Page 36 - GIAMPAOLO TALANI

This is the scene, ephemeral but seductive, that opens up in front of us, filtered through
the eye of a passionate person, nourished by poetry, yet a victim of contrasts and dreams,
who seems to live in a perennial condition of urgency. It is an urgency to find, through
a ritual recitation, what has been lost, and to give new life to it, by translating it with the
indelible language of art. It is the need to achieve a solid grasp, amalgamating the tactile
and auditory impressions into a synthesis of interrelated perceptions, in this disruptive
sensory crescendo. His recitations, spanning the realm from a profound languor and
to a whim of fancy, from a melancholy sensitivity to parody, revolve around a series of
contrasting evolutions and opposing episodes which are always personal, always true,
significant, absorbing, and without any shadow of artificiality or affectedness.
It is impossible to place them, to assign them to a pictorial school or kinship. Any label,
even if in part appropriate, would be restrictive, or in any case, misleading, precisely
because his personality has matured in a unique environment. Basically, Talani is one of
those personalities who demonstrates how individuality is a symptom of being an artist,
while still acknowledging innate contradictions and antinomy, and leaving obscured
regions to be later explored or investigated. It is, therefore, impossible to conduct a
sterile type of critique.
Far from wanting to package up some kind of complete hypothesis, we can take
the opportunity of this retrospective show to consider a new prospective, study or
interpretation of Talani’s works by following the idealized shedding of the rose’s petals
and by considering his aperture toward the dimension of sound, that is musically
generated by visual content, and vice-versa. This is a primary component of Talani’s
art from the very beginning. In the creation of each work, I believe that he interprets
the blank canvas as a field bursting with musical notations, like a musical score. He
has taken the musician’s gesture, that lyricism of the hand that caresses an instrument,
and that extraordinary ability to improvise. He takes these sudden alternating rhythms,
which can explore the relationship between perceptions, and transforms them into
colour, form, odour or taste.
He has, as a result, slowly constructed a complex vocabulary capable of formulating
a body of symbols and structures, which we can finally examine in its evolution over
time. So, his recent works can be placed in relation to his entire production, and we can
discover new alignments, new analogies, and new interpretive possibilities.

***
Looking retrospectively at the development of Giampaolo Talani’s work, the first nucleus
that asserts itself forcefully and with expressive autonomy is a series of paintings grouped
together under the title of Sailor Stories, dating from the early 90’s. After having surpassed
an expressionistic period - an influence from his studies at the Florence Academy- he
began, in those years, to form the first stage of development of his own pictorial strategy,
of his own unmistakable style. The waterfront, interpreted as the guardian of human
experience and adventure, becomes Talani’s departure point, his model, the totality of
his visual experience.
The sailors assume the significance of icons of humanity: their forms are voluntarily
simplified and monumental. Their faces are always traceable to a singular physiognomy
(in which we can certainly see a similarity to the painter himself). The static and solid
pose is rendered frontal, and the dimension of time is frozen.
To underscore the iconographic quality of his characters, Talani has removed them from
the shoreline and has transported them into an interior atmosphere, while still

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