SingartThe Pixilation Of Life
When I was a biology undergraduate well over 2 decades ago, I had spent my fair share of time peering into the microscope, studying the basic component of life – the living cell. And it has never failed to amaze me that we, and every living creature on Earth, be it gigantic or infinitely small, are built up from a complex symbiotic network of these fundamental units of life; each with its specialization predetermined by its position in our bodies.
I am again reminded of these feelings of wonder when I put my nose a couple of centimeters away from Cristiano Pintaldi’s paintings. Up that close, all I see are his plops of red, green and blue. In his 2012 rendition of the 1950s Hollywood actress and Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly, his chosen triplet of colours are pencil slim sausage-like. Those in his 2013 depiction of lightning striking Paris’s Eiffel Tower are precisely defined minute 2-dimensional circles.
Regardless of the shape and form this contemporary Italian master has decided for each artwork, every drop of vibrant colour is an exact duplicate of the other – no bigger or smaller, and layered no thicker or thinner. This rigor is achieved during the painting by 1st overlaying each canvas, already sprayed in black, with a stencil perforated with holes that do not vary in shape or diameter.
The careful punctures on these films of template are precisely lined up in vertical rows upon vertical rows. The outcome are latitudes of miniscule red spots that transverse down the entire length of the resultant image; placed next to the equally straight queue of blue polka dots, followed by a line up of green circular marks. The consequence is rows of red, blue and green repeating themselves across its width.
You may by now assume that Pintaldi’s acrylic works of art are highly abstract. Well, they are not. His paintings are realistically figurative, when viewed after firstly stepping well away from them.
Neither are they at all similar to the comic strip-inspired dotted pop art popularized by American artist, Roy Lichtenstein, or that of pointillism, a technique French painters, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, developed in 1886, using dots of coloured paint to create a picture.
Indeed, Pintaldi’s execution has a uniquely clinical feel; giving his life-like representations a surrealistic reading – even though the reality of his subject matter have not been in any way mutated or altered; surrealistically or otherwise.
And Pintaldi deliberately strives for such interpretations, as he believes that as there are over 6 billion people on Earth, there are as many glimpses of reality. For every waking moment, to him, is like a dream, as transient as an image off the movie and computer screens.
With such a uniquely quirky view of life and everyday living, he has inspirationally quantum-leaped to create realistic artworks by recreating the pictures he sees broadcasted on television and over the internet: his stroke of pure genius offers a realism that comes from borrowing the red, blue and green pixilation off all forms of electrically run monitors – the very electronic pixels that come together to give us the full range of hues that colour the views they present on all aspects of our universe, as captured on screen.
That Pintaldi has truly mastered the way to pixilate with red, blue and green to bring to life every colour visible to us is evidently reflected in the golden yellow of Grace Kelly’s luxurious hair and the blinding white coursing through the bolt of lightning striking the Eiffel Tower.
By now you may be compelled to ask for the titles the Italian maestro in the visual arts has given to these 2 pieces of art of his to see for yourself the extent of his mastery. Well, he has chosen not to name them. In fact, he never gives any to all of his paintings.
Why should he need to? Especially when he wants you to enjoy the same delicious freedom he possesses: to glimpse in his painted figurations your very own reality.
Look into what is real to only you at “Suspended Animations”, Pintaldi’s solo exhibition at Partners & Mucciaccia, 6 Lock Road, #02-10 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108934 before it ends on 7 November this year.
