The ideological and pictorial “return to order”
Rossana Cheli
In his twenty-five-year experience, Fabio Inverni continuously developed his own stylistic current. When he first debuted in 1992, he portrayed his personal interpretation of the genre scenes, which are in this case located in a dreamlike and unfinished reality. Inverni’s hand is indeed meticulous and accurate from the very first years of his career, especially in the execution of the tiniest details. In his still lives, the objects’ reproduction have been achieved with great realism, seemingly conveying the impression of a silent and melancholic artist. The light is indeed crepuscular in each of his paintings, in order to soften the light and dark color contrast […] The melancholic concept of life, as well as memories, are themes that Inverni often tries to convey with his paintings […] The observer sees through the eyes of the artist and feels his presence. He blends together with each of his works and each of his memories […] His artistic evolution is strictly conditioned by the frenzy of modern times; his artistic language (extremely meticulous and careful about details) is indeed melancholic, but becomes ,at the same time, more hermetic […] He operates a sort of ideological and pictorial “return to order” […] Everything, in the field of art, has already been done and said over the last decades. Every kind of material has been repeatedly overused and praised, in different artistic provocations. Inverni, with his “return to order”, creates a perfect pair. He decides to reconsider the materials of composition, resorting to a rough and aged canvas as his surface, in order to trigger a precise expressive and meaningful sensation to the viewer, as well as giving more visibility to his apparently “plain” compositions. With this own choice, the author ensures that the sheet is the only protagonist: the white color of paper conveys the sensation of candor and time (the traditional and old techniques still continue to live), as well as the ordinary work routine. These three elements are meaningful, revealing to us the presence of the artist itself in each of these sheets. This reveals the true hyperrealist nature of these compositions, if we look more in depth. Inverni decided not to resort to a rigid support to hold the sheets, opting instead for duct tape, in order to achieve transparency on the underlying sheet; all for the sake of transience and lightness. The trompe-l’oeil deceives the eye (hence the name) and our perception as well, making them look like they’re hanged instead of painted […] Inverni, through this new reality and his love for painters like Lopèz, manages to evolve and to impress us viewers with his virtuosity. His starting point is the “silent and vacuous” sheet, without any whatsoever mundanity, slightly touching the theme of childhood. He focuses on describing that innocent and naive period of our life, when every common and apparently irrelevant object can actually tell us a story, when fantasy reaches beyond the bi-dimensional reality of things and captures their essence. Inverni manages to add value to concept of the “inner young boy” (fanciullino), originated from the Italian poet G. Pascoli, in an artistic context.
Quoting Pascoli the poet:
He stays young and naive […] he keeps being serenely amazed by everything […] he is an Adam who gives a name to everything he sees or hears […] he “makes himself smaller” in order to see, and “bigger” in order to admire and be amazed.
With this important last sentence of the poem, I would like to introduce his new “childish period”.
Inverni becomes the spokesperson of this inner child, reproducing the “pure” drawings of kindergarten little boys and girls. The action painting becomes more spontaneous and tends to seek for primitivism, still maintaining the accuracy and care typical of him. The painter conveys a message of adult alienation from realty, an inner world that subconsciously comes alive from the innermost part of our psyche […] Inverni’s childish attitude describes the feeling of alienation from society, centered around memories and the aestheticism of accurately portrayed compositions, instead of inner rage. The output is hyperreal and perfect in the execution of shadows, despite the childish nature of the drawings. The mimeographed sheet is accurate in every detail: from the holes projected on the canvas to the curled corners, as a result of the light nature of paper material [..] I would like to conclude my comment, with a brief glance at the “metropolitan” paintings […] the fusion between the genre scenes and the aforementioned “inner young boy”, ensures that he moves his “curious” gaze towards the outside world. Messages hanging from glass walls, shutters and walls, mailboxes etc. […] often distractedly read to spend some time while waiting, are the most accurate example. The paper sheet, once again painted, is represented as a sort of narrator, accommodating messages of people who are looking for or lost something, while some others just observe them. The “genre” scenes become stories of every individual’s routine life and the common object still persists in his aesthetic function. The artist’s eye, once again a child’s eye, still finds interesting what the adult now can’t see and understand. The duct tape, still present also in these paintings, is nothing but a mean the artist uses to tell his story; working as a thread carrying every memory and every frame stored up in our memory. This is how Fabio Inverni, with his skills in recalling feelings, forces the viewer to observe these frames of everyday life.