Julio Larraz: Del mare, dell'aria e di altre storie, Catania
A pictorial archipelago founded on a thousand islands that speak of journeys and returns, farewells and rediscoveries...
Julio Larraz's solo exhibition, hosted by the Puglisi Cosentino Foundation in Catania, is promoted and curated by the Fondazione Roma - Mediterraneo and organised by Civita Sicilia in collaboration with the Contini Gallery in Venice and Cortina d'Ampezzo. It presents around one hundred works by the master, in a temporal itinerary that starts in 1975 - paintings such as "The Giant" and "Finisterre" - and follows developments over the various decades - the 1980s ("El padre de la Patria Nueva", "Cushing Maine"), the 1990s ("Hunter in the Snow", "Cape Laplace") - up to more recent times with a series of previously unseen paintings created especially for the exhibition ("Grandpa", "I could have been a contender", "Landing Party" and "A rendez vous with Homer", inspired by the idea of painting as a visual narrative linked to both the oral tradition and the written word).
Travelling through Larraz's painting, one realises that the artist does not believe in the concept of evolution, and often at a distance of time, he chooses to take up subjects already dealt with in the past, modifying them with a new gaze, sometimes more acute and ironic, at other times more nostalgic and dramatic. Nor should bronze sculpture be forgotten, a technique he has 'discovered' and pursued since 2007.
