Marco Raparelli
- 2010-2011
- Visual Arts
- Italian Fellow in the Arts
I use a variety of media in my work including: drawing, painting and video animation, although it is drawing that serves as the foundation of my practice. I describe micro-worlds where the banality of everyday life is continuously mixed with its surreal dimension; through the invention of imaginary characters, I focus my attention on the so-called “man in the street” and the environments that surround him. With an almost infantile gaze, without prejudice or judgement, my working practice is the elaboration of an ongoing diary that, at times, functions in cycles, but which never ends.
My approach to creating artworks develops from an almost anthropological attention to my surroundings, as I gather images, gestures and encounters that are then elaborated and transformed in my work.
The drawings mirror the imperfection of the characters that I portray, the same physical and mental improvisations. I utilize a style that reflects chance and liberty where gesture and mark making are fundamental, as I willingly accept mistakes as the basic precondition of the human condition.
"Muscles," video animation, 1' (2011)
sound by Paul Rudy
"Ristorante Italia," video animation, 4' 30" (2007)
"Hair," video animation, 9" (2009)
All images courtesy Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Naples
Unfamiliar Idea of Rome
ink on paper, frame, tac, variable dimensions (installation view, AAR)2010
Unfamiliar Idea of Rome
ink on paper, dimensions variable2010
Unfamiliar Idea of Rome
ink on paper, dimensions variable2010
Unfamiliar Idea of Rome
ink on paper, dimensions variable2010
Unfamiliar Idea of Rome
ink on paper, dimensions variable2010
Sleep, drink and enjoy by myself
video animation, 8' 50"2010
Sleep, drink and enjoy by myself
video animation, 8' 50"2010
Sleep, drink and enjoy by myself
film still, video animation, 9' 10"2010
Il futuro non è più quello di una volta
(installation view, Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Naples)2009
Everything will be wonderfull someday
collage, 100 x 70 cm2009
No yet title 1
das, paper, balsa wood, light bulb, wood, 20 x 40 x 16 cm2008
No yet title 2
das, paper, balsa wood, light bulb, wood, 20 x 40 x 16 cm2008
No yet title 3
das, paper, balsa wood, light bulb, wood, 20 x 40 x 16 cm2008
The Hole
acrylic, plaster, variable dimensions, (installation view, "Mutiny Seemed a Probability," Fondazione Giuliani, Rome)2010
Gods must be crazy
mixed media on paper, insulating tape, map tacks, variable dimensions2008
Rappresentazione del materiale onirico
varnish, das, variable dimensions2008
"Hair"
film still, video animation, 9"2009
Coscienza Sociale
ink on paper, 49 x 29.5 cm2011
Coscienza Sociale (black)
ink on paper, 49 x 29.5 cm2011
Families
foam, acrylic, wool, variable dimensions2011 (ongoing project)
Marco Raparelli (b. Roma, 1975; lives and works in Rome) is one of the few in Italy that as an artist has used the style typical of comic illustration to create his own personal style and language. His drawings, paintings and animations are rendered with an apparently sketchy line that ultimately depicts subjects in a truer and more concrete way. These subjects do not “represent” but rather they present themselves to the world and for at least a few seconds everyone can be everybody. His characters stand out with all of their happiness “of being” on the screen or on the white background, in which the landscape of a beach, the corner of a street, a restaurant, or a living room is defined by a few lines. We may use “Pina” and her fiancé, frequently recurring characters in the works of Marco Raparelli, as examples, similar to the ideas expressed by the philosophy of Bruno Munari in his “Pensare confonde le idee” (Thinking confuses the ideas), a significant consideration in the work of Marco Raparelli’s. The world that emerges from his works is a one without a mask, at times melancholy or cynical, at times more dream-like, the outcome depends only upon the point of view of the spectator and on his approach to the fleeting passage of time.