ENZO SANTORO
CONTEMPORARY PAINTINGS
Artist Statement
In my work I am interested
in exploring poetics and order in nature. I attempt to create formal paintings
with analogies to music such as rhythm, harmony, tonality and counterpoint.
These reflect the movements and moods evocative of the landscape. Informed by Christian Theology, Islamic Art
and Architecture, Modern Art and Aboriginal Desert Painting, my art making
explores the tensions and relationships between image and abstraction, object
and symbol, Order and Chaos, formality and expression. I prefer to evoke rather
than describe to allow an open communication through my work. I am particularly
influenced by painters of light and structure who create contemplative works, such
as Hokusai, Morandi, Diebenkhorn, Rothko
and Callum Innes. My paintings are made by staining the canvas with successive
washes to achieve depth and luminosity through colour and tonal modulation.
Geometric structure underlies and contains a multitude of incidences. This process
reflects my vision of nature as infinitely variable within a given structure
that reveals a divine order.
Enzo Santoro by Marie Geissler
‘Enzo
Santoro’s paintings are harmonious impressions of the natural world that draw
from his fascination with nature, its, forms, textures and light. He draws
inspiration from an intimate knowledge of the work of Georgio Morandi and Mark
Rothko creating luminous tactile surfaces that like theirs express a delicate
sensuality and optically compelling vibrancy. In Santoro’s expression however,
meaning is generated using a vocabulary of
linear geometries that seem at
once to be both coming into being, but also disappearing. Visible and invisible
are delicately balanced. Yet such is the skill in his subtle orchestration of
tone that his compositional balance communicates a unity and stillness, a
meditative reality that transcends time and place.’ by Marie Geissler
Exhibition Preview guest
speaker Nick Vickers Co-ordinator, Alumni Relations, C.O.F.A.
The subtle shift in colours that underlie
Enzo Santoro's paintings are the key to understanding this artist's commitment
to painterly abstraction. We look at these works that present themselves as
being seemingly restful, yet below the picture plain there is a turbulence that
evokes a jazz-like visual acknowledgement of textural sounds.
Lines and bars of silent abstraction resonate
through the room, Above the din of clinking glasses, above the traffic And
cacophony of our daily thoughts.A space for contemplation,A place where there is space to inhale some
visual cadences.
