Hales Gallery is pleased to present Filippo Caramazza’s first solo show at the gallery.
The title of the exhibition, The Flutes of Impossible Shepherds, refers to a quote from The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet and writer, who utilized the literary device of Heteronymy; the creation of one or more imaginary characters created by a writer to work in distinctly different styles.
Caramazza calls upon the deep reserve of painting itself, not as relics of the past, or shards, but rather as reminders of the endlessness of signification embedded in these works. Masterpieces from the past are disassembled and reassembled, occasionally stripped bare to just one element. Many become beautifully painted still life of props or origami made from the pages of past auction catalogues. Others are trompe l’oeil of studio walls with taped postcards or blu tack and some become folded canvas, lumpy and obtuse.
We are presented with simulations of the almost endless catalogue of a museum of the mind, a veritable gallery of the image. The adventure of the image is both cast as entanglement but also as the potentiality of release, it is on this edge that the work steers its course. Each series appear to announce their unique posture in regard to painting and appropriation. It is not always clear what is at stake in this; is it a case of humour, cultural exhaustion, irony, or even a procession of despair?
Filippo Caramazza graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2008.