Amerigo Carella Biography
Amerigo Carella was born in Turin in 1940. He began exhibiting in 1970 and was invited to participate in various national art exhibitions including: 1972-74: "Man and water and Man and the sky", Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Gonzaga; 1975: XVII Vasto Prize for Painting "Le figure dell'Enigma" (gold medal) - 1976; Gallery of Modern Art, Gallarate; 1987: "Arcimboldo Effect - Eco Merchandising", Palazzo Grassi, Venice; 1990: Torino Arte, Biennial of Modern and Contemporary Art; "An itinerary on the edge of sculpture", Centro S. Benin, Aosta. He has held personal exhibitions both in Italy and abroad.
Since 1989, his artistic research has been oriented towards more object-oriented solutions, aiming to resolve his imagination using different materials. Despite working in the realm of fantasy and surrealism, Carella avoids imposed canons, instead embarking on an adventure into new realms of imagination. His paintings are not limited to depicting more or less recognizable characters, but discover the traces of presence in action, where the meaning and scope of existence are continually reinvented, where life is a shapeless magma that the presence of man can molded in his image and likeness.
It must be said without hesitation that Amerigo Carella's paintings are a rare and seductive example of fantastic art, a singular stylistic figure in Italy, individually and as a whole. In his works the marionette has always been present in some way, not explicitly, but through the existence of the "thread". The "first thread" of Carella's pictorial career appeared in his drawings and watercolors in 1971, at the age of 31, in the work entitled "Sul filo", where he said he represented himself, in the difficulty of life, in uncertainty, and danger to overcome, as it depicted a figure walking in balance on a wire that crossed the surface from one side to the other.
In his works the reference to the thread is double, as the figures not only walk on the threads but their bodies are made up of tangled masses that compress them, evident from the constricting poses that symbolize the limits in which man lies, not free to living his dreams and desires, and at the same time breaking down in an effort to overcome them.
According to inclination, Carella has chosen an area of research and operation that goes from certain transparencies of Ad Reinhard to the power of certain figures of Fernand Léger, his "territory" is therefore very vast, but also so impracticable as to not allow in any case, "reductions of tension": the results - the paintings and drawings, that is, show how Carella, in entering into man, is capable of a lucidity and intransigence that is at least unusual.
