Rodolpho Parigi (b. 1977, São Paulo, Brazil) is part of a new generation of Brazilian artists who emerged in the early 2000s. This Friday, May 2nd, he inaugurates his first solo exhibition in New York at Nara Roesler Gallery. About 35 art pieces will be on display, including a reinterpretation of the famous painting “O Abaporu” by Tarsila do Amaral.
Parigi’s work lies in a liminal space between abstraction and figuration, entwining a series of references that range from the tradition of Art History, with particular emphasis on Rubens’ baroque corporeality, to graphic design, advertising, scientific illustrations, pop culture, anatomical planes, and music. Together with dance, music is notably responsible for orchestrating the gestural dynamism that characterizes Parigi’s figures, which emanates from formal and structural vigor, rather than from the nature of the brush stroke on the surface of the canvas.
Parigi notably summarizes his process with the statement, “there is something alchemical here.” Indeed, the artist operates with singular transfiguration anchored in a sense of excess, whereby he consolidates fragments of extremely diverse images and forms, through the use of saturated and luminous color palettes that construct a futurist retro. The minutely controlled process of execution and compositional organization amount to an ornamental strategy that resists traditional plays on perspective and forbids the gaze from resting, leading it to incessantly roam the canvas. In Parigi’s paintings, the high tech present on the works’ thematic meets oil painting’s centenary virtuosity; while the organic merges with the artificial, creating an overall provocative sense of strangeness.
Rodolpho Parigi lives and works in São Paulo.
The exhibition will be on display until June 3th, 2024.
For more information, visit: https://nararoesler.art/en/artists/rodolpho-parigi/