Valerio ADAMI

The works of Italian painter Valerio Adami, one of the principal figures of the "Figuration Narrative" movement, respond to two criteria of receptivity: immediacy and continuity; the former with respect to the field of colors used, and the latter for its representation.
The combination of these two temporalities constitutes the intelligence and power of Adami’s work.
While characterized by an easy, flowing appearance, Adami’s formal technique demands great visual acuity and sharp, thoughtful reflection. Although he employs strong, elementary colors laid flat, as well as thick lines that support the contours of his forms and surround the narrative scene, the spectator’s vision gets lost in a space where the three dimensions are shattered and reinvented.
Adami’s precise, sustained strokes recall his education at the Accademia di Belle Arte di Brera in Milan, where he studied artistic models from antiquity and the neoclassicist period, under the tutelage of Achille Funi (1951-1954). These strokes dislocate and syncopate the logic of representation; they design his figures and objects and simultaneously fragments their volumes, a technique reminiscent of cubism but undertaken in a continuous manner (multiplication of images to create a single, complete image).

A true enigmatic, Adami finds inspiration in even the most unlikely magazines, albums or photographs, whether encountered or captured throughout his own globetrotting life (Europe, America, India): urban spaces such as New York in the late 1960s ; "Interiors" including the bathroom of the painter Bonnard; "Portraits" as Freud and Nietzsche (during the 1970s); and a series of works on mythological subjects in his New York studio in the late 1980s.
In addition to his easel paintings, "Adami" applies his formal system and technique on a larger scale in his mural paintings in Europe and the United States.

Yves Malrin

Selected Works

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