Ephemeral”
GALFER 20 Gallery
- 2019 ______ FREJUS (FRA)
Exhibition “ Lost Memories”
Villa – AURELIANA