Reconaissence Patterns
STATI DI COSCIENZA COMUNICANTI
di Valeria D’Amico
“Hai presente il fenomeno della pareidolia? È un fenomeno subcosciente che crea l’illusione di similitudine tra un oggetto dalla forma a noi nota e uno dalla forma casuale. Ecco. Per me è un ossessione da sempre”
Emanuele Giuffrida, artista poetico ed introspettivo, con continuità d’atto e d’animo ai sui precedenti cicli artistici, si racconta attraverso un percorso tra le sue “illusioni subconscie”.
Una pareidolia forzata, evocativa, densa di significanti per la vita dell’artista, che, per rendere ancora più leggibile il processo creativo prende in prestito un termine dal suo più comune uso nel linguaggio scacchistico: “Reconaissance Patterns”, applicazione per schemi, similitudine per modelli visivi, strutture che tendono a ripetersi.
Immagini, luoghi, oggetti che sollecitano blocchi di memoria latenti.
Gela anni ‘90
“Ricordo da bambino, che nei giornali e telegiornali locali della mia città, vedere immagini di sagome distese per terra coperte da un lenzuolo bianco era abbastanza frequente; quasi all’ordine del giorno. Persino attraverso il finestrino della fiat 500 di mio papà, la sera, di ritorno a casa, assistetti a una scena simile; e non solo una volta! Tant’è che a scuola elementare, illustrando un dettato della maestra sull’argomento mafia, disegnai due figure in moto col casco che sparavano ad un uomo già avvolto in un lenzuolo fluttuante”
Aneddoto tratto dalla presentazione del ciclo White Sheet per Arte Fiera Bologna 2020 dove il lenzuolo diviene protagonista simbolico della ricerca che continua oggi in “Reconaissance Patterns”:
Il più immediato gesto di rispetto a tutela del cadavere, rielaborato e ingenuamente “frainteso” nell’immaginario di un bambino. Il lenzuolo nasconde, crea mistero e incuriosisce.
Esperienze infantili rielaborate, impresse nella sua memoria, trovano una bizzarra analogia con le esperienze museali fatte successivamente in età adulta, legate soprattutto ai linguaggi classici della pittura e della scultura – Le pieghe del lenzuolo bianco alludono al paragone con il panneggio delle vestigia delle statue greco-romane; restituendone prepotentemente un valore estetico, come fosse un’opera di rivalsa.
Per ArtVerona 2023, in mostra una serie di carte dedicata alla morte di Salvo Lima, tra i più potenti politici siciliani dell’epoca e leader della Democrazia cristiana nell’isola, assassinato 31 anni fa per mano mafiosa. Soggetto scelto non per idiolatria o tributo a immagini di false divinità, ma per rendere chiaro il proprio intento di libertà all’interno di contenuti vissuti legati alla propria terra.
Parallelismi che vedono l’uso di materiali atipici per il lavoro dell’Artista: su supporti di carta vetrata – a ricreare l’aridità e la ruvidità dell’asfalto- riporta i cartellini che, durante le rilevazioni della scientifica, vengono apposti accanto al cadavere a segnalarne numericamente la presenza, questi perdono l’essenza di sconfitta e assumono le forme e i colori delle ninfee ispirate e similarizzate – non più dall’effigie delle statue greco-romane– ma dalla pittura impressionista di Monet.
Tutto – per Emanuele – può essere veicolo di estetica ridondante, strutturalismo che trova sede nelle tragedie più contemporanee
ESSENTIAL
Emanuele Giuffrida (Gela, 1982) lives and works in Palermo. He studied Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, obtaining a specialist degree in painting section in 2007. His art develops through painting which, at the service of the image and its aesthetic and communicative impact, embraces the values of traditional figuration up to nowtoday’s languages, thus getting its own expressive code. His research surfacing in a series of works that can be traced back to a present filled of memories of own experience, as a story of oneself, of one’s vision of places and things. An investigation of his own background thanks to which he develops his research and pictorial experimentation. His work has been exhibited in several group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In 2019 he was among the finalists of the eighth edition of the VAF Foundation award, obtaining the -special mention award- by jury members. He has participated in several exhibitions and art fairs in Italy and abroad. Latest exhibition: Triste, solitario y final, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi, Museum of Palazzo Doebbing, Sutri (VT)
TOGETHER
2023: Flora, Fauna e cemento, group show curated by Aldo Premoli,Museo Civico di Noto (SR)
2022: Le Cento Sicilie, group show, curated by Diego Cavallaro and Tonino Cannata, Ex Convento del Carmine, Modica (RG)
2022: 30×30 group show, curated by Giuseppe Lo Magno and Valeria D’Amico, Lo Magno artecontemporanea, Modica (RG)
2021: Showcase Exhibition/2, group exhibition, curated by Aldo Premoli and Giuseppe Lo
Magno, Lo Magno artecontemporanea (Modica)
2021: Le Cento Sicilie, group show, curated by Diego Cavallaro and Giuseppe Vella, Palazzo Ciampoli di Taormina
2020: The White Sheet, ArteFiera Bologna, curated by Rischa Paterlini and Giuseppe Lo Magno
2020: Showcase Exhibition 1, group exhibition, curated by Giuseppe Lo Magno, Lo Magno artecontemporanea (Modica)
2018: Out-Side, solo show, curated by Rischa Paterlini and Giuseppe Lo Magno, Lo Magno artecontemporanea (Modica)
2016: TIME OUT, group show, Lo Magno artecontemporanea, Modica (RG)
ABOUT
The possibilities of an island, by Ivan Quaroni. Book of the exhibition “The hundred Sicilies”.
The reality of invisible things, by Rischa Paterlini. Book of the personal exhibition “Outside”.
“Emanuele Giuffrida”, by Klaus Wolbert. Book of the eighth VAF Foundation award.
The practice of painting (expertise and research in contemporary Sicily), by Ivan Quaroni.
book of the exhibition.
“Interview with Emanuele Giuffrida”. Untitledv.com
“Emanuele Giuffrida, so it is (if you like)”, by Cesare Biasini. Article on Exibart.com.
“InArt – interview with Emanuele Giuffrida”, by Caterina Portovenero. infoOggi.it
“Sutri, Triste, Solitario y Final”, by Vittorio Sgarbi, book of the exhibition
ENGLISH
COMMUNICATING STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Valeria D’Amico
“Do you know the phenomenon of pareidolia? It is a subconscious phenomenon that creates the illusion of similarity between an object with a shape known to us and one with a random shape. There! It’s always been an obsession for me.”
Emanuele Giuffrida, a poetic and introspective artist, with continuity of action and soul to his previous artistic cycles, tells his story with a journey through his “subconscious illusions”.
Both forced and evocative pareidolia, full of meanings for the artist’s life. Emanuele borrows a term from its most common use in chess language: “Reconaissance Patterns” to make the reading of his creative process easier. The meaning is: application for patterns, simile for visual patterns, structures that tend to repeat.
Images, places, objects that stimulate latent memory blocks.
Gela 90s
“I remember as a child, was quite frequent to see in the local newspapers and TV news of my city images of silhouettes lying on the ground covered by a white sheet; I witnessed a similar scene even through the window of my dad’s Fiat 500, on the way home in the evening. this episode didn’t just happen once! When I was in elementary school, illustrating a teacher’s dictation on the subject of the mafia, I drew two figures on motorbikes with helmets shooting to a man already wrapped in a floating sheet.”
Story taken from the presentation of the White Sheet cycle for Arte Fiera Bologna 2020. The sheet becomes the symbolic protagonist of the research that continues today in “Reconaissence Patterns”:
the most immediate gesture of respect to protect the body, reworked and naively “misunderstood” in the imagination of a child. The sheet hides, creates mystery and arouses curiosity.
Reworked childhood experiences imprinted in his memory, find a bizarre analogy with the museum experiences made later, linked to the classical languages of painting and sculpture – The folds of the white sheet allude to the similarity with the drapery of the clothing of the Greek-Roman statues ; forcefully restoring an aesthetic value, as if it were a work of revenge.
For ArtVerona 2023, on display is a series of papers dedicated to the death of Salvo Lima, one of the most powerful Sicilian politicians of the time and leader of the Christian Democracy on the island, murdered 31 years ago at the hands of the mafia. Subject chosen not for idiolatry or tribute to images of false divinities, but to make clear one’s intent for freedom within lived contents linked to one’s land.
Parallels that see the use of atypical materials for the Artist’s work: on sandpaper supports – to recreate the dryness and roughness of asphalt – he bears the tags which, during the forensic investigations, are placed next to the corpse to numerically signal their presence, these lose the essence of defeat and take on the shapes and colors of water lilies inspired and similar – no longer by the effigy of Greco-Roman statues – but by Monet’s impressionist painting.
Everything – for Emanuele – can be a vehicle of redundant aesthetics, structuralism that finds its home in the most contemporary tragedies
ESSENTIAL
Emanuele Giuffrida (Gela, 1982) lives and works in Palermo. He studied Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, obtaining a specialist degree in painting section in 2007. His art develops through painting which, at the service of the image and its aesthetic and communicative impact, embraces the values of traditional figuration up to nowtoday’s languages, thus getting its own expressive code. His research surfacing in a series of works that can be traced back to a present filled of memories of own experience, as a story of oneself, of one’s vision of places and things. An investigation of his own background thanks to which he develops his research and pictorial experimentation. His work has been exhibited in several group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In 2019 he was among the finalists of the eighth edition of the VAF Foundation award, obtaining the -special mention award- by jury members. He has participated in several exhibitions and art fairs in Italy and abroad. Latest exhibition: Triste, solitario y final, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi, Museum of Palazzo Doebbing, Sutri (VT)
TOGETHER
2023: Flora, Fauna e cemento, group show, curated by Aldo Premoli,Museo Civico di Noto (SR)
2022: Le Cento Sicilie, group show, curated by Diego Cavallaro and Tonino Cannata, Ex Convento del Carmine, Modica (RG)
2022: 30×30 group show, curated by Giuseppe Lo Magno and Valeria D’Amico, Lo Magno artecontemporanea, Modica (RG)
2021: Showcase Exhibition/2, group exhibition, curated by Aldo Premoli and Giuseppe Lo
Magno, Lo Magno artecontemporanea (Modica)
2021: Le Cento Sicilie, group show, curated by Diego Cavallaro and Giuseppe Vella, Palazzo Ciampoli di Taormina
2020: The White Sheet, ArteFiera Bologna, curated by Rischa Paterlini and Giuseppe Lo Magno
2020: Showcase Exhibition 1, group exhibition, curated by Giuseppe Lo Magno, Lo Magno artecontemporanea (Modica)
2018: Out-Side, solo show, curated by Rischa Paterlini and Giuseppe Lo Magno, Lo Magno artecontemporanea (Modica)
2016: TIME OUT, group show, Lo Magno artecontemporanea, Modica (RG)
ABOUT
The possibilities of an island, by Ivan Quaroni. Book of the exhibition “The hundred Sicilies”.
The reality of invisible things, by Rischa Paterlini. Book of the personal exhibition “Outside”.
“Emanuele Giuffrida”, by Klaus Wolbert. Book of the eighth VAF Foundation award.
The practice of painting (expertise and research in contemporary Sicily), by Ivan Quaroni.
book of the exhibition.
“Interview with Emanuele Giuffrida”. Untitledv.com
“Emanuele Giuffrida, so it is (if you like)”, by Cesare Biasini. Article on Exibart.com.
“InArt – interview with Emanuele Giuffrida”, by Caterina Portovenero. infoOggi.it
“Sutri, Triste, Solitario y Final”, by Vittorio Sgarbi, book of the exhibition
