Christian Ehrentraut

Nicola Samori

25 Oct - 07 Dec 2013

© Nicola Samori
storia naturale (blessing), 2013
oil on wood
100 x 100 cm, 2013.
NICOLA SAMORI
Guarigione dell'ossesso
25 October - 7 December 2013

Samorì examines the theme of obsession from a number of different perspectives: that of the human body, religion, science, and the obsession of the artist with his own work. In his new paintings and sculptures he references art historical and biblical representations of 'the healing of the possessed'. Examples of such associations are Raphael's "Transfiguration", Jean-Martin Charcot, who "invented" the medical diagnosis of hysteria in his hospital in Paris in the late 19th Century, and Efisio Marini, an Italian scientist and physician who created rather unconventional sculptures from preserved corpses.

In the eponymous, large format painting on canvas, a figure is pierced by bars and struggles in front of a blurred group of figures in a mirroring of the practice of exorcism. In "Vomere", the largest installation piece on display, Samorì physically dissects a horizontal life-size portrait of a man on a table placed in front of a monumental copper-coated diptych; among the copper, a large group of viewers in an anatomical theater follow the spectacle. In other paintings Samorì works with meticulous detail, creating a collection of butterflies on wood or physically attacking his own images with surgical precision.
 

Tags: Nicola Samorì