This life-size figure is in the process of being physically dissected, a process we may have interrupted. I was first drawn to Vomere, a copper-surfaced diptych, peppered by oval forms, the heads of an audience who are looking at a painted figure forming a table in front of them.

His paintings both refer to the past through their subject matter and the manner in which they are depicted, and are rooted in the contemporary, by their very recent act of destruction. Far from it, he then puts his destroyed masterpieces on display. Yet he is neither an artist who is precious about his paintings, nor a Victor Frankenstein, who seeks to destroy because he is horrified by what he has created. The gallery’s press release states that Samorì examines obsession, one aspect of which is the obsession of the artist with his own work. I imagine the artist labouriously painting for weeks or maybe months, building up layer upon layer of paint, and then one day turning around and destroying these creations in which he has invested so much. The act of their destruction being all the more perverse because it is carried out on paintings which have been carefully rendered with art historical references and technique. His show, Guarigione Dell’Ossesso at Galerie Christian Ehrentraut, was described to me as perfect baroque-style paintings that the artist then destroys so it naturally piqued my interest.Īnd what destruction! The paintings are gouged, pierced, flecked, scratched, scrunched, shrouded and pummeled. I am writing it in Bologna about an Italian artist, Nicola Samorì, who studied here and whose work I saw the day before I left Berlin.

Expressing a constant state of flux, the paintings seem to take on a kind of immortality.This post serves, I hope, as a good bridge between my time in Berlin and the next few weeks that I will spend in Italy. Samorì’s process situates his paintings as changeable narrative expressions, not so much fixed as we often think of them. Samorì’s cuts into the surface of the paintings are made carefully, deliberately, so as to leave behind ribbons of destroyed or altered material, further evidence of the work’s change by way of destruction. The artist then distorts the works by scratching and scraping away layers of paint, often continuing into the depths of the wood or copper substrate.

Many of his artworks begin as portraits and stiff-life paintings, with compositions that suggest paintings hundreds of years old. I like the way that Samorì combines classical aesthetics with very contemporary artistic techniques. Though macabre in appearance, Samorì’s works take an attitude of fascination and exploration, eschewing depression in favour of a meditative acceptance of the inevitable. Italian artist Nicola Samorì creates rich mixed media artworks that deal with themes of death, decay, and loss. Interno assoluto, oil and sulphur on copper (photo by Rolando Paolo Guerzoni)

Nicola samori prints for sale