(Morciano di Romagna 1946–lives and works in Castelleale de San Clemente)

Untitled. 1995.

Oil and gold on canvas.

Signed and dated on the reverse: P. SERRA 95.

89 x 89 cm.

Provenance:
- Galerie Triebold, Rheinfelden (verso with the label).
- By descent to the present owner, since then private collection Switzerland.

His monochromatic and dichromatic pictures investigate the surface tensions, the two-dimensional textures, which are created through a special way of applying the paint, as well as the constant theme of essentialism.

Serra’s oeuvre is characterised by the search for an absolute technical perfection, and his masterly handling of colour. He still mixes his colours mostly himself, following the old methods of binding egg yolk with pigment and he often uses gold leaf or lacquer paint on wood, in order to lend depth and substance to his mostly monochrome surfaces. His choices of materials are witness to a great interest and indeed almost a sense of obligation with regard to artistic methods of production of past centuries. He equally alludes to traditional painting techniques in combination with mathematical-scientific principles. His recurring motifs – the circle, the square, the rectangle, both in the image and the boundaries of the picture, are subject to principles derived from the Fibonacci series. In Serra’s works each distance corresponds either to a number from this series, its sum, or a multiplication (Galerie Henze Ketterer, Basel. Paolo Serra: Variazioni sulla serie di Fibonacci, 2005). For the execution of the work, the artist produces as many as several hundred wafer thin layers of paint or lacquer. Through this drawn-out process of layering Paolo Serra creates a painting which is quite free and almost left to chance, until he gets close to the desired result and he is satisfied with it. Should the need arise, he will carry out some fine tuning, until in his eyes it achieves the right degree of perfection. The concept of essentialism is a recurring thought in Paolo Serra’s works.

His works become individual entities, which must yield some necessary characteristics and creative processes, so that they can then function as art.