Painting
THE ART OF CREATIVITY is Jim Wooden’s new video series devoted to exploring and revealing…
The National Italian American Foundation and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Los Angeles co-host Canali.
To view Mario Canali’s art is to transport into a world of paradox, both delightful and disturbing. Featuring inquisitive human hybrids and surreal landscapes, Canali’s works are disruptive, edgy and innovative, as they were when he painted them in the 70s’ and 80s’. To gaze into the eyes of his creatures is like looking into the eyes of a lion, knowing you are safe only because they are caged. Canali’s hybrid humans not only catch the eye, they hold it spellbound.
Title: “My bed” size: queen size mattress;
medium: paint, yarn with needlework on bed mattress 2009
Never mind the fact that he was born some 600 years too late, Leigh J. McCloskey is every bit a Renaissance Man. Not someone stuck in the past, but someone part of what he calls an “emerging Renaissance.” An accomplished actor, McCloskey may best be known for his role as Mitch Cooper from the TV series Dallas. Through Julliard, to a career in TV/film spanning nearly 4 decades, McCloskey’s acting resume would seem creative enough for two lifetimes. After spending a day with him in the Hieroglyph of the Human Soul, however, you’d soon realize that McCloskey is concerned with much more than just playing a part. Indeed, spending time IN the Hieroglyph of the Human Soul. Entering the artist’s home only to see the room devoted to this craft of mixed media, brushstroke, and imagination, it would be easy to dismiss the Heiroglyph as a floor-to-ceiling, corner-to-corner rendition of archetypes in acrylic paint. However, after a few moments dissolving into the splendor of a work like this, objectivity takes a back seat. Add 3-D glasses with well-executed storytelling, and objectivity gets thrown out altogether. I thought I had come to hold an interview, but within minutes I realized the standard Q & A would not suffice: “Unscrew the locks from the door! / Unscrew the doors themselves from the jambs!” to quote Whitman, and this rallying cry provides the necessary architecture to describe a person who may very well be the last of the cave painters.
Marco Mannone
