Intimate and contemplative, Natale Addamiano's Starry Skies on display in Milan

Through Sept. 25 (it opened last June 8), Milan ’s Dep Art Gallery is hosting the solo exhibition of Natale Addamiano (Bitetto, 1943), entitled A riveder le stelle ... . The exhibition, curated by Federico Sardella, is centered around a site-specific triptych to which are flanked some works from the series Cieli stellati (Starry Skies), based on a painting linked to the themes (as well as to the forms and colors) of darkness and night, illuminated, however, by glimmers and luminous traces.

These are works with an intimate and contemplative character: with his nocturnes, Natale Addamiano intends to guide the viewer to a path of light and possibility after the darkness, until “riveder le stelle... ”, as per the last verse of Dante Alighieri’sInferno, who in the Divine Comedy, after the horrifying vision of Lucifer in the bottom of the infernal cavity, comes out with Virgil finding himself contemplating the starry sky again. The title of the exhibition highlights precisely the need for the absolute and the infinite that animates Addamiano and that leads him to measure himself, day after day, with his inexhaustible desire to paint, to question painting and to find in it ever new stimuli, spaces and possibilities.

In all the works that make up the exhibition at Dep Art Gallery, from the large triptych conceived specifically for the gallery spaces, to the works of smaller dimensions to the small papers, it is clear that the space of painting tends to expand beyond the limits imposed by the physical support to respond to the need of the artist to relate to nature, always intended as an inexhaustible source of inspiration and pretext for painting, made profound by the many drafts, by the countless pictorial traces that constitute it and that allow the viewer to be enraptured by it, until getting lost in it.

Natale Addamiano began in 2010 to give life to the nucleus of paintings Starry Skies, a strand that continues with vitality and confirms the consistency of a path in which painting is always the protagonist. The works exhibited at Dep Art Gallery, although apparently united by a predominance of tones traceable to the black range, suggest instead the participation of other colors that animate and enliven the painted surfaces. One can feel their intensity in these skies, among the stars and nebulae, manifest as if they were presences, poised between the materiality of painting and memory, between the intimacy of color and the possibility of attraction and absorption, which color itself provides.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual (Italian and English) catalog published by Dep Art, with images of the exhibition, reproductions of all the works on display, a conversation between Natale Addamiano and Federico Sardella and updated bio-bibliographical apparatus.

Image: Natale Addamiano, A riveder le stelle (2021; oil on panel, 280 x 450 cm)

Intimate and contemplative, Natale Addamiano's Starry Skies on display in Milan

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.