Pietro Roccasalva

Born in Modica in 1970. Lives in Milan

The real fulcrum of Pietro Roccasalva's work is painting, and it is from paintings that he begins to makes particularly complex installations he himself defines as "work situations." The paintings, which are full of citations and references to the history of art and popular culture, are accompanied by object systems, videos, actions and tableaux vivants, all of which are elements in what he defines a "work site." Numerous references from the Baroque to Futurism run through Roccasalva's paintings, which are populated by enigmatic figures that reconstruct another reality. His research is characterized by its highly symbolic and allegorical nature, which is sometimes tied to philosophical and religious reflections. The fluidity created by the crisscrossing of different, absolutely contemporary languages is always resolved in the painting, a crystallized phase of a continuous becoming and a destination that has the task of ‘reassuming' all the preceding phases. (A.T.)