Exhibition of Flavio Rossi

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In this exhibition, I, as an artist, use the language of collage to explore the everyday overload of images from social media, search engines, print media and historical references that have become part of our collective memory. The works are initially conceived in the digital environment, as collage sketches, and later transferred to the materiality of painting, condensing the entire creative process and previous references into a single object. ​

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The paintings present compositions that unite fragments of images from different sources, transforming them into a cohesive work. These works explore the subjective relationship between different archetypes, symbols and fragments in a process of defragmentation. The intention is to rewrite scattered information and organize it contiguously. In the glass portraits of music personalities, the material relates to the portrayed and the music itself, evoking fragility, transparency, color, volume, shape, layers, absence and presence. The paintings find harmony in the chaos, relating different images in a single space, as if they were part of a material algorithm. In an era where human relationships are mediated by mobile devices, artificial intelligence and social media, technology becomes an extension of human memory. This exhibition seeks to reflect on unity and the possibility of achieving a defragmented "whole". Flavio Rossi's works gathered in the exhibition “Desfragmento” generate a reflection on the world in which we live.

 

There are two series: one of painting and the other made from shards of glass. Both have elements in common, such as dealing with pieces of contemporary society and the collage procedure. The paintings are based on digitally created compositions. They come loaded with contemporary icons. They are a way of thinking about the load of information that we continuously receive from the most diverse vehicles, be it cell phones, the media or advertising on the streets. The works made with the overlapping of glass fragments bring a search for understanding of how each person is a pile of pieces. Natural colors are respected in order to create a set that fascinates with the tonalities of the material itself and the effects of light. Thus, fronts and verses are poetically mixed. The set of the artist's productions brings to light the traditional difference between culture and art. While the first is characterized by presenting identifying and recognizable elements of a particular people or historical moment, the second, as with Flavio Rossi's creations, is destabilizing in its essence. The color tones, the suggested movements, the composition of the shapes, the textures, volumes and angles reveal intentions that generate enchantment. Thus, the art of the Brazilian visual creator has an impact, generating questions about the very meaning of doing. Fragments from the digital collage become painting; and the pieces of glass are converted into artistic objects. Thus, what was a seemingly meaningless piece becomes part of a whole. A significant repertoire is established with a consistent and proper grammar that presents a theatricality that conquers the observer.

 

Oscar D'Ambrosio Postdoctoral and PhD in Education, Art and Cultural History, Master in Visual Arts, journalist, art critic and curator.