Galleria dell'Arco is pleased to announce the opening of the personal exhibition of Francesco De Grandi, the artist's first solo show in Asia.
Francesco De Grandi, born in Palermo in 1968, has already established himself as one of the most relevant figures in Italian figurative painting scene. His paintings have been shown in Europe and USA.
This time to Shanghai, Francesco De Grandi brings with him a new body of work. A series of oil paintings, permeated with a subtle tone of reminiscence, unfolds into an assorted anthology of personal tales.
In every mansion of consciousness, there is an attic to which the debris of our living find their ways. These images, cluttered in disarray, are hinting at some memories one would otherwise have forgotten. Painting in this case, still a craft of imitating objects becomes a form of the most intimate diary-writing, recording not the happenings in the physical world, but their mnemonic projections.
The artist calls it 'compulsive hoarding', a personality disorder that compels the amassing of one's belongings. Then the predestined personal touch of the painter displaces concepts such as genre, season or style. If painting exists as an end in itself, then there is no obligation to justify its presence, no anxiety of whether or not being 'contemporary', and no embarrassment of being announced 'dead'.