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 Domandatevi in Cuore (Wonder in Your Heart) tar watercolour on board |
 Folle Folla (Mad Mob) tar watercolour on board |
 Ho guardato e amato (I have seen and loved) tar watercolour on board |
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October 1998 Ceccobelli's work continues to defy any categorization along traditional lines, existing somewhere between painting and sculpture, the figurative and the abstract, the symbolic and the narrative. These distinctions, rather, seem to have no meaning in his world. International criticism has focused on the alchemical, gnostic quality in his art and his most recent series of paintings read like images from some strange tarot deck one has never seen - familiar, iconic, intensely symbolic, yet strangely new. While his somber, restrained palette and use of patterning serve to further intensify the spiritual aspect of these images, they retain a certain ambiguity, resonating in the depths of the unconscious like long-forgotten demi-gods. Winged hybrid creatures crouch, or touch with outstretched hands in seemingly ritualistic gestures inciting us, somehow, to remember. But it is an abstract symbolism. Again defying accepted practice, Ceccobelli has not developed his own mythology, working out symbols which he appropriates and transforms, or creates and elaborates, repeating them to develop some language which the viewer (and critic) can read and which holds together the totality of his oeuvre. He seems, rather, to create new icons with each successive series of work, but non-specific ones, icons which do not refer. And while they serve as places of remembrance, seeming to offer the promise of totality, they give us no clue as to where to locate it. Perhaps herein lies the power of these images; we are left to search for them in the optical unconscious. Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 - 5:00 For information, telephone (416) 920 3820 |