SILVIO ZAGO
Silvio Zago's work invites the gaze to linger upon the edge between reality and the abstract. Dimensions mirrored within a subject - the natural landscape - where seeing with the eyes corresponds to feeling the emotion of the scene. More than just an existing and physical space, the landscape is, for Zago a place of revelation, of the unexpected appearance, through the wide or fragmented layers of color, of presences hidden in the heart of the image. As John Constable once argued, the painter sees within nature only that which he knows. In the case of Zago, therefore, the natural environment becomes a tool to represent memories, sensations, fantastic ideas and everything that lives in the artist's mind and in the deepest parts of his soul. Painting what is visible to the human eye to bring out what isn’t: a lesson in how reality and emotion overlap, populating the image with suggestive elements inspired by nature, that are reworked through an internal process of the artist. This is how the new landscapes are created, where what is left unsaid is more important than what is openly represented, leaving room for the imagination, for the gaze to set out in search of barely perceptible details within the dilutions of color. By avoiding a precise description of nature, Zago is able to bring out another truth from the image, no longer linked to the real world but a painting that goes beyond the apparent face of things to investigate their deeper and hidden meaning.
[Daniela Pronestì]