Biography
was born in Ferrara, Italy in 1952. He studied arts at Ferrara Art Institute 'Dosso Dossi', anatomical and surgery illustration at the superior school of anatomical drawing at the Bologna University, at the School of Art of Bologna State Institute in the paintings decoration section, and he attended illustration courses at the 'Istituto Europeo del Design' in Milano. He also studied at the Bologna Academy, under the guidance of Pr. Walter Lazzaro. He has exhibited his art in Italy and abroad. He was awarded with the international prize of contemporary art “ REMO BRINDISI” in 2002. His drawings are published in the ' Encyclopedia Medica Italiana' and in the Medical - Scientific Illustration.
Critica del Dr. Siro Perin.
Gilberto Sossella
Art history often reports about a large number of artists that in the course of their career have been infatuated - even obsessively, by a certain subject which has fascinated or rather bewitched them for the rest of their life.
Such an impressive artistic infatuation also caught Gilberto Sossella. His background is characterised by scientific and vulgarizing iconography - that of anatomical, surgical and histological drawing - and by pharmacological-related advertising. He has gone from nearby hyper realistic representations to abstract results where the curve becomes the pivotal element of his creativity. Curve is so prevalent in the rhythm of composition to turn itself almost into an obsessive processing that, often, affects rhythm itself.
The artist has gone from one extreme to the other in a seemingly unsubstantial manner, moving towards a new, personal and free interpretation of abstraction, set on a robust geometric concept emancipated from objectivity.
However, that's not all. On one hand, the curve generates geometric rhythms and audio-visual harmonies where it is recognizable as a catalysing element of a paradoxical balance generated by personal tensions that oppose one another. On the other hand, curve turns into a sort of "sign of feelings" full of emotion, which tends to urge both the perceptive and the emotional-reflexive data of the viewer.
That fervour has brought Sossella, as mentioned before, to a new painting which also contributed to the mutation of his creative approach. The latter has enriched of an intimate value based on a personal search for eurhythmic beauty - to be interpreted as visual paths vector capable of both coyly hiding the most intimate interiority of the artist, saving it from unnecessary and pathetic grandstanding, and both of rising brain stimuli on an aesthetic and perceptible level.
Driven by his desire to deepen this seduction, he not only developed his conceptual thinking, but he was furthermore able to confer that curve an evolutionary character. This has allowed the artist, on the one hand, not to fall into repetition as an end in its sake, and, on the other hand, to settle the evolutive stages of that exciting research. The painter does not set the painting surface on preordained schemes. Thanks to the help of brushes and palette knives, he applies thick layers of a tormented and highly tactile acrylic pigment to compose an arrangement of geometrical shapes, which contrast or juxtapose and interpenetrate one another, and of broken lines in which different creative moments can be recognized.
Two phases can be indeed distinguished in his execution. The first stage is set on balanced, equilibrated and at the same time antithetical forms. Such forms are highlighted by bright shapes and perspicuous colour disharmony, which from time to time recompose into tonal values. Among these, in a limited portion of the painting, the most visually antithetical and sensuous particular that attracts the viewer, emerges.
The second phase focuses on breaking the curve and the dousing of colours, thanks to the superimposition of transparent grayscale ranges (sometimes with the addition of oil glazing), which infuse the work with chromatic depth and serenity of composition capable of harmonizing the above-mentioned dissonances.
It is precisely in this last creative moment that a renewed kunstwollen pushes Sossella, to definitely abandon the concrete references of his creations in order to find a new balance characterized by ethereal traits, on the mental level. This will surely lead to new and significant results - maybe, why not, to a different post informal path.
Siro Perin
