Like Schrödinger’s cat, the figures populating the canvases of Italian painter Patrizio Di Massimo’s paintings exist in two potential states at once. In his newest exhibition, Close at Hand at François Ghebaly Gallery, time/space freezes in each of the five paintings on view, creating a pseudo quantum superposition. There is an antagonist and protagonist in each melodramatic mise-en-scène—the antagonist caught ‘red handed’—their deeds immortalized in paint. Unsettlingly it is up to the viewer to decide the final resolution of the narratives.
For one example, in the painting Mum’s Floral Robe (2020) two figures are suspended in a state of struggle at the pinnacle of action/reaction. A female figure leans over a sofa, grabbing the “mum” in the scene by the scruff of her robe. The antagonist female figure also has her hand suspended in the air, as the mother screws up her face in theatrical terror. When initially viewed, this appears as the millisecond before a violent act. Yet when scrutinized further, the faces seem comical and playful, as if they’re only play fighting.
Patrizio di Massimo, The Island, 2020.
Two bathing-suit-clad figures inhabit The Island (2020). A man lays seemingly dead at the forefront of the painting, splayed on a rock face, his arms opened at awkward angles and red blood pooling underneath his head. A woman is perched unabashedly above the man on a cliff and facing the ocean—she removes an article of clothing while basking in the breeze and brilliant sun. The discontinuity between the figures make the viewer wonder how connected they are? Is this the moment immediately following a vicious murder, or is the woman basking in blissful ignorance?
Installation view, Patrizio Di Massimo, Close at Hand, 2021, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles
As stated in the press release the series was “completed over the course of fluctuating waves of lockdown… [and] shows the unruly side of intimate vicinity, especially when imposed under duress.” Each paintings offers more questions than answers. As indicated by the name of the show, the hands of each character in the paintings offer an implied theatricality which suggests a mock-reality, humorously representative of one of the oddest years in recent memory.
Patrizio di Massimo: Close at Hand
May 22 — June 19, 2021
All photographs by Paul Salveson. Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly Gallery.
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