Emilio Vedova *
(Venice 1919–2006)
Oltre, 1986, signed, dated and titled on the reverse, acrylic on canvas, 195 x 147 cm, framed
This work is registered in the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, Venice and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Fabrizio Gazzarri Collection, Venice
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Rome, Emilio Vedova: Segno, Gesto e Materia, Studio d’Arte Campaiola, October 2011, exh. cat. no. 31 with ill.

What interests me is the prolongation of my being, the sinking in the mirror
of paint. I would like to break myself, rip myself in its reflection.
Always live ahead, beyond the pure surface. The material represents this
introduction in "another" space, it is the entrance in the landscape
of the "not-where".
Emilio Vedova

The technique used in Emilio Vedova’s Oltre (Beyond) is distinctive of the artist's highly expressive manner: the entire surface of the canvas is covered with black and white brushstrokes and drips that mix with one another and then in turn with the canvas priming and the few sparse touches of red. At this point the painting could already be considered an accomplished work of Vedova’s, but he adds a further material element: a yellow doodle is applied at a later date, a gesture that vaguely recalls Action Painting and its best-known proponent, Jackson Pollock. We know, however, that nothing was left to chance in Vedova's work, and that, among other things, he preferred to paint standing in front of the vertically placed canvas rather than laying it on the floor, unlike Pollock.

The yellow is smeared and then scratched with a tool that leaves furrows, like a rake passed over sand. Thus pure colour acts as a point of light at certain points of the work, at others it merges with white and black to obtain a delicate shade of green that blends with the rest of the surface, resulting in an outcome as concise as it is harmonious.

The work was created by Vedova in 1986 and belongs to a cycle of canvases (executed during the 1980s) entitled Oltre (Beyond), from which the present work takes its name.
Vedova deepens and develops his research on the circle and its freedom in space (first explored in the early 1980s through the Dischi cycle) on the canvases of the Oltre cycle - as with the Tondi and the Non dove canvases. Some reflections concerning the circle emerged clearly during an interview with Luigi Meneghelli for Segno magazine in 1986 and are very useful for better understanding the correlation that unites different series of works: "One does not enter the circle with impunity, one only enters to leave, to cross the border. Just look at the trapped ‘rounds’ of the 'Oltre' cycle, these circles where the colour swerves, slips outwards towards an empty, grey space. They are like comets that leave behind a mysterious and alarmed halo in their immense gravitational wake ".