THE PRECIOUS AND REFINED ART OF RICCARDO ZANCANO
CRITICAL REVIEWS
In this section all the writings of the various art critics who have reviewed Riccardo Zancano’s works are available:
PRECIOUS FLIGHTS:
More real than reality, a pushed hyperrealism seeking perfection in colors, in the situation, in the captured moment, in the form, to go beyond the visible and arrive at a reflection on life, on Nature, on beauty, but also on fragility and weaknesses.
All aspects that are found in Riccardo Zancano’s paintings where, alongside an evident love and respect for the animal world, the artist focuses on the need to preserve and defend a Nature that is increasingly in check. Here then is “Hope” the defense of the last egg of the king penguin, standing on a strip of ice, while the partridge, camouflaged in the snow, tries to avoid “The ambush” at the hands of man, a metaphor for a coexistence is not always simple and peaceful.
But it is not only the man-nature relationship to be investigated, “The cycle of life” closely concerns every species, the predator, represented here by a bird with a magnificent colorful plumage, overwhelms the prey without delaying to feed. Survival therefore that concerns everyone independently, even the small tropical bird that rests its beak on the flower to suck its “Precious moment”, and the Toucan, comfortably lying among the “Drops of dew”, is ready to take flight when perceiving of a possible imminent danger.
All passages that Riccardo Zancano translates through a precious and effective painting, where the oil color, applied with wisdom, lends itself perfectly to interpreting a luxuriant and majestic Nature, with bright and saturated tones, enriched by precious and semi-precious gems, cut and worked by the artist himself and inserted with a precise meaning. Black onyx, green garnet, aquamarine, opals, diamonds, emeralds, tanzanite, mother of pearl define pupils, drops, leaves, small jutting and precious elements blend in between the brushstrokes, giving new light to the compositions. Thus the innocent “Temptations” of the robin, which lingers on the leaves, illuminated by Emeralds and transparent Aquamarine, under the watchful and threatening gaze of the crocodile, the Kingfisher and the strelitzia of “The contender (to beauty)”, united by themselves shapes and colors and both aimed at becoming unique holders of a deeper, more intimate beauty, such as that of the heart and soul.
Personal Exhibition Curator: Cristina Feresin – 2021
LIVING TOGETHER, A CRITICAL REVIEW BY THE ASSOCIATION SPOLETO ART:
Living Together by Riccardo Zancano depicts the stressful situation caused by a temporary event: covered in snow a bear and an owl and a lemming, real and outstanding characters, stare at the observer without a sign of movement. Hunt does not ensue inside the scene: the prey is elsewhere. Ours is the uneasiness, aroused by the inscrutable, magnetic eyes of the animals. Eyes emerging from the white snow thanks to the insertion of semi-precious stones.
A Critical Review by the Association Spoleto Art, March 2018
A CRITICAL REVIEW BY PROF. GIAN PIETRO ROCCHI:
Riccardo Zancano has many strings to his bow and a quiver full of arrows to arm his creative force. Darts and arrows made by alchemic knowledge applied to discover and invent new techniques. Oil painting enriched by insertion of precious stones. A figurative artist with a naturalistic flavor, elegant and refined thanks to the attention to detail and the use of gems such as aquamarine and amber – his favorite ones. The utmost care for detail and the use of special pigments let us understand his meticulous desire towards experiment together with his deeply-felt need to stir up emotions by giving shape to the process of his creation on canvas.
Sofisticate is also his choice of frames for his works: refined with gold leaf, baroque, speaking a classic- almost forgotten language.
His art is rich in oneiric introspection supported by technical experimentation, both essential ingredients for continuous and fruitful evolution.
Review by Professor Gian Pietro Rocchi, January 2018
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL PRESENTATION:
Riccardo Zancano was born in 1971 in Trieste, where he lives and works. Figurative artist, he devotes his chief activity to oil painting. Expert in precious stones and gem-cutting, he is able to give transparency to the crude, mineral matter thanks to the shine of fluid paints. The artist recognises in nature the maximum expression of beauty and is capable of trowing a particularly sensitive glance to analyse the smallest particular. Fond of spotting the minutest element, which human eye-sight often fails to distinguish, he devotes his utmost care to describe those meaningful details which add mystery to all things. To Riccardo Zancano detail cannot be reduced to single elements but must be referred to the whole, to be unified in total image. The suggestions he conjures up are returned to the observer through a macroscopic approach and acquire an autonomous value; thus the artist generates an innovative aesthetic, a praise of detail, which is far away from any common aesthetic criticism.
THE PRECIOUS ART OF RICCARDO ZANCANO:
Riccardo Zancano, born in Trieste in 1971, very well combines the materiality of precious stones with the fluidity of the liquid paints of oil painting. His artistic career is also very interesting. Initially Riccardo Zancano approached the world of art, drawing with special skill, precious jewellery objects. After having attended the first courses of Gemology and Cutting of precious stones, this art which was already well placed within his artistic potential, in 2002 he moved to Valenza Po, in the province of Alessandria, where in 2003 he obtained the title of ” Master of Art “in” Arte delle Pietre dure e delle Gemme “at the Istituto Statale d’Arte” B. Cellini ”in Valenza Po. This precious certificate of“ Maestro D’Arte ”allows him at the same time to attend important training stages in known Taglierie of precious stones, thus starting to work indirectly for the most renowned Italian jewellery brands. This incisive formative path allows him to realised in Trieste, his city, a small private workshop for cutting precious stones. In 2007 the light and colours of precious stones awaken in his soul, another great passion which is that for oil painting. The solidity of the material combined with the fluidity of the same, allow it to express itself completely and complementary to the banner of color, aesthetics and preciousness. They are fragments of the poetic soul of the artist that succeed in this way to materialize and to manifest. Between 2009 and 2012 he continued his educational studies, with the clear and determined will to be able to evolve at his best, achieving the Diploma of Secondary High School in “Pictorial Decorations” at the Art Institute “U.Nordio” of Trieste.
In 2014 he attended the courses of “Drawing of nude” at the Comic Academy of Trieste, where he perfected the charcoal, sanguine and acrylic technique on cardboard. The art of Zancano succeeds in this way to combine the classicism of the cut of precious stones with the contemporaneity of the pictorial expression. Precious stones constitute a set of materials of different origins that are likely to be worked to increase both the aesthetics and the value. You can define precious stones or gems all those species of mineral varieties that consequently can be used in jewelery works as a result of cutting and polishing. Among the many gems, in reality the rarity of these natural rough stones is determined by the combination of three fundamental factors: the purity, the intensity of the color and their weight. Subsequently the fourth fundamental factor will also take over after the processing of the raw ore, ie the type and quality of the cut, which will ultimately determine their preciousness. Zancano uses these skills, as a gemstone cutter, to associate them with other qualities and finally to create a richer and more complete form of painting. From this union of different artistic techniques some of his works have originated such as: “The cycle of life” created in 2008, with oil on canvas and semi-precious stones, onyx and garnet-tzavorite. This was his first pictorial work and has a size of 40 × 30 cm. To follow among his other creations “Gocce di Dio” made with oil on canvas and semi precious stones, such as aquamarine, opal, copal, amber, onyx and chrysoprase. This work created in 2014 has dimensions of 50 × 50 cm.
Then again the work: “Precious instant” made with oil on canvas and precious stones, such as emerald, tanzanite (the artist’s favorite gemstone), tourmaline-rubellite, topaz, tzavorite-garnet and to these Riccardo Zancano also associated the two diamonds to further enhance its preciousness. The work was realized in 2014 and has a size of 35 × 25 cm. The subjects of these works portray birds, including the toucan, reproduced through a thousand colorful shades that the artist minutely composed through the reproduction of a variegated and polychrome plumage, in order to present a vision as realistic and true as possible. The stones, added on oil on canvas, after having been worked and cut in small dimensions, contribute to complete the pictorial work and Zancano uses them to give greater vivacity to the look, in such a way that the eye can seem very alive and gleaming. Another peculiarity of Riccardo Zancano’s works is to invite the observer to “search” for precious stones that are camouflaged in the colours of the painting itself, almost like a game, often traceable and attributable to very specific concepts. The solution to the puzzle will be revealed by looking at the work from a different side perspective, so as to quickly identify the exact location of the applied stones.
Poetic suggestions inspired by love
CRITICAL TEXT BY RICCARDO ZANCANO:
Riccardo Zancano’s pictorial experience is identified with a search for images linked to a naturalism with magical and poetic figurative cadences, from a sequence of emotional sensations, which attest to the value of a drawing technique with a wise and skilled structural orchestration and a expressive investigation, which is expressed in a consolidated artistic maturity and in a stylistic structure that is always controlled, calibrated and considered in every detail. Zancano operates under the banner of a painting, which finds its driving force in the orientation prone to realism and hyper-realism. Nothing is ever entrusted to sheer executive randomness, nor to an uncontrolled and not meditated realization gesture upstream. Looking at his works, one perceives a happy and harmonious compositional synthesis of the whole, an ability to transmit deeper and deep-rooted inner emotions in the paintings and to give representations an emotional tension, which runs through them and animates them with vital own motion. The emotion that he transfers to the creations belongs to an experimental and dynamic investigation, to a vision of things, which fascinates the observer with graceful, sober and refined elegance, identifying a narrative page of slight and gentle lyricism and at the same time of mysterious contemplation. His is a painting that, while remaining firmly anchored to figurative matrix evocations, goes beyond and beyond the circumscribed and delimited boundaries of pure aesthetic impact to enter the space of imagination, fantasy and dream, urging the viewer to a free and unconditional interpretation and offering multi-faceted reading keys.
Painting acquires its own distinctive expressive value, like a “virtual writing” by images, made with a palette, a suggestion that transforms it into elaborates of authentic and painstaking creative and executive skill, also making use of the use of precious precious stones , set in the works with a completely new and special processing, of its own exclusive application. An atmosphere of delicate suspension can be seen, a pristine and almost enchanted dimension, which acts as a frame for the protagonists and envelops the settings. The expressive desire to fix a thought, a feeling, an emotion, a set of colors, signs and forms can be seen, describing and enclosing in the pictorial space the “magic” of being and existence. The artist “s’inbria” of creative pathos and the viewer looks at the work done, consisting of silent languages but no less eloquent, deliberately kept a little hidden and hidden and approaches the narrative proposed as absorbed in front of the transfigured inner landscape , which becomes a symbolic landscape of contemplative reflection and meditation. It is as if the viewer were thinking about nature and the wonders of creation immersed in a timeless, perennial and perpetual atmosphere, where even the background silence is never “empty”, but is “a subject” and “a “entity” in itself and itself becomes an irreplaceable and indispensable “reciting voice” within the scenic platform.
In Zancano’s art this vision rises to the meaning of paradigm and pictorial parabola of space, time, life, the meaning of existence. Nature is conceived as a place-symbol of “spiritual nourishment” and the creatures that inhabit it are “celestial beings”, which reach out and hover towards a thought of eternity, the thought of an ideal reality, to be protected, guarded and protect. Zancano’s pictorial poetics therefore turns to nature and the series of narrative components is extremely thoughtful and heartily internalized and is supported by the quality and depth of a careful analysis and expressive investigation, which guarantees an overall rendering of optimal scenic construction . His “calm, calm and thoughtful” art is supported and guided by technical and instrumental research and by the gentle and cultured reflective projection, which translates into a philosophy of life and thought and which contributes to making more expressive, to corroborate, to switch on and power up the representations in an “exquisite” manner. For him painting means to evoke places of memory and dreamlike paradise settings, where the triumph of the colored rainbow illuminates the scenery and everything that is enveloped by the “feeling” of nature and the “feeling” of enchanted time. An almost mystical time, symbolically “Proustian”, intense and impregnated by the scent of the seasons, by feelings, by memories, by emotions. A time of searching for fragrances, smells, flavors, extraordinary moments to live in the midst of nature. The magical poetry of the colors of nature, with the intensity of light and the luminous transparencies of chiaroscuro effects, allow us to obtain effects of surprising realism and accentuation
PRESS RELEASE:
Inaugurated by Vittorio Sgarbi, the collective exhibition at the Canova Museum Gipsoteca houses the creations of Riccardo Zancano
Written by the press office on 10 May 2015. Published in Art, Culture
There are only a few days to go until the highly anticipated collective exhibition “Contemporary Art Expo”, set up in the secular context of the Canova Gipsoteca Museum in Possagno (TV) from 9 May to 2 June 2015. The inauguration is scheduled for Saturday 9 May, at at 18.30, and will see the extraordinary presence of the renowned Prof. Vittorio Sgarbi, appointed official ambassador of the Expo, which on the occasion will hold a prestigious guided tour of the Museum. The organization of the event is by the manager of culture Salvo Nugnes, president of the cultural association “Spoleto Arte”.
In the exclusive selection of artists taking part in the exhibition, Riccardo Zancano from Trieste will also be present. Zancano is an original painter: the main subject of his paintings is nature, which he represents with bright colors and particular chiaroscuro effects, which illuminate the pictorial background, enriched also by the use of precious stones, applied on the canvas in an authentic way and directly obtained from the artist with raw ore. His paintings, characterized by profound harmony and compositional balance, fascinate the spectator, who remains almost rapt in front of the represented nature, immersed in a magical and enchanted atmosphere, perennial and timeless.
About the distinctive style of Zancano says Dr. Elena Gollini: “Between reality and fantasy, the paintings are transformed into persuasive pictorial“ fairy tales ”with clean and essential and at the same time strongly symbolic images, the result of inner stimuli, which stimulate the act of painting and come together with introspective sensitivity and the capacity for acute observation, in a complete and articulated dialogic relationship. Accepting the romantic and sentimental sense of things and savoring the essence of nature, Zancano fully understands its “vital breath”: the flight of a bird in the beating of wings, the hatching of a flower, the thrill of a leafy branch and dewy, celebrating the sublime beauty and the charm of a suspended time, which transports things from reality to the dream vision “.
Tags: artist, long-awaited collective exhibition, creations, inauguration, Canova Gipsoteca Museum, works, protagonist, Riccardo Zancano, renowned exhibition, Vittorio sgarbi
By Dr. Elena Gollini
PRESS RELEASE:
successfully inaugurated the exhibition organised by “Spoleto Arte”, Riccardo Zancano among the known to exhibit
Written by the press office on May 14, 2015. Published in Art, Culture
The evening held on Saturday 9 May 2015 at the Canova Gipsoteca Museum in Possagno was a great success for the inauguration of the “Contemporary Art Expo” exhibition. The exclusive event was organized by the culture manager, as well as president of “Spoleto Arte”, Salvo Nugnes, and saw the extraordinary participation of the famous art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, who brilliantly guided the guests on a visit among the enchanting works of the great neoclassical artist Antonio Canova.
One of the exhibiting artists at the exhibition, which will be open to the public with free admission until June 2, is Riccardo Zancano, with his prized work entitled “Precious instant”.
Dr. Elena Gollini states with reference to her original way of painting: “Painting acquires its own distinctive expressive value, like a“ virtual writing ”by images, made with a palette, a suggestion that transforms it into authentic works of art and meticulous skill and creative and executive precision, making use also of the use of precious precious stones, set in the works with a completely new and special processing, of its own exclusive application. An atmosphere of delicate suspension can be seen, a pristine and almost enchanted dimension, which acts as a frame for the protagonists and envelops the settings. The expressive desire to fix a thought, a feeling, an emotion, a set of colors, signs and shapes can be seen, describing and enclosing in the pictorial space the “magic” of being and existence. The artist gets into the creative pathos and the viewer looks at the work done, consisting of silent but no less eloquent languages, deliberately kept a little hidden and hidden, and approaches the narrative proposed as absorbed in front of the transfigured inner landscape, which it becomes a symbolic landscape of contemplative reflection and meditation. […] In the art of Zancano this vision rises to the meaning of paradigm and parabola of space, time of life, sense of existence “.
Tags: Canova Gipsoteca Museum, Riccardo Zancano, Vittorio sgarbi
By Dr. Elena Gollini
CRITICAL TEXT BY RICCARDO ZANCANO:
The artistic world of Riccardo Zancano is expressed through the lyrical spirit, which envelops and foresees each of his pictorial compositions. Bright, light, vibrant with vital dynamism and delicate tones and poetic contour accents, the painted atmospheres are a concrete testimony of the movement of the soul and of the marked sensitivity, which guide it in the creative act.
His painting is a symbolic hymn to nature, to the beauty of creation, to the joy of living and making art. The symbolic and chromatic elements, of elegant and refined declination and intonation, are combined in a balanced compositional balance together with precious stones, wisely set inside the figurative representation, which accentuate the original and not usual expressive formulation of meaningful scenic intensity.
by Dr. Elena Gollini
MONOGRAPHY OF RICCARDO ZANCANO:
Creator of ideas is an extremely particular definition which, however, reflects the art and the path of Riccardo Zancano, a master of art from Trieste who has come to painting almost randomly.
The coincidences have always represented a capital punctum in the life of Zancano, who was born, artistically, as a precious stone cutter, bringing his research into the world of jewelery, a universe that draws its roots from the late prehistory and, through courses and appeals, it mutates the style in continuous metamorphosis of the culture and the society it represents. An art that makes precision, the conception of stylistic features and the search for detail, its starting and ending point. Zancano, to this, added the gemological knowledge, the art of cutting precious and semi-precious stones that he transposed into painting.
The first degree of translation, from the ideal to the material, takes place already in the phase in which Zancano, personally, chooses, with extreme care, the rough stones that will then be dispensers of an evolved beauty, derived from the cutting phases that the artist himself will go to make and that, transformed, then, in jewels, they will go to accompany and enhance others beauties. How do we get, however, from the passion for gemology to painting? The case, once again, intervened by acting on the nature of a man who loves challenges, who exalts his ego by facing the difficulties that are the basis of the new and the unknown. After learning the gemological and cutting techniques, carrying on this extraordinary activity for about fifteen years, an unexpected gift, a painting course, aroused in Zancano the most fervent curiosity. The commitment with which he faced the new challenge, at times impervious road, has seen him, then, become “Master of art”. However, the jagged paths of life have, for some time, moved away from painting.
What could be called an artistic curriculum and that sees different experiences emerge also in the theatrical and cinematographic field, have allowed Zancano to validate and expand more and more the eclecticism and the multi-faceted personalities that make it, precisely, a person, and therefore, an artist, yes polyhedral.
The period between 2007 and 2008 marked the moment in which Zancano transformed his curiosity for painting into a real journey, which saw him and still sees him, constantly searching for new singular experiences.
The artist is fascinated and fascinated by the ideological and conceptual incursions that he carries out his works on average. He is creating a path that, remembering his theatrical and cinematographic experiences, becomes episodic. In fact, Zancano approached painting, strictly oil-based, after experimenting with his charcoal drawing and the technique of sanguine, almost methodically, for his creative cutting studies.
His being and defining himself as a creator of ideas, must be inserted in a context through which the artist faces the themes of everyday life, of the conscious, dictated by an extreme curiosity towards the world, his stories, observed under the lens of an inspiration intimate and personal. The episodicity must be seen in the choice, so far carried out, to create several works in the shape of trilogies.
The idea of the number three, which, in Zancano does not cover any hidden symbology, lets emerge, however, the desire to conclude a narrative in the form of painting, a conceptual discourse that is born, grows and affirms itself in a circular path. A reference that finds its parallel in the primordial roots of creation.
The trilogies made by Zancano, which places his art in continuous evolution, are born under the sign of different formal choices. The first works, belonging to the trilogy entitled “Proof color”, already successfully presented at the Farini Gallery, on the occasion of the artist’s first extramoenia exhibition experience, were born under the aegis of an attachment to the stylistic features of Hyperrealism, while, in succession, the path is turning towards a dreamlike Surrealism which, however, turns, again, in the direction of a new naturalism, which sees the forms of the nude as being at the center of the work, in multiple conceptual values. These forms are alternated by those of a journey that confronts our history, our time, the interrogations that man poses or should ask himself, in an epoch so conjunctural and completely unclear to those who, like us, experience it , often leaving themselves overwhelmed by events that seem inexplicably far from what should happen in a civilised society.
In all these multiple ways of traversing art, Zancano always poses, as a common thread of his production, the idea, strong, of the game, of the rebus, a dialogical act which makes it the link between the space of ideation and that of fruition, midpoint between self and the observer.
By Azzurra Immediato
