Born in Jesolo, Venice, in 1961, under the sign of Leo, Stefano Momentè has always expressed
himself using forms and colours. His early work was characterised by a marked figuration, which
he later abandoned in favour of a representation of mankind’s inner self, in an ongoing
experimentation of different techniques and materials.
Momentè later focused his research on the informal, to propose a new, symbolic materiality,
through layers of differently textured colours, where traces, signs and graffiti are reminiscent of
action painting.
Momentè’s art
Art as a quest, memory, experience.
Portrayal of the intimate, external projection of profound emotions and sentiments, layered in
layers, signs, graffiti, etchings. Developed by brush- and spatula strokes, it rests, settles and
ripens, just like a memory of our life.
An art that is representation and therefore a symbol. Using diverse techniques and materials, but
with a preference for mural work, involving frescoes, engraving, etching and throwing paint.
Recovering symbols and archetypes, and using them as a universal language. Because if true art
is only objective, as Gurdjieff claimed, it must nevertheless pass through the filter of the artist.
And this is a language that develops technically on a rich subsoil: from Burri to Tàpies, from Afro
to Celiberti. It is an ongoing, intimate and spiritual quest. Evolution. The alchemy of colour and
that of the spirit.
In a spirit course the obsessively tends towards the Centre.
His works are born almost always without a precise design, but nevertheless with great attention
to the backgrounds, carefully prepared to take the colours.
But then they develop instinctively, one colour upon another, opening the way between scratches
and dribbling, before emerging.
As though they had always been there, on the canvas, in the colours, the brushes and the tip of
the graving tool.
And only by bringing it all together can they be freed.
Sometimes paint is arranged on the canvas like geological layers of an earth suddenly opened.
They rush from within without distinction or precedence, in a causal, but certainly not random,
gesture.
And they continue to boil before their final rest, which is sometimes a while later.
Between one layer and the next there is rarely temporal continuity. A work may await the arrival
of the sign that makes it complete for a long time.
Or the flow of colour may start the dialogue rolling again.
The same embryonic composition contains a title. That integrates and crystallises the work. A
magical nomen that spurts like lava and confirms its existence as it solidifies.
Title and work therefore form a solid, undividable whole.
And this is why, for Momentè, there is no such thing as an untitled work. |
