Come l'acca 2007

Enzo Cucchi made this small painting, Come l'acca, presumably with oils, and probably quickly! The scene appears dreamlike, yet the approach is direct. What strikes me is the materiality. The paint is scrubbed on, alive with visible brushstrokes that don't try to hide themselves. Look at the donkey in the foreground; the yellow is mixed right on the surface of the canvas. It feels immediate and process-oriented, each mark transparent. The donkey wears Italian flag colours! Further back, we see a figure in a chair staring at some sort of screen with odd yellow flames all around. It’s totally surreal. I think of other Italian painters such as Giorgio de Chirico who created strange and haunting works full of symbolism. Like them, Cucchi embraces ambiguity, inviting us to get lost in our own interpretations.