Alessandro Twombly was born in Rome in 1959. He graduated from LSE in London before studying at the New York Studio School. Now he is currently based near Rome where his practise focuses on both painting and sculpture.
Read MoreAlessandro has an intimate connection to his local surroundings, the countryside near Rome where he lives. He knows the flora, fauna, the animals and birds and understands the longer geological perspective which shaped the landscape.
Describing this relationship he says ‘I work with nature like another artist might focus on the nude’ and explains that he uses nature as a point of departure to move beyond direct representation. His intention is to access a different kind of experience, approaching a subject familiar to us all from another point of view.
Alessandro is a natural and skilled colourist, combining vibrant colours and layering them with precision. In places, this direct application doesn’t allow the colours to mix and they sit next to each other in contrast, independent yet blended by the composition. This dynamism is reinforced by raw brush strokes applied with energetic movements and paint drips from the surface of the canvas.
This intrinsic relationship with nature is also visible in his sculpture. The traces of his fingers on the raw material reveal his attempt to represent substraction as a form of abstaction, where the external image of nature is not his main model. The shapes of his works present the ‘inside’ of nature that pushes something towards the light, which illuminates it and in doing so helps it appear.
Text courtesy Tristan Hoare Gallery.
