The Possessed

Ryan Mendoza

curated by Vincenzo Trione

06.03.10 | 28.06.10

From March 6th, 2010 the Madre Museum will host the exhibition  The Possessed by Ryan Mendoza, curated by Vincenzo Trione.
The exhibition will consist of 13 large canvases, a gallery of individuals revealing the uncommon technical and composition skill of the American artist. Ryan Mendoza – who settled in Naples years ago after long stays in Berlin and Paris – borrows techniques, solutions and artifices from the masters of art history. He develops complex theatricalities, shapes anatomies, measures colours, calibrates lights. He draws on a rich archive of memories, though he never lapses into anachronism: in his paintings the “ancient” pictorial skill is always counterbalanced by daring contemporary elements. Mendoza performs distortions and alterations: he displays perspective disproportions, reveals anatomical dissonances, shows dystonias between the characters in the foreground and the backgrounds. The “possessed” are seemingly normal figures, yet haunted by worries, anxieties, wicked thoughts. The comédie humaine is turned into a scandalous journey, filled with Freudian references.
Ryan Mendoza, the creator of these extreme visual tales, hovers between the need to idealize and the urge to experiment. He is considered as one of the up-and-coming personalities in the contemporary art scene, a unique case in the art world of the past few years, which has become more and more dominated by the need to regain the discipline of painting with a modern approach. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue – published by Electa – with essays by Vincenzo Trione, Tiziano Scarpa, Milan Kundera and a conversation between Maurizio Braucci and Ryan Mendoza.
 

BOOKSHOP

Ryan Mendoza

Electa - 2010
Price € 30.00