Velato 2007

Enzo Cucchi made 'Velato' with paint, and you can tell he really went for it, laying down thick strokes that give the whole piece a kind of raw energy. Looking at the ear on the left, isolated like that, I imagine Cucchi was thinking about the act of listening, or maybe about how we perceive the world around us. The green figure on the right seems to be holding a box, but what’s inside? The earthy reds and golds against the dark greens give the painting a dreamlike quality, as if it has emerged from the subconscious. Cucchi's work has always felt like a conversation between the old and the new. He seems to be speaking to the history of painting while also pushing it forward. All of us artists are in an ongoing exchange, building on each other's ideas. For me, painting is about embracing the unknown, it’s about allowing for different interpretations, resisting a single, fixed meaning.