Marco Useli is a painter, engraver and designer whose research focuses on the formal experimentation of the artistic work, the exploitation of environmental resources and the use of tools that have a strong impact on nature.
At Tempo al tempo, the artist exhibits a series of monotypes in various sizes, a technique that best represents his art which oscillates between painting and printing. Drawing the image on a smooth metal or glass plate, the artist then transfers his drawing directly onto a sheet of paper.
Four of the monotypes are on display at the exhibition, measuring approximately two metres in length and one metre in height, which together with eight other sheets form a single work entitled Breve storia dell’imperizia (‘A Short History of Incompetence’, 2020).
Each monotype relays an episode from the mythological epic poem The Metamorphoses by Ovid, where the great poet celebrated the figure of Phaethon, the youngest son of Apollo who lost control while driving his father’s sun chariot and was then struck by lightning by Zeus, who was upset by the destruction the young men provoked by getting too close to the Earth.
The four sheets displayed in San Vito al Tagliamento are not presented as parts of a polyptych but as single fragments. The monotypes undergo a metamorphosis, and are no longer pieces of a puzzle but unique works, rich in meaning and strong images.
The title of each panel directly connects the visitor to the scene represented and taken from the poem: Il sole che arde ogni cosa e brucia la terra (‘The sun that blazes everything and burns the earth’), Il lampo devastante di Zeus (‘The devastating lightning of Zeus’), Mandala sulle otto montagne (‘Mandala on the eight mountains’) and Piroo (‘Peirous’).
Useli creates unique images that require the observer’s gaze to see beyond the landscape represented. The artist articulates through his imprint, layered volumes, ephemeral surfaces and graphic signs to relate with space, time and matter.
Two other monotypes, smaller in size, are added to the four sheets displayed, entitled Horses (2019) and Moments of Blue (2019). In these works, the focus of the artist’s research is evident in the rigorous calculation of the compositional structure and the study of the elementary forms of the landscape.
In Marco Useli’s printing, the imprint of his painting is always perceptible: the irregular painted backgrounds visible on his sheets seem generated by rollers impregnated with paint that in the continuity of a single gesture, are repeated in trails that gently change through various passages.
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Marco Useli is a painter, engraver and designer. He was born in Nuoro in 1983, and after receiving a high school diploma from the school of art, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence in 2007. In 2010 he moved to Milan where he attended a specialised postgraduate course on stone building architecture and design (Architettura in Progettazione contemporanea con la pietra) at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
Since 2012 he has been a member of Milano Printmakers where he develops research in graphic art and, since 2017 he has continued his research at his atelier in Dorgali (Nuoro) where he hosts exhibitions as well as painting and engraving workshops.
He currently lives in Milan, where he collaborates with Italian art galleries and works as an art printmaker at the MPM.
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