Vicola X 1988

Manuel Neri made ‘Vicola X’ with thick brushstrokes of blue, red, and grey oil paint, resulting in a ghostly figure. I wonder what Neri was thinking when he made this. Did he want to capture a fleeting memory, or maybe distill a figure down to its most essential form? The way the paint is applied so directly gives the image such immediacy. See how Neri uses these blocks of color to suggest form, and how the figure emerges from a ground of layered brushstrokes. There’s a real sense of the artist working and reworking the image, building up and scraping away the paint. It makes me think of Giacometti’s sculptures, how they’re both present and absent at the same time. Ultimately, Neri seems to be saying something about the human condition. The figure is both there and not there, caught between abstraction and representation. It’s a powerful and evocative image that stays with you long after you’ve left it.