Enrico Castellani experienced a cultural atmosphere in Milan characterised by ground-breaking research and profound changes embodied by the short but intense adventure of Azimut e Azimuth. It was here that he made an artistic choice which he would never later go back on, abandoning every subjective, arbitrary and casual element, in order to face on canvas the theme of the relationship between absolute and interior space and time. Space and time are conceived of by the artist as elementary and abstract dimensions, independent of any specific external influence, and are inherent in the intrinsic autonomy of his work. The space-time dimension of painting, a metaphor for other physically immeasurable spaces and times, is continually investigated and analysed in his monochromes whose modulated surfaces, with their rhythmical protrusions, are created by a network of nails and wood placed between the frame and the canvas. The surface of the picture seems to be punctuated by regularly spaced intervals of relief and indentation which are ideally susceptible to infinite repetition; it acquires a structural value compared to the surrounding space, outlining it, absorbing it and expelling it, housing it or invading it. The monochromy is a denial of painting, giving the impression that the work has been dematerialised but this effect is, in its turn, denied by the incidence of the light which is absorbed or reflected, thus modulating the surface of the canvas, enriching it with and giving it a dynamic and spatial value.
The gallery will present works consisting of a series of six blue paintings and a series of six white paintings, undertaken especially for the exhibition.

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