Francesco Barbieri uses walls and canvases as supports: being aware of the many different contexts and perceptions of the image, Francesco is interested in cities, suburbs, the value of communication of the image, the variety of materials used to create a disconcerting effect and a slightly confusing nature in realizing artistic suggestions. From the far-fetched colours of cities he renders loose skylines, geometrical skeletons, weavings of horizontal and vertical lines forming the frame of the horizon of the view.
His images are always perceived in the blink of an eye, as from the window of a riding train: from the suggestions – and avoiding descriptions – of the urban landscapes of the many cities where he has worked as a graffiti writer, to contexts where he has hung out and which he has perceived with the speed of a moving train car.
Spray paint and acrylic rotate and are used to think about the power of signs in communicating both slowness and speed, in that alternation of brightness and flatness which represents the tune of the most fantastic visions, partly borrowed from comics and from television, but anyway connected to pop culture, with rockets and elaborate machines moving in a very animated and teeming space. Also the collages look confusing at the very first view: letters, signs, drawn and pasted pages, wallpapers and ornamental papers alternate with writings on surfaces that catch unprepared because we feel that it is possible to read them as multiple frames. They force us to look for an alternative solution, a remaining image that is more interesting for us as it catches more our attention, or because it looks more familiar. The journey starts from here: between writings and decorations that overturn our method of reading from left to right and from up to down, and compose the stratifications of walls written on and buffed with countless interventions. From those it just remains some irrecoverable shreds of posters, notices, interventions and protests, insults and love statements. Like it happens on the walls, considered as public space to the point of being universal blackboards, bearers of personal messages becoming common truth or moments of common indignation, but still worthy of being declaimed loudly.
On the canvas, in the street, Francesco brings his way of approaching the vision: whether is about a hasty signature, a city widely seen or a very broad space to think about a sort of cosmic floating invaded by metals and machines, or, finally, a practice of floating on a wall invaded by stratifications of presences, voices and frivolous or demanding needs.
Ilaria Mariotti