There is a hieratic quality in Marcello Concari’s works that is at once harsh and delicate: at times medieval, with metal armor despite leather, as in that pillow isolated from any spatial context where the everyday object is raised to an almost chivalrous icon.

There seems to be a prying but secret eye obsessively spying on the corners of things, living rooms, bedrooms. And that what it looks at are equally macabre, murderous corners, from where it exhales a sinister presence. Icastic is the detail of two cold metallic blue pillows, which seem to speak, glacial. The objects depicted seem to talk by remaining silent, or rather exhaling: no human beings are needed to animate them, they are more intentional and meaningful than the latter. 

It seems, likewise, that the sin and the unmentionable that takes place here, intimates to remain concealed and that he has therefore been able to paint it only in part, dutifully leaving the rest out.
It's a thriller painting. 

And this scrutinizing eye, Concari uses at times like a finger, poking into the cracks created by the depressions between one cushion and another of the sofa, or under a pink silk cushion, a crack chosen so crucially punctual, a point of view so meticulously close. The pleated folds, descending austerely. 

It seems, also, that in a conceptual transposition of voids into solids, the empty seats he depicts are the solids of those who sat in them, who molded them: and that not only is there still their passage imprinted, but that the same turgid swelling of the sofa cushions is the swelling of their flesh, which we can guess at.

It is a material revolution, where the object acquires human presence and the human object presence, each the cast of the other.

Hi Marcello! And welcome to Coeval magazine. I would be curious to know about your artistic path, I know that you come from a background in architecture. What pushed you toward artistic creation and, do you feel you have found your way with it?

First of all, thank you for the kind words. I really appreciated the introduction you wrote, to me, the interview could have ended there already.
I started painting five years ago, but it felt like a continuation of something that began years earlier through various music projects. I was lucky enough to work with incredibly talented people and some of these collaborations are still going on today. That’s something very important to me.

What do you consider yourself to be, if you had to describe you in three words?

I like this question, it reminds me of the kind of interviews they used to do on early 2000s reality shows. In Italy, there was this program called The Club where they’d interview people in nightclubs trying to help them find love, and this was one of their go-to questions.

The details you choose for your representations are extremely calibrated. What internal dictates do you follow to select and isolate your subjects, such as a pillow, the detail of a used bedding, or that of a leather stiletto heel, or an entire couch? Why, then, the obsession with the sofa (and bedding), perhaps because of the texture they create? And for the leather? What do you search for?

Thank you.
I try to paint subjects that interest me, to create an image that closely matches the idea I have in mind. I like not being too explicit, leaving a certain ambiguity in the work.
As for the framing, I’m very focused on the relationship between canvas and image, and I spend a lot of time figuring out how to position the elements within the limits of the canvas, until it feels right. The same thing happens during the painting process: when I no longer find anything in the image that bothers me, I know I’m done.
As for repetition, I think it's inevitable - and honestly, the only way I can work. I like repetition. I even order the same thing every time I go to a restaurant.

Does my description in the introduction to this interview, concerning your art practice, resonate with you? What do you think about it?

Yes, you did a great job.

What iconographies do you draw inspiration from?

There are many iconographies, many imaginaries that interest me, often very far from one another. I’m not sure they directly inspire my work, but it’s inevitable that they get reflected in what I do.

From what path does the technical choice of hyperrealism come? Why do you prefer it to others?

I don’t actually consider my work as hyperrealistic. What I aim for is a kind of realism that avoids personal painterly gestures and instead gives the image a generic aesthetic, a sense of cohesion. I like when the work has a visual quality that’s easily approachable. It’s like a final layer over the whole piece, something that both reveals and conceals what’s underneath.

Which of your works do you feel most connected to, which is most responsive to your poetics?

I’m quite attached to all the pieces I have done.

Your absolute favorite sofa or bed (or sofa-bed), if you had any budget to buy it - or any means to get it?

To be honest, I’ve never really owned a sofa, or almost never. I don’t have a strong interest in or knowledge of sofas, beds, etc. But that’s a good question. One of the first sofas I ever painted was based on an image I found in an eBay listing - it was $100. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available.

Can you describe your typical day in the studio?

I usually wake up pretty late and start painting around 2 p.m. until about 8. If I don’t go out in the evening, I keep painting until around 2 a.m., then take a shower and go to bed.

Exciting futuristic plans?

I'm starting a new series of works that I hope to complete by the end of this year.

MARCELLO CONCARI

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Photography by CARLA SCHLEIFFER

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Interview by LAVINIA PROTA

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