April 8, 2013

Press Release
"Essence"
Alessandro Del Pero, Italian Curated by Denis Arguedas

Tazza Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition "Essence," new paintings by artist Alessandro Del Pero. It opens with a reception on May 16th and runs through June 9th.

The show draws from two series of works that the artist has created while living and painting in Harlem. The first series features what appears to be his atelier. Del Pero's background in architecture allows him to create and command the space on his canvas with ease. Here the light appears to be adventitious, as if coming directly from the viewer's realm and it somehow propels us, uninvited, into his private space and into the scene. What do we find there? Props and objects scattered in a seemingly random manner. Observe with care and you'll discover that there is nothing random about the objects or about anything in these compelling compositions. These pictures are personal windows into the artist's psyche and each can be seen and read as a self-portrait; they can be enigmatic but they are always intriguing.

For his Heads series, a subject Del Pero has been exploring since he started painting, there is a freedom of line and form that almost transfigures them into abstraction. The heads seem to be in a state of auto transformation. They appear fleshy, tangible but at the same time possessed by that intrinsic quality that can only be called, Essence.

Commenting on the show, Tazza Gallery Director Denis Arguedas said, "I love Alessandro's ability to render without pretentions. He exorcises his canvas of any preconceptions of aesthetics, conventional standards of beauty, traditional subjects and rules. Things are presented as they are and even when they conform to their nature there is in them, always, a second identity. He gives everything to the observer but we cannot help to see that there is something else. It takes us a moment to comprehend that the missing element is, perhaps, ourselves, the viewer. His paintings are never static. We approach them and they grab us, pulling us in, always amusing us like sirens under the allure of the drama created by shadows, the contour of a hanging rope or the frustration and struggle of a crashed piece of paper.

This is Alessandro Del Pero's second New York solo show. He was also featured this spring in a solo show in Dusseldorf at Galerie T.

Tazza Gallery, 547 W 27th St, Suite 533.
www.tazzagallery.com
(212) 967-1400

Press Release
Tazza Gallery is pleased to announce "Sui Generis," an exhibition of new works by American artist John Selburg. The exhibition opens with a reception on the evening of April 18th and runs through May 10th.

"Sui Generis" features creatures that are the product of the artist's imagination. Each picture is a unique work of art. These creatures, the Emissaries, serve as a bridge between the concrete and the fantastic. They aim to reawaken our capacity to use our imagination just as we did when we were children.

Commenting on the show Tazza Gallery Director, Denis Arguedas said:

"The works for this new show build on what John did for his first solo show, 'The Emissaries of the Afterglow,' which was an important success for John and for the Gallery. In 'Sui Generis' the works are larger in scale and bolder. This scale allows more complexity in form and an even richer color palette- all without sacrificing the high level of detail and craftsmanship we're used to seeing in Johns 'work."

Tazza Gallery, 547 W 27th St, Suite 533.
www.tazzagallery.com
(212) 967-1400

March 18th, 2013
From March 21st to April 12th, Tazza Gallery in Chelsea presents Unguarded Moments, documentary photography by Carlos Couto.

Inspired by his travels as a U.S. Army soldier, the artist captures unguarded, fleeting moments across the urban landscape of Mumbai. Describing the exhibition, Carlos says “Unguarded Moments documents a time and its people with their hopes and despair, their work and leisure, their world as they see it. It speaks of the present but also of the past.
It looks for the poetry in the most unlikely moments and places.”

Tazza Gallery, 547 W 27th St, Suite 533. Tuesday through Saturday, 12–6.

Late night reception every Thursday, 6‐8 pm. For more information visit us at http://www.tazzagallery.com/ or on Facebook.

February 06, 2013
“Emissaries of the Afterglow” The Art of John Selburg

Running until February 16th, 2013, Tazza Gallery, located in the heart of the gallery district in Chelsea, will present “Emissaries of the Afterglow” paintings by the young American artist, John Selburg.

Considered to be one of the most imaginative artists of our time John Selburg is a painter, writer and teacher from Peoria, IL. The pictures for this exhibition consist of a series of creatures (the “Emissaries of the Afterglow”) skillfully painted on paper using ink and watercolor. Each of these pieces is a unique and compelling work of art. These beings, according to the artist, serve as dignified messengers, “they are intended to usher us into a realm where imagination plays a vital roll in emancipating us from a herd mentality.”

Tazza Gallery, 547 W 27th St, Suite 533. Tuesday through Saturday, 12 – 6.

Late night reception every Thursday, 6-8 pm. For more information visit us at www.tazzagallery.com or on Facebook.

December 17, 2012
“Emissaries of the Afterglow” The Art of John Selburg

Running from December 20th to February 16th, 2013, Tazza Gallery, located in the heart of the gallery district in Chelsea, will present “Emissaries of the Afterglow” paintings by the young American artist, John Selburg.

Considered to be one of the most imaginative artists of our time John Selburg is a painter, writer and teacher from Peoria, IL. The pictures for this exhibition consist of a series of creatures (the “Emissaries of the Afterglow”) skillfully painted on paper using ink and watercolor. Each of these pieces is a unique and compelling work of art. These beings, according to the artist, serve as dignified messengers, “they are intended to usher us into a realm where imagination plays a vital roll in emancipating us from a herd mentality.”

Tazza Gallery, 547 W 27th St, Suite 533. Tuesday through Saturday, 12 – 6.
Late night reception every Thursday, 6-8 pm. For more information visit us at www.tazzagallery.com or on Facebook.

Alessandro Del Pero
“Effort” at Tazza Gallery
By Veronica Santi (*)

He looks at us and he looks into himself. He dives, struggles, flies, contorts his body; he is searching for something. Only in the end does he acknowledge his ego; putting himself in the game without declaring it, simply painting his own gaze. Because the gaze is the surface, where appearances dissolve and an inner truth can be revealed. Such a gaze tells us stories without encroaching in our intimacy.

A painting by Italian artist Alessandro Del Pero does not pretend to be self-referential. It holds its place with dignity, immolating itself to public judgment without shame; moreover, it can be understood as a true and honest declaration of the self.

Let’s examine one large-scale work he has titled “Patience”. Here Del Pero paints himself in his studio; not once, but three times.

First, the self-portrait placed on the right side of the composition stares at us, catching our eye. We’re drawn into the painter’s studio and, it seems, invited to explore its secrets. The exploration, however, is short-lived because we are captured by a second presence, the shadow on the left which surprises us and finally, the naked and curled up body of the third ego. This man, laying in the fetal position with his back to us, represents the hearth of the painting. He forces us to empathize with him; he moves us and then directs us back to the self-portrait which now seems to be a mirror looking right back at us.

Regardless of their symbolic meaning, the chain of relations among the three egos is theatricality painted, involving and stimulating the spectator with techniques that reach back to the Renaissance and that here are used or, maybe, unwittingly assimilated by the Italian artist. One could consider Piero Della Francesca’s “Madonna of Sinigallia” from 1470, where the angel on the left of the painting looks out to us and draws us into the scene, while the angel on the right directs us to the central characters, the Madonna and the Baby Jesus. In Della Francesca's painting the apex of relations ends with the baby Jesus’ iconic gesture that radiates the Word all over the world. In Del Pero’s “Patience” the circle of relations ends with the gaze set into the self-portrait, as care and cover, as a safe seaport; it is the soul of the painting where we can silently feel the rhythm of patience.

Those eyes, purposely drawn in a realistic manner, are present in many of Del Pero’s works. They represent his deep vocation for painting but also his worldview as seen through his eyes and his experiences.

Floating on the skin of the visible, in fact, the gaze is always affected by our previous visions, our stories and by how we perceive the world. In the same way, like eyes, paintings are a surface and a source of esthetic pleasure, but also, as the gaze, they show parts of an inner self that come from our own experience. The artist fixes on the canvas a single instant subjectively looked at and lived allowing it to survive at the death: so mediated, beauty and reality rise from the artwork continually restoring the world from a wondered stupor.

Therefore, if he bravely decides to quit a career as an architect to pursue what had been his avocation, he paints his paintings and then paints himself as a painter. If he is afraid of the sea, he paints swimmers, men that dive into the void or that, simply take a shower. Or, if he falls asleep in his Europe and then he awakens among Harlem strangers, self-portraits become universal portraits.

It is easy to get lost in the liquid surface of the eyes, and, in our imaginations, to cross that magnetic and translucent threshold that leads us into memories and push us to the heart of the human soul. And if in every person there is an unbounded world to explore through a gaze, Alessandro's works can be seen as giant eyes, a portal, that touch and transport us far away.

(*) New York based, Italian writer and critic Veronica Santi is an Art Historian with an international career in the arts. She graduated form University of Florence with a Major in International Studies and from the University of Bologna with a Major in Contemporary Art. She has curated shows in New York and has collaborated in several publications.

For more information visit www.tazzagallery.com.

October 18, 2012
This fall Tazza Gallery presents “Iconic,” works by American artist Gail Postal. The exhibition opens on October 18th at Tazza Gallery in Chelsea.

“Iconic” is a series of paintings in multimedia of what the artist calls “Contemporary Saints.” Inspired by ancient Orthodox paintings during a visit to Russia, Gail Postal paints contemporary people and sets them in bright, golden backgrounds. She paints on board using graphite and oil and incorporates glitter and Swarovski crystal in some of her figures. Gail believes that every individual is a gift and that everyone deserves the same level of respect and veneration that is given to traditional saints and religious icons.

The opening for “Iconic” is on October 18th from 6 to 8 PM. The exhibition continues through November 11th. Tazza Gallery is located at 547 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001.

For more information visit www.tazzagallery.com.