Pietro Dente

TOUGH AIR FOR THE PRETENCE OF AN URBAN VIEW... BEYOND THE ARTWORKS The collection "tough air for the pretence of an urban view" was born in 2008 as a result of a research I had done, till then, within an heterogeneous and exuberant experimentalism. Many have been, indeed, the artistic musical and personal experiences which led me there and here today. My first testing ground was obviously Arts School at Liceo Artistico Sacro Cuore in Padua where, thanks to the passionate and captivating teaching of some Professors, I realized that being and artist was the vocation of my life. Surrealism, Dadaism, Symbolism and Pop Art are the lands where I built my artistic vision. Mess, chance and the creative power left to agents located outside the author, the chaotic spontaneity of a production through the use of unconventional materials, surrealistic landscapes and Mirò’s unfinished movement are the theories that fascinated and influenced me the most, during my studying years at DAMS of Bologna. From here the creation of some series in which the artwork contemplated chaotic mixes of heterogeneous elements that got to unite into compact sets to which complex construction laws applied. In that same period, under the influx of John Cage’s compositions, I experimented the painting “by time”, where the possible mixes of materials and colors had to occur in a specific period of time, time that generated by itself and artistic moment. Yet in the following years I felt the need to introduce some distinctively figurative elements, so reaching an actual fusion of abstract into figurative, within an aesthetic which followed my personal and subjective rules. To achieve this I got engaged in various techniques for mixing primary and complementary colors which, taking the cue from Divisionism, flow into today’s creation of shades by overlapping and gradually removing coats of color. Besides, the choice of employing unusual materials led me to the creation of artworks which pour out from the canvas plane and hit the observer’s one, with a 3D invading powerfully the space and asserts its own independent existence. This experimentalism finds now its most complete expression in the application of polycarbonate plates over the canvas. Plates that I plastically “work”. Many have therefore been the phases through which my research took place, phases inspired by either sacred middle age art or by collage or by photography or by computer art. The art work of these days flow from a long and intimate re-elaborated version of various artistic influences: the urban views are transfigured and pushed away from the plane of reality through manipulation of shake and colours, to what becomes a surreal and fantastic and vivid vision of the world created by the man. The overlapping of multiple coats of colour and substance, corresponds to the multiple levels of which reality itself is made and its elements are combined following invisible but adamant rules, fixed time by time so to obtain an “organic” complex that becomes artistically expressive and independent. The presence of the third dimension, the amusement of assembling and overlapping, combining and dividing the different elements of reality is what brings me back to my inner child: to the joy and wonderful astonishment I felt when discovering the world around me. In fact, it is from a child that the title of my art work comes: one day on a train I heard a kid describing the window glass as “tough air”. So here is the polycarbonate plate as tough air, as solidification of that “I” that places itself between us and objective reality and transforms it. What I do hope everyone can gather from my art work is the stunning wonder for the world with its endless possibilities of being interpreted and with the freedom of re-creating and re-inventing it owned by children. | Pietro Dente was born in 1977 in Padua, where he attended the Sacro Cuore artistic secondary school and then continued his education at the D.A.M.S. in Bolonia studying Art and graduates in 2003 with a thesis in Artistic Literature Light: from representation to use. He extends his interests attending design, music and photography classes. After beginning with a mix of abstractism, surrealism, dadaism, computer-art and neo-medievalism, he starts to conceive a new technique which, thanks to his experience in metropolis like London and Berlin, became the current style of this artist. He creates paintings on two different layers: the first one is a polycarbonate sheet painted with debossed colours that represent colourful cities, while the second one is the underlying canvas painted with stratified acrylics and treated with special techniques. The two surfaces, uniting, create one composition where the layers blend with each other and result in news perceptive solutions. Moreover, the sheet is placed so that it creates a waving effect that comes out of the painting, giving it a third dimension; that put in contact the viewer with the work and creates ate the same time a mixture of lights and shadows that mutate as the viewer moves. He begin his expo career since 1996 with personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Among these are: Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam, Stoccolma, New York, Hong Kong, London with Galleria Palma Arte (PC), 2023; The Great Sublime, Fox yard studio, Stowmarket (UK), 2023; Seattle Art Fair & Art Market San Francisco with Galleria Palma Arte (PC), 2023; Profili, SAC – Spazio Arte Contemporanea, MI, 2022; St’Art Strasbourg, Galleria Palma Arte (PC), 2022; fiera ArtePadova, Galleria Berga, 2022; Affordable Art Fair Singapore, London, Amsterdam, New York, Stoccolma with Galleria Palma Arte (PC), 2022; Italy 35x35 Art Project, Copelouzos Family Art Museum, Athens, 2021; Share your time – Share your art, Emmeotto arte, Rome; Metropolitan Embedded Systems III, by Maria Giovanna Dal Tin, San Gregorio Art Gallery, Venezia, 2019; Just for dreamers, Federica Morandi Art Project, Magenta (MI) 2018; Urban waves, Galleria OrtArte, Orta San Giulio (NO), 2018; Affordable Art Fair Milano, Galleria Berga, 2018; Paratissima 14, Galleria Independent artists, Torino 2018, Pop Art: dai Grandi Maestri agli Artisti contemporanei, Federica Morandi Art Project, Magenta (MI) 2018; Art3f International Contemporary Art Fair, Galleria Independent artists, Luxembourg; Arte Vicenza 2018, Galleria Berga, Vicenza, Twelve Months of London, by Art Apartments and Meet Art Projects, Londra, 2017, Arte Padova, Galleria Zanini Arte (MN) 2017, Contemporary Art Fair Forlì-Cesena, Galleria Zanini Arte (MN), Metropolitan Embedded Systems II, by Maria Giovanna Dal Tin, San Gregorio Art Gallery, Venezi,a 2017; Lausanne Art Fair, Galleria Independent artists, Losanna (CH) 2017; Affordable Art Fair, Galleria Independent artists, Milano 2016; Metropolitan Embedded System, by Maria Giovanna Dal Tin, San Gregorio Art Gallery, Venezia 2015; Parametri urbani, by Thibault Arnet, Studio d’arte Interno 11, Bologna; Soggiorni d’arte, by Laura Bertollo, Numero 3 Discover, Londra; Policromie urbane in 3D, by Marino Massarotti, Zanini Contemporary Gallery, San Benedetto Po (MN) 2013; Il museo/gli artisti, Museo Internazionale del Vetro d’Arte e delle Terme, Montegrotto Terme (PD) 2013; Circuiti Dinamici 5, by StatArt, Milano 2013; Tough Air for the pretence of a urban-Venetian view, Hotel Villa Laguna, Venice Lido 2012; ArtePadova 2012, Padiglione 1, Stand 87, Fiera di Padova 2012; Aria dura per la finzione di uno scorcio urbano, by Elisabetta Gastaldi, Museo Internazionale del Vetro d’Arte e delle Terme, Montegrotto Terme (PD) 2012; permanent artwork to be found at Musei Civici agli Eremitani, Padova 2011; …Per la finzione di uno scorcio urbano, by Maria Beatrice Rigobello Autizi, Galleria Samonà, Padova 2011; The (un)real life/la realtà oltre il visibile, Galleria Cargo20, Verona 2010; New York New York, by Maria Beatrice Rigobello Autizi, Villa Nani-Loredan, Sant’Urbano (PD) 2010; Paesaggio?, by Luigina Mazzocca, presented by Luigina Bortolatto and Vittorio Caracuta, Galleria Arte & Media, Castelfranco Veneto 2010; Mondi Paralleli, ScalaMata, by Venezia Contemporanea, Venezia 2009; Galleria Spagnoli, Firenze 2008; Riciclarti, Padova 2008; Arte & Eros carnevale di Venezia, by Galleria III Millennio, Venezia 2008; God is a Tree Not a T.V. by Wayne Rasmussen, Brisban, Australia 2007; Oltre l’immagine del reale, by Carla d’Aquino, Galleria Maison d’Art, Padova 2007; World wide artists gallery, Roma 2005; Make Friends - not war!, Art Gallery Ripustus, Hameenlinna, Finlandia 2005; Mullan Gallery, Belfast 2003. - Prizes and awards: - Finalist at 25th Vittorio Viviani prize, Villa Brivio, Nova Milanese (MB), 2023. - Work mentioned at Combat Prize, Civic Museum Giovanni Fattori, Livorno,2021. - Finalist at the First edition at Exibart Prize, exibartlab srl, Rome, 2020. - Finalist at Premio Nocivelli, Chiesa della Disciplina, curated by Techne cultural association, Verolanuova (BS), 2019. - Winner of I° prize at Contemporary Art competition PlastiCreando, curated by DialogaCrea, stand Poliblend S.P.A., Plast Fair 2018, Milano - Rho. - Work mentioned at competition Arte in arti e mestieri, curated by Mauro Carrera, Fondazione Scuola di Arti e Mestieri "F. Bertazzoni", Suzzara (MN), 2018. - Finalist at competition Premio Mestre di pittura, curated by Circolo Veneto and MUVE, Centro culturale Candiani, Mestre (VE), 2018. - Winner of III° prize at 6° competition young talent for Ferrara dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni, curated by Francesca Mariotti and Elisabetta Antonioni, City Hall, Ferrara, 2017. - Winner of competition OfficinARS, curated by Gianantonio Cristalli, Mauro Carrera, Mauro Davoli, association Villa Sistemi Reggiana, Reggio Emilia, 2017. - Jury award for the originality at 3° competition young talent for Ferrara dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni, curated by Francesca Mariotti and Elisabetta Antonioni, Spazio d'arte l'Altrove, Ferrara, 2014. - Finalist at 2nd young talent contest of Ferrara dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni, by Francesca Mariotti and Elisabetta Antonioni, at Spazio d'arte l'Altrove, Ferrara. - Finalist at 18th Contemporary art national contest SaturARTE 2013, by Mario Napoli, at Satura art gallery, Genova. - Finalist at Florence-Shanghai Prize 2012-2013 contest (with “Tough air for the pretence of an urban view nr. 70 -New York) ” - Winner of 5th Contemporary Art Talent Show Prize (with “Tough air for the pretence of an urban view nr. 50 - Ground Zero”) at ArtePadova 2012 - Third place at SilentARTmovies Contest, at 6th “Festival Strade del Cinema”, Aosta, 2007