Originally trained as an architect, Gioele Amaro has retained from his formal education a fascination for materials and surfaces. Using an innovative mix of ink and varnish on canvases, his paintings mimic the shiny and reflective surfaces of various metals including copper, aluminium, stainless steel or iron foil.
Read MoreAmaro's works are meticulously detailed, with an obsessive attention to detail and an instinctive eye for colouring and construction. His approach poses novel questions of what a painting can be: just a surface? an elaborate trompe l'oeil? The precise reproduction of another surface? Or simply a scheme to force us to look at our everyday with a renewed attention.
Though seemingly straightforward at first, Amaro's method is complex: not content with reproducing reality using different materials and enlarging or reducing the scale, he bends this reality to match his owned aesthetic standard and reach a new level of sophistication. In so doing, Gioele Amaro plays with the craft of wall painters who have long replicated the appearance of marble on the walls of European castles. Here, however, Amaro doesn't conceal an ordinary material under an ornate surface; rather, he embellishes the everyday beyond its original nature.
Gioele Amaro was born in the Calabria region of Italy in 1986, studied architecture at the University of Reggio (Italy) and then obtained his master at the National School of Architecture in Paris La Villette. After working with the Pritzker Prize-winning Jean Nouvel, Gioele Amaro finally decided to pursue a career as an independent artist. He took part in group exhibitions at Almine Rech in Brussels and at the High Art Gallery in Paris. Solo presentations of his paintings were held at Galerie Balice Hertling and Almine Rech Gallery Shanghai.
Text courtesy HdM GALLERY.
