IMAGO (VENICE LAGOON) 2019

Sergio Mario Illuminato made this painting, Imago (Venice Lagoon), using a muted palette with layered brushstrokes. I can imagine him, in the studio, maybe trying to find a place, not in a literal sense, but as a way of working through something. It’s a painting of blues and greys, with a surface that looks a little like corroded metal, or a distressed wall – the kind you see everywhere in Venice. The paint is dragged and scrubbed, and there are these holes revealing a pale underlayer, almost like stars in the night sky. The texture is uneven, the surface worked and reworked; look closely, you can see the history of the making, the artist’s decision-making process. The impasto is thick in places, but then scraped back in others, revealing previous layers, like a memory. I think it's a painting about seeing, but also about not seeing, about what is hidden and revealed, and it reminds us that painting is a way of thinking, feeling, and being in the world.