RouterFlaccus Pettit Amato Schoneveld Soriani

Ecos Gallery via Giulia 81/a 00186, Roma Opening Thursday, November 8, through Thursday, November 15

Open every day from 11 to 7,Saturday 11 to 1 and 5 to 8Closed Sunday and Mondayphone: 0668803668 www.ecosgallery.com - info@ecosgallery.com

Peter Flaccus was born in Missoula, Montana, graduated from Amherst College and re-ceived an M.F.A. degree in painting from Indiana University. He lived in New York City for twenty years, and moved to Rome in 1993. His long list of solo exhibitions includes shows in New York (Zabriskie Gallery and Monique Knowlton Gallery), as well as others in the U.S., France, Italy and Switzerland. Peter Flaccus has taught painting and drawing at John Cabot University since 1994. www.peterflaccus.it

“I work with colored, melted beeswax on a wooden support, an ancient technique called encaustic. Encaustic paintings are known for their material presence, for brilliant effects involving intense color, texture, density and transparency, and for their permanence: some such works have lasted more than two thousand years. While the process is somewhat cum-bersome and slow, the images can record very fast gestures, and the various painting phases remain clearly visible. The surface can be rendered perfectly smooth and polished, elements can be left in relief, and incised lines can be filled with colored wax. A final heating unifies the layers. The forms of my paintings result in part from the logic and qualities of this light, luminous, and natural material.” (P.F.)

William Pettit is a painter from Philadelphia (USA). He recei-ved his BA from the University of Pittsburgh and his MFA from Tyler School of Art. Besides painting, William also works with pho-tography, video, music, and sculpture. His work had been shown regularly in Philadelphia, Paris, Rome, and around Italy since 2001. His book of poetry, “Ghost Songs” was published in 2009. William has been teaching studio arts courses in various media at John Cabot since 1999. Recently, he has focused on teaching ancient techniques.www.williampettit.com

“For many years I have been working on a large group of pain-tings called Tone Poems. The genesis of the project was an exchange with the Berkeley-based composer, Michael Lindsey, as a research into the similarities of musical and visual languages. The project deals with the relationships of tone, in color, hue, harmony, and resonance; and of time, in phrasing, vibration, and improvisation. This collaboration has produced several series of paintings, musical scores, and videos that remain in constant dialogue. The paintings are grouped in series of diptychs or triptychs, based on variables of tone, density, and rhythm. They show a slow accumulation, out of silence, of resonance and dissonance.” (B. P.)

Works from the art faculty of John Cabot University curated by Ilaria Gianni

Jochem Schoneveld (Netherlands, 1973) is a pho-tographer whose work is characterized by a focus on the human-altered landscape. His work has been exhibited at such photography festivals as “Fotografia, Festival Interna-zionale di Roma”, and in various Italian and Dutch galleri-es, and has been seen in “le Monde” and other international publications. He has been teaching Photography at John Cabot University since 2011.www.jochemschoneveld.com

“The works on display are the first part of body of work in which I research the drawings of a group of dutch ar-tists who went to Italy in the 17th century. The photos are not meant to reproduce the drawing but to be in that exact point as these artists were 400 years ago: the coordinates are the same, the light is the same, what has changed are a building here and there, the means of transport but more importantly the sound, the smell the taste and the feeling of time in that particular place.Capturing those non visible aspects in a photograph is the challenge I have been given myself.” (J.S.)

Serafino Amato (1958) began his career in the field of experimental theatre in the early eighties, before dedicating himself exclusively to photography in such exhibitions as “Segnavia” (1989), “Der Professor, der Assistent und” (1997), “Pallido Pallido” (1998), “Appunti per operette morali” (2002), and “Fogli dei giorni” (2008).In 2000 he began working in video as well, creating “RLC scrittore d’acqua” (2005) on and with Raffaele La Capria, “Racconti bislacchi” (2006), and “Racconti melanconici” (2008). Together with Lorenzo Pavolini, he published “Ecatombe–i girini della storia” (2008). and published “Fogli dei giorni–Leafing Throught the Days” (Headmastered.) in 2012. He teaches photography at John Cabot University.www.serafinoamato.it

“And they called it Cloud...!”“On the same stretch of land where F. Fellini shot a scene for the film “Boc-caccio ‘70” (1962), they are building “The Cloud” by the architect Fuksas. It was once a square piece of land, full of ditches, both dry and muddy, used only to practice field goals. Then it was a chaotic and exhaust-filled parking lot, eventually paved and fenced-in. Finally, it became a crater to accommodate the “cloud”…it seems quite strange. Nostaglia, as such, will have the form of Anita Ekberg, or of futilely chased footballs with green stains on them, or of parked cars, just a few, pale in color, under a blinding summer sun, in the light of a nearby sea.” (S.A.)

Paolo Soriani (Rome 1962) has produced photos of architecture for catalogues and publications. He is famous for his jazz portraits, and has published with ECM (Germany), CAM records, Label Bleu (France), Venus Records (Japan), VVJ, CNI, Warner (USA). Du-ring the past few years he has held seminars and courses on photography at the Art History Institute of the University of Rome and at the Roman branches of Iowa State University and John Cabot University. He has exhibited his work at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, at the project Visual Arts of the International festival “Time in Jazz”, directed by Paolo Fresu and at the International Festival for Photography in Rome. In 2005 he pro-duced “Cities & Island”, a multimedia project with the American musician Ralph Towner. His project the “Absence of borders, Essence of borders” is a testimonial to his curiosity about the borders separating Italy from the Europe of the Schengen agreement. The project became a book and a series of exhibits during 2007/2010. During last two years he has become official photographer for Jazz label Jando Records/VVJ with many releases. He currently handles art direction for publicity and recordings for such Italian musicians as Pilar, Area and Bungaro.www.paolosoriani.com

“Postcards from Hell and Heaven. Stop the moment, de-construct it and reassemble it according to an inner order. Build an intimate path through visual combinations creating a short circuit between time and narrative. People and places are all part of our heaven or hell depending on what memory the images awaken. And in the stream of visual perception everything is here and now.” (P. S.)