Segni del cosmo (2015 – 2020)
His journey towards knowledge, slowly and step by step, led him into a spiritual dimension in which the eye began to imagine the construction of the universe: thus his panels were first populated by stars and, ultimately, by cosmic spaces.
In this renewed phase, in which he was able to find a fresh new source of creativity, his many immersions in the magnificent Palazzo Ducale in Urbino proved of great help. For Urbino and the artists who animated the noble capital of the Renaissance had always represented a safe harbour for Piattella amid the storm of creative urgency.
From the immortal examples of the Urbino Renaissance, Piattella drew lessons from sophisticated investigations into depth and space; skilfully avoiding becoming entangled in perspective, he set out into a different pictorial territory. Drawing, which had already played a supporting role in several earlier pictorial cycles, became central from 2015 onwards. The rigour with which he planned each work down to the smallest detail, his recourse to mathematics, and the emergence of what Piattella calls “geometric phrasing” all receded and disappeared as colour was introduced onto the panel. He himself said that at a certain point the works took on a form that was initially unknown. What guided him was a masterful command of technique and his ability to further develop and refine formal balance and chromatic harmony.
For Piattella, two exhibitions mark the new creative path that blossomed vigorously within him: the exhibition devoted to the stars of 2015–2016 at the Centro Studi Casa Museo Osvaldo Licini in Monte Vidon Corrado (2016–2017), and the exhibition of Segni del cosmo in Urbino, held in the rooms of the Casa museo Raffaello in Urbino (2017), which marked a further step.
Finally, the latest works reach full maturity, with continual new calibrations and lightening of the calculated initial scheme, yet always with several radiating points present together; in opening up emotional pathways to the viewer, they are ready to carry the observer into an inner space.
That hypnotic interplay of points, lines, squares, rhombi and waves in harmonious chromatic alternation conceals rigorous, demanding and unremitting work in the silence of his Catria studio, at intervals broken by the sound of charcoal and pencil moving across the blank preparatory sheet. It is meticulous work, at times almost that of a miniaturist, masterfully fading at the edges into a non-finito that powerfully evokes the infinite universe.
The more one stands before the works of Piattella’s latest period with an unencumbered eye, the stronger the sensation of entering a borderland, a fertile, unexplored liminal space of painting. An authentic form of painting, capable of stirring emotion.*
*Adapted from: Alberto Mazzacchera, Oscar Piattella: oltre il muro, exhibition catalogue, Pesaro 2020.
