PEPPE PERONE
February 28th -March 31st 2004

Opening: Saturday, February 28th 2004, 5:30 pm

The Galleria Ronchini Arte Contemporanea , which since 1992 has been actively presenting the research of international and art historical artists, has been working in the last few years on the promotion of activities of young and talented artists. Since 2001 Peppe Perone has developed a research of an absolutely original creativeness in the Italian art scene. Therefore the Galleria Ronchini chose to present, for the first time within its exhibition spaces, some works by the young Neapolitan artist.

Perone was born in Naples in 1972. Up until now he has been carrying out his artistic activity parallel to that of his twin brother Lucio, with whom he shares the studio. In 1994 he graduated in sculpture from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples. In 1999 he discovered sand as a research material. He lives and works in Rotondi, in the province of Avellino.

"Everyday objects are his inspirational source: he draws from them the plastic forms through which he chooses to express himself. The irony, the paradox and the improbable associations are his expressive modes. The study of some of the great masters of the twentieth century and a great control of the instruments he uses allowed him to achieve a remarkable compositive capacity".

Peppe Perone defines himself a sculptor, in the traditional sense of the word, and as a sculptor he employed all his training first in the study and practice of classical techniques (bronze, wood, iron, plaster, terra-cotta) and then of new materials, more appropriate to represent the contemporary world (fiberglass, tyres, glues, industrial materials). But he considers sculpture a means of incredible dynamism because, since the post-war era, it succeeded in contaminating itself with other expressive instruments so that it reached an inventive and narrative capacity which is superior to other instruments.

The practice of plastic language allows Perone to grab from everyday life his own forms and then to give back to the public the (deformed) objects deprived of their original function but re-presented as "symbols", as "provocatory hurdles" (Oldemburg). Each detail of Perone's sculptures is carefully measured, from a chromatic and spatial point of view (wall sculptures) or inside the architectural container (in the installations). He is aware that the presence/absence of an object and its chromatic difference determines a different value of the object next to it. The choice of closing off the objects, in the wall sculptures, inside an empty frame or upon suspended shelves has to be ascribed to the Achrome of Piero Manzoni. According to Perone, emptiness is the spatial equivalent of the white surface of Manzoni: it is an area of total freedom, which frees itself from any chromatic-figural implications; it is a surface deprived of any allusive and descriptive, allegorical and symbolical input.

Everything Perone represents is covered by sand. Often a work is realized through a chromatic balance of different-colored sands or of layers of sand covered by acrylic painting, He discovered sand while searching for a material which could let him "petrify" easily perishable objects. Perone wanted to give to normally fragile objects the texture and the aspect of stone, not only to make his own works more enduring, but also to distance them from their usual aspect, giving them an appearance of "traditional sculpture".
The artist confesses, however, that the first works realized with this material reminds him of the sandcastles "devoured" by atmospheric agents. Sand has thus taken on the double function of making timeless the form of an object which is not timeless, and, at the same time, giving a frail aspect to an object which is not fragile.

Marco Izzolino