Artist Statement:
In 1995, Paolo moved to Laguna Beach, California, to study at University of California Irvine, and subsequently to work as a network engineer for an nationwide Internet Service Provider (ISP). So how did Paolo develop his interest in art? In 2004 Paolo met renowned maestro Javier Alvarez Palomar in Laguna Beach CA, and from that point, art became Paolo's main interest. By 2005 he was dedicating himself to art on a full time basis. Maestro Javier Alvarez took him on journey of learning through classical and modern idioms, from the chiaroscuro to abstract expressionism, using different media: oil, acrylic, pastel, charcoal, watercolors. You can trace some of these explorations in the Archives section of this website. The teacher-student relationship soon developed into friendship, and to this day Maestro Alvarez remains a "lighthouse of art" for Paolo. Maestro Alvarez's approach to art is based on his conviction that, "I can teach you how to paint, but I can't teach you to paint: that is your personal engagement in art!" In 2006 Paolo moves to Trieste, Italy, where he studied with various local artists. An abstract painting from this period based on a view of the gulf of Trieste from Molo Audace become the cover of a book on the philosophy of Jacques Derrida in 2012. In 2010 Paolo moved to New York to study at the Art Student League, to which he was admitted as a full member 2011. At the League Paolo has worked with a range of artists always with a view to exploring different avenues of creativity and consolidating his own personal style: Costa Vavagiakis, Gary Sussman, Frank O'Cain, Bruce Dorfman are some of the artists Paolo have been studying with. Recognition for Paolo's art came from his earliest days at the League: on a number of occasions he has been awarded the jury's "Blue Dot" - for highly commended work - in class shows. He also received the Ruth Katzman Scholarship for the Artist-in-Residency Program at the League's Vytlacil Campus for 2012. Most recently, Paolo's journey of artistic exploration has led him to study mixed media with Bruce Dorfman. In so doing, Paolo's aim is to investigate the creation of pictorial space using the four key components of color, value, intensity and texture. Any one of these components might be assigned priority in a given work. In this most recent phase, Paolo's paintings become assemblages, where the canvas edges are often "broken" by different elements. Some of these works have a sculptural feeling, reminiscent of bas-relief. Despite the undeniably contemporary nature of these works, they preserve the classical elements of lines, planes, etching and cross-etching, albeit using a range of materials that includes unconventional elements such as copper and burlap. Glazing also has a fundamental importance in Paolo's work, creating the transparencies and translucencies he seeks. In short, his work encompasses modern composition and formal elements without abandoning key classical components.
