Crepuscolo Nfernale 2018

Roberto Ferri, who was born in 1978, painted "Crepuscolo Nfernale" in oils. Look at how Ferri has built this piece, the layering and the glazing. I imagine him in his studio, surrounded by sketchbooks, lost in thought. The process of constructing this canvas must have been really exciting, like coaxing the image into being, shifting from charcoal under-drawing to the finished result. What’s fascinating here is the fleshiness of the bodies, how the paint seems to ripple and almost breathe. I think the artist is in conversation with Caravaggio in the dramatic light and shadow, and the tension. The figures have this tactile quality—you feel the weight of the body, the slight awkwardness of the pose. Artists are constantly riffing off each other’s ideas throughout history, in the studio, looking, thinking, doing. Every artist builds upon the past, but ultimately must find their own way. Painting is just a kind of embodied expression, and that expression can be ambiguous, it can be uncertain, but it's always there.