Omar Galliani's Theophanies in an exhibition with the signatures of Uffizi and Tornabuoni Arte

TheOratory of Santa Caterina delle Ruote in Bagno a Ripoli is hosting, from March 9 to April 28, 2019, the exhibition Theophanies. Works by Omar Galliani, an exhibition organized by the Municipality of Bagno a Ripoli in collaboration with the Uffizi Galleries and Tornabuoni Arte, which presents to the public a number of large panels by Omar Galliani (Montecchio Emilia, 1954), one of the most appreciated contemporary Italian artists, among the leading masters of drawing, and a proponent of an art that stands in direct relation to classicism and ancient painting (for these reasons, too, the fourteenth-century oratory was chosen as the exhibition venue).

The exhibition intends to make Galliani’s works dialogue with the fourteenth-century frescoes by Spinello Aretino (Arezzo, 1350 - 1410). In his monumental panels, Galliani employs a technique that harks back to Renaissance art and is characterized by the accuracy of the pencil stroke that is intended to echo the black or red stone sheets of Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci, 1452 - 1519). The starting point of Galliani’s work is the white surface: in the case of the works exhibited in Bagno a Ripoli, it is the wooden support of poplar, on which the artist traces marks with pencil or charcoal that accumulate until they take on a material life, to reveal a surface in the half-light, whether it is the skin of the human body, a mirror of water or an object. In the works exhibited at the Oratory of Santa Caterina delle Ruote, which include theSelf-portrait from the Uffizi Drawings and Prints Cabinet, the shades of black, created through a skillful dialectic between light and shadow, contrast with the kaleidoscope of colors of the decorations inside the 14th-century architecture. Galliani’s language is based, on the one hand, on mimetic skill and, on the other, on the desire to overcome matter by dematerializing and sublimating figures and objects, to give life to a cosmos of recurring symbols (such as roses, dragons, flowers, skulls, swords, rings and scissors suspended on the pictorial surface), which stems from a deep reflection on the history and nature of drawing in art.

“I do not make plans or preparatory studies for my works,” said the artist when presenting his Theophanies. “My large plates are made essentially through the basicness of two materials: wood, graphite and in between the subject. The alternation of the two essential components generates the work. The origin of the subject is elusive, its configuration is given through time and the expansion of the drawing.”

The exhibition can be visited from Thursday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets (including visit to the Oratory of Santa Caterina delle Ruote): full 5 euros, reduced 3 euros, students 2 euros.

The exhibition is also accompanied by a program of fringe events: below are all the events, which can be accessed with a 5 euro ticket (which includes participation in show/conference and visit to the exhibition and Oratory of Santa Caterina delle Ruote). For info and reservations, email ufficio.cultura@comune.bagno-a-ripoli.fi.it or call 055643358.

Sunday, March 24, 5:30 p.m.
Art Dissertation.
Meeting with Maestro Omar Galliani and Roberto Casamonti, founder and executive director of TornabuoniArte

Saturday, March 30, 5:30 p.m.
Contemporary geometries: art as tradition, rupture and continuity
User’s manual for taking the first steps into contemporary art and the works of Maestro Omar Galliani.
Lecture by Daniele Franchi, art historian and critic

Sunday, March 31, 5:30 p.m.
Notes of color
A chorus is like a pictorial work: a symphony of voices and colors that match each other. From ancient to modern a journey through the colors of polyphony. Concert by the Mulieris voces choir directed by Maestro Edoardo Materassi

Sunday, April 7, 5:30 p.m.
Infinity
Unreachable, unrepresentable, infinity never ceases to intrigue and torment painters, philosophers, mathematicians, literati and, in general, all ordinary mortals. Why?
Lecture by Sergio Givone, professor emeritus of Aesthetics in the University of Florence

Pictured: Omar Galliani, In shadow and in light (2015)

Omar Galliani's Theophanies in an exhibition with the signatures of Uffizi and Tornabuoni Arte

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