"It Was a Time of Suspended Action" is a unique and published work of art by Museo Ettore Fico in Turin in 2023. This Tempera & Acrylic on Paper, 2019-20 (29,5 x 42 H cm.) by Alessandro Roma is part of the aforementioned Solo Show catalogue.
Alessandro Roma (born in Milan 1977) studied at Accademia di Brera in Milan and after he was invited for a residency at Kunstlerhauser Worpsede in Germany. In 2007 he partecipated in the IV International Painting Prize, Diputaciòn de Castellòn, Museo de Bellas Artes de Castellòn.
His work has been shown in international museums and galleries among which: Prague Biennal (2009), the MART Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto with the solo Humus (2011), MAC Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Lissone (2014), Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genova (2016), MIC Museo della Ceramica, Faenza (2018), Fondation Thalie, Bruxelles (2019), Museo Ettore Fico, Torino (2023).
Alessandro Roma's research is characterized by a predominant pictorial approach, resulting from his academic education and early years activity. Recently, Roma investigated different techniques, exploring casting, printing on fabric, ceramic and collage. This lead to a whole new repertoire of inner landscapes, arising from both real experiences and literary sources, that transform his imagination into something tangible and accessible to the viewer.
His "vases", above all, are ambiguously and formally presented as objects of domestic use, only to prove impossible to accommodate other living forms as they are already overflowing with internal life. This sort of underbelly of the object, offered to the viewer's gaze, is a sort of "cavern" in which the pulsating organs of life appear in all their radiant vitality. Branches and leaves intertwine with other brightly coloured forms and the harmony of the work echoes that of real nature.
The pictorial works made of glazes and marks require long time frames, like the ceramic which, after the shaping of the raw earth, have to be fired, painted, glazed and re-glazed, during multiple firings in which patience and determination are intrinsic elements of their production.
The artist also confronts the viewer with the polyvalence of his work in which the fine line between sculpture and object is so blurred as to leave anyone puzzled. Nothing is what it seems: drawings look like sketches, sculptures imitate vases, paintings allude to curtains. Hince, a sense of shameless defiance arises between the artist and the viewer, who is urged to go beyond the limits of the surface, of the appearance of forms, of approximate and forced cataloguing.
