Belsito

Concerned with what he calls the ‘poetics of availability’, Marco Palmieri’s paintings employ a visual lexicon of simultaneous grace and banality to refashion emblems of luxury familiar from package holiday brochures. The charm of his works lies in the fleeting, private poetry of their gestures towards familiar images: palm trees, seashells and Grecian busts are distilled in intimate shorthand. In their moment of playful connection these forms are removed from the fantasies projected by the tourist industry and imbued with an idiosyncratic liveliness. The elegant fluidity of Palmieri’s lines and forms also relates to his conception of ‘historical androgyny’ – the idea that an artwork can contain the essence of various eras at once. Palmieri himself, who was born in Oklahoma, resides in Rome, a modern city alive with the depth of history and cross-pollination of cultures. The title of the pale and luminous painting Belsito is the name of a coastal town in Calabria, southern Italy. At its centre, a female form emerges from a flickering magazine page. Her sinuous shape conjures Matisse and ancient sculpture as much as an advert for beachside getaway; the background’s rush of graphic motion in soft grey, fawn and blue tones has echoes of both digital design and Futurism, blending abstraction with figuration in a smooth cocktail of sensual allure.