Artist Tom Porta will be present at the gallery for the opening of the exhibition ‘Il sentiero delle muse’ (The Path of the Muses), where he will create several works live.
The main hall will host an exhibition entirely dedicated to the artist’s smaller works: brand new black and white sketches, famous preparatory sketches, and charming small-scale oil paintings on canvas that depict distant worlds.
Tom Porta presents us with a modern version of the Japonisme beloved by artists of the mid-19th century, and we become spectators of a suspended world that speaks to us of values and codes. His technique is flexible yet impeccable, his brushstrokes rapid and capable of enhancing the colours, shadows, shapes and spirituality of the worlds he depicts.
We look forward to seeing you on Thursday, 4 December at 6 p.m. for the exhibition opening, where you can meet artist Tom Porta at the gallery’s main location at Via Chiabrera 33r.
THE ARTIST
Tom Porta was born in 1966 in Milan, where he lives and works.
Since childhood, Tom Porta has shown a strong aptitude for drawing and the arts in general. He graduated as a Master of Arts and began a successful career in illustration and photography. Tom has lived in Italy, Germany, France, Japan and the United States, and since the beginning of his career, he has chosen to blend his life experiences into his painting.
Since 2003, Tom has been painting full-time, putting photography and illustration aside for a while, entering important collections as well as auctions such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Ranked among the top 100 Italian artists, Porta has been invited to participate in 500 Years of Italian Painting, a collection spanning from the late 1500s to the present day.
His work focuses on the history of the 20th century, using the past as a mirror of the present, as shown in his highly successful series ‘Shinpu Tokkotai Project’, inspired by the Japanese Kamikaze.
The artist is also fascinated by the passage of time, the marks left on objects, the wear and tear that time leaves in its wake. There is no such thing as a casual observer, and distraction is literally pulverised by the power of the brushstrokes, the choice of subjects, the framing, and the colours, which are like vital breaths.
Il suo lavoro si concentra sulla storia del XX secolo, utilizzando il passato come specchio del presente, come dimostra la sua serie di grande successo “Shinpu Tokkotai Project”, ispirata ai kamikaze giapponesi.
L’artista è anche affascinato dal passare del tempo, dai segni lasciati sugli oggetti, dall’usura che il tempo lascia dietro di sé. Non esiste un osservatore casuale, e la distrazione è letteralmente polverizzata dalla potenza delle pennellate, dalla scelta dei soggetti, dall’inquadratura e dai colori, che sono come respiri vitali.
His work is both a story told and food for thought…
His journey continues, arriving at what is his natural harbour: man’s worst invention, WAR. He does so with the project W.A.R. – We Are Restless, the unheard soldier scream.
As a guest of the La Storia in Piazza event at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, with a solo exhibition of 20 canvases dedicated to his vision of war, its pettiness and the desperate heroism of its iconic interpreters, Tom can truly speak to us. He clearly shows us his ongoing research, which, now more than ever, is full of works and exhibitions that see him as the interpreter of a great and original civil thought.
In September 2011, Porta was invited by the Venice Biennale, curated by Prof. Sgarbi, to the latest artistic selection hosted by the city of Turin. He participated with two works: the latest from Extinction III and a preview of his upcoming 2012 exhibition, with the work The End. He ended 2011 by participating in a group exhibition, Mario Giusti Picks, with six canvases, at the HQ-HEADQUARTER space in Milan, followed by many group exhibitions and a solo exhibition in Bologna with 22 canvases in May 2013: ODISSEY, ten years after 2003-2013.
In October 2013, he returned to Milan and exhibited six works as part of the group exhibition La grande Magia. 2014 was his American year: Porta landed with great success in California.
After the preview at the Famedio in Milan in November 2014 of six canvases from his new exhibition, INFERNO, 1914-2014, for the centenary of the First World War, he debuted with the same exhibition at the Famedio.
