By Luisa Terzulli
A mute and enigmatic look. We are not talking about the Egyptian sphinx but the matrix in each work by Roberto Coda Zabetta.
Young but expert artist from Biella, hanging between London and Milan, his paintings can not be better defined than as destabilising. The constant in every work is an overriding face, often in tight close-up, always in large and violent black and white strokes and drips of painting, nearly verging on abstractism though with a well-defined physiognomy. Destabilising is exactly the non-invasive violence of these faces, immediate in their dark colours and big dimensions, questioning the observer more than what it answers. What is the meaning behind the wide-shut eyes, the nervous laugh, or the emotionless expression? All immediately recognisable for style, the paintings by Roberto Coda Zabetta clearly distinguish from each other like photographs: each one presents its own peculiarity, a particular shade or simply a different “shot”, coming one by one always with no title. Another constant in the work of the Italian artist is the form of diptych: the big face stands out neatly and “soils” a background often meticulously decorated and detailed, other times left blank and stained with colour, usually more visible and only on one side of the diptych.
Already winner of a space in the Art Projects special section of the London Art Fair 2007, dedicated to the artists with a more experimental flair, he is now on show at the Spectrum London gallery with the exhibition Out There until the 21st July. The works here on display present that which is the recurring element of his latest production: the usual imposing faces are accompanied by polychrome backgrounds – more rarely in black and white – of evident Japanese inspiration. These accurately detailed backgrounds are a clear allusion to the Ukiyo-e (images of the floating world) prints of the Edo period (1625-1867), portraying for the first time the activities of the common people engaged in entertainment in the red-lights areas or in the kabuki theatres. In the diptychs by Roberto Coda Zabetta, these prostitutes and charming female figures wrapped in clothes with bright and elaborated fabrics, and the kabuki actors frozen in exaggerated histrionic poses create a strident and, once again, destabilising contrast with the massive and almost disturbing faces.
Stylistically antithetical and of remote inspirations both temporally and geographically, these juxtaposed styles are perhaps not so distant from each other: sharing the same canvas, the strong Western tracts drawn by the Italian artist fascinated by the East meet the pictorial Japan in turn influenced by and stretched out towards the world lying at West.
The travel and the encounter of different cultures is an important component of the life of this established artist just in his thirties, and one of the reading keys of his perplexing and engaging paintings.
Copyright 2007 GIORGIOSTUDIO Ltd – All rights reserved
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