Vicola X 1988

Manuel Neri made this unnamed artwork, Vicola X, with loose brushstrokes of oil paint in what looks like the 80s. The painting feels like an exploration of form through color and texture, an idea, or a feeling of a figure emerging from a ground, where the ground has equal weight to the figure. The paint is applied with this kind of urgent directness, not blended, but allowed to sit raw on the surface. Look at how Neri uses blues and grays to suggest the weight and solidity of the figure, contrasted against lighter pinks and reds to bring certain areas forward, like the side of the torso, almost like a flayed skin. The overall effect is ambiguous, the identity of the figure remains elusive. It reminds me of work by Willem de Kooning; it is through this process, this embrace of the indeterminate, that the painting speaks to the complexities of human experience.