Crollava 2007

Enzo Cucchi made 'Crollava', using paint on canvas. The way the pigment is brushed, dabbed and smeared onto the canvas makes it feel really immediate. The making of the image feels like a way of thinking, and seeing. The tones in the painting are murky but they are luminous at the same time, which is a contradiction, but totally intentional. The paint feels thin and liquid, brushed on and then scrubbed back in places. Down in the bottom right corner there is a tiny patch of bright yellow which really makes the eye bounce around, and suggests a light which is both natural and dreamlike. I see an echo of Giorgio de Chirico here, in the symbolic, haunted landscape. But Cucchi seems looser, less formal; it’s the feeling that counts.