For Focus on 2025, the series of in-depth studies dedicated to site-specific projects, Vistamare is pleased to present OUTER by Roberto Cattivelli.
Cattivelli’s work is conceived in series that bear the same title but include different subjects linked together conceptually. The non-descriptive yet evocative titles of each series – Border, Grace, Idiots – do not provide a key to interpretation, but suggest further levels of meaning.
Painting becomes an instrument of investigation, offering itself to contemplation as a revelation: “The works are my attempts to grasp the essence of reality. I try to isolate small fragments of reality to get to know it”.
In his oil paintings, fragments from the animal and human world surface as unveiled secrets. The images reveal themselves gradually through the overlapping of layers of black color alone, as in a slow slide into darkness. In night vision, the retina needs time to adapt in order to distinguish objects. Initially, it perceives only brighter objects and then darker ones. When facing Cattivelli’s paintings, we are required to linger with our eyes for a long time to catch all the details. To the artist each detail is of equal importance, including empty spaces. The more details are revealed – the clear parts are given by the white of the canvas, so they literally emerge from the background – the more an abstract idea of reality drifts away. Cattivelli’s painting does not have a hyperrealist intent, though, but rather a quest for a spiritual dimension. The artist has declared a desire to confront the sacred, not in a religious sense, but as “absolute ambiguity where grace and terror converge“.
Roberto Cattivelli was born in 1979 in Piacenza, where he lives and works.
His research focuses equally on painting and drawing as a form of visual and inner exploration. Subjects are often chosen instinctively and based on personal experience. This is tied to his need to investigate reality, which he represents with great accuracy in terms of detail. In painting, these details emerge from layers of black, while in drawing, they are rendered in graphite on a white background. Cattivelli has exhibited in solo and group shows including: Why we Paint?, from an idea by Francesco Bonami and curated by Stefano Collicelli Cagol and SUN MAN, BY ART MATTERS Foundation, Hangzhou, China (2025); Teatrum Botanicum 2016, PAV Parco Arte Vivente Turin, Italy (2016); La Saletta, Erich Lindenberg Art Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland (2015).