Opening Reception | Mixed Media Paintings: Pieralli & Favi's Supernova

An exhibition including a series of innovative three-dimensional mixed media paintings. This will mark the artists' first solo exhibition in New York.

The works of Pieralli & Favi, an eccentric Florentine duo, are successful and ambiguous hybrids between paintings, sculptures and installations. Composed of acrylic, adhesives, nails and wood, these works lead the gaze along vigorous planes, rhythmic swirling organic forms and linear webs that appear to grow and extend in space. Hard-edged shapes, explosions, nebulous patterns, and changing amorphous forms, are cleverly arranged in non-traditional formats. As the compositions develop structurally, they unfold out of the conventional limits of the frame, and permeate the wall, ceiling, and floor of the gallery space. In an almost menacing manner, they expand and spread around corners in indeterminate shapes. In this fashion, the artists succeed in picturing change, movement and the process of growth. The effect is unexpected, absolute and bold.

Moreover, by building up their surfaces sculpturally with slabs of wood - perhaps influenced by the Italian 1960's art movement Arte Povera - Pieralli)(Favi adds a textural element and produces a trompe l'oeil effect to their compositions. The complexity of their surfaces and forms, combined with the unrestricted and whimsical arrangement, instantly engages, assaults and confuses the senses of the viewer.

Xavier Pieralli, born in 1966, and Valentina Favi, born in 1974, are two Italian artists who from the beginning of their careers have created art together. It is in their collaborative relationship and renunciation of traditional individualistic artistic expression, that this pair has found their unique visual discourse and original language. Pieralli & Favi represented their country at the Prague Biennale in 2003, and have had numerous exhibitions throughout Europe. They currently live and work in Florence.