The paint spreads, dries, thickens, settles—Ettore Spalletti

The exhibition “Color Spreads, Dries, Thickens, Rests” by Ettore Spalletti, which he curated, is presented by Graziella Lonardi Buontempo—Incontri Internazionali d’Arte. This is the first exhibition Rome has dedicated to the artist. In collaboration with Incontri Internazionali. Spalletti’s work seems to defy classification. The very nature of his creations—gentle and evanescent—invites us to perceive an illusion rather than to define them. Spalletti favors wooden surfaces for their rigidity and applies layers of plaster dust mixed with color to them, using varying drying times to achieve a subtle, impalpable modulation.

Far from blending into the surface, covering it, or emphasizing it, color tends to solidify, thicken, and take on structure as a form-color. The work thus occupies—and this is what makes it so difficult to define—the boundary between surface and object, between abstraction and evocation, between geometry and transience. The whites with their elusive nuances, the delicate blues, the nuanced grays, the pale pinks, and the fine lines that separate the chromatic areas on the panels—all draw their inspiration from light and atmosphere, but also from the robes of the Madonnas in 15th-century frescoes and the rosy hues of their complexions. At the same time, the powdery plaster in which they are immersed structures the objects into volumes of color, softening the harshness of their outlines to blend them into the surrounding atmosphere. The numerous works, created specifically for the spaces of the Villa Medici, include paintings, sculptures, and installations.