THE DARK SIDE

The Paintings of Paolo Battistutta

What lies underneath these apparently angry scribbles? Are they just a tantrum? What is the meaning of what we can still just about glimpse peeking out from this blatant redaction? A gesture like Fontana stabbing his canvas? A statement of the futility of art? A challenge to make us think about what is or isn’t art, our own acts of self-destruction? The death of creativity as artificial intelligence stomps its way into the world?

This is unquestionably the whole point: Questions. Paolo Battistutta forces us to ask ourselves questions and many of the answers are only to be found in the darker side of things. He is determinedly highly provocative: What is beauty? What is the purpose of art, where are the visual arts going?

Is Battistutta simply disappointed with the first draft and, like a poet screwing up balls of paper then chucked into the bin, unleashes his frustration in these thick, bold, black strokes leaving little else to be seen?

Yet there are colours, shapes, forms, ideas, emotions and sensations, suggestions of turmoil, the storm, of the nature of our modern world. There is energy thrashing about, looking for answers, solutions. There is passion. And the conviction that Paolo Battistutta is making a stand. taking up a position, issuing a statement: “THIS IS WHAT I FEEL. CAN YOU FEEL IT, TOO?”.

Yet there is also more than a mere suspicion that, perhaps, there may not be very much at all underneath these surging brushstrokes, no first draft, no cancellation, no destruction of a “proper” painting, Consequently, these urgent, brawling, in-your-face works effectively become a declaration of the catastrophic decline of our society, a prescient suggestion of a coming apocalypse.

Echoes of Warhol and Bacon and De Chirico clearly indicate his painterly skills. This is not merely daubing, splattering paint on the chosen media, like ugly graffiti on city walls. It is a calculated, persistent search into and beyond the boundaries of creativity.

“Funeral at San Gaetano” has a series of black and white smudges hinting at reflections in misshapen mirrors of mourners and even a priest or vicar. There are no faces. Yet it communicates a sense of restrained grief and condolence that inspires deep empathy.

Many of the “Tondos” resemble our planet on fire, burning, dying, suffering. “Tondo X” suggests that what is buried under the wall of noise paint is actually trying to re-emerge, to escape, come back to life with another story to tell.

This is true of many works. So, perhaps, these bold cancellations are telling us that we are obscuring our own feelings, our own thoughts. We need to look inside and under and in between to grasp the real reality within what may superficially seem to be unreal.

It is also reassuring to know that behind all this apparent destruction, blacking out and construction-deconstruction, Paolo Battistutta is a somewhat reserved yet generous and caring human being.

Thank you Paolo for also being my friend as well as a challenging artist with the courage to look into the dark side of things and still come out alive

Peter Eustace