Exhibition curated by Tanja Lelgemann
25 November to 18 December 2016
Opening 24 November 2016, 6pm
In the field of neuroscience, pareidolia is an ancestral human reflex that causes us to recognise faces or forms with a familiar meaning in randomly-shaped objects or outlines, based on our instinct and need to identify them as rapidly as possible, almost unconsciously.
Stefano Iraci’s pictorial language draws on multi-cultural primordial and hypermodern influences. A little like Rorschach tests, his black forms on flat fields of colour suggest the presence of continually transforming figures and stories, because painting, like music, gives the imagination free reign to travel between infinite and ever-evolving interpretations. So his works inspire a mental process of reflection and meditation: once freed from the need for semantic decoding, viewers can lose themselves in the creative vacuum of chromatic contemplation.
Stefano Iraci portrays the contemporary awareness of great environmental and social shifts without fear or reserve. He was born in Rome in 1959, and continues to live and work in the city. Iraci has a strong background in the human sciences in addition to his artistic training. The human body is a key subject in his work, and one that he studied in depth by attending classes in anatomy and other subjects at medical schools, before obtaining a doctorate in epithelial biology. Since 1998, he has shown his works in various European cities at private galleries (Abraço Gallery/Lisbon, Frank Pagès Gallery/Baden Baden) public institutions (Italian Cultural Institute, Brussels, European Commission Berlaymont Building, Brussels, MACRO Rome, MAXXI Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome…) and private collections.
