Italian artist Giovanni Tresso synthesizes painting and photography to create a revealing new form of portraiture

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What do you want to know: Agora GalleryNew York, will present a recent series of portraits by the Italian painter Giovanni B. Tresso in the personal exhibition “Mirrors, the story of 7 portraits.” These recent portraits are taken from lengthy photo shoots Tresso conducted with each model, which he then uses as source material, but not in the traditional sense. Probing the range of expressions and “micro-expressions” through the images taken, Tresso locates the irreducible and unaffected facets of the individual’s face and translates these elements into paint. Using a painting technique that uses both brushes and palette knives, the pigments expand into the third dimension and feature a raised texture. The exhibition with Agora Gallery will include seven recent portraits each completed with a two-tone palette and will offer viewers a new way of experiencing and considering the portraiture tradition.

Why we love it: Tresso’s distinctive portraits offer both a tactile and heightened psychological visual experience through execution and composition. Conventional portraiture typically foregrounds a specific mood or expression, but in Tresso’s practice he seeks to locate an inalienable authenticity, found through careful study and comparison. Using photography and a long period spent with the model, the artist is able to sift through passing emotions and expressions to get to the heart of the matter. Interpreted through a unique process of stippling and building up paint on canvas, depth of view is both optical and literal. Contributing to the sense of existential truth is Tresso’s faithful use of two complementary hues within the same shade of each portrait; the subject’s face appears sculpted in the most saturated color, a kind of visual metaphor for the model’s inner life. Taken together, the works in the exhibition testify to Tresso’s nuanced and researched practice.

According to the Gallery: “Italian artist Giovanni Tresso offers insight into the portals of the human soul. Each portrait is the result of an intimate parenthesis between the curator and the artist who merges painting and photography. Tresso meets the subject in person and builds his paintings on a collection of impromptu snapshots that reveal micro-expressions and movements indicative of their personality. The key is to catch the person sitting off guard, so that they let go of their defensive social barriers and expose their authentic essence. Echoing his background in design and advertising, Tresso’s works possess a distinctive graphic aesthetic. The facial features are cut out using negative space and a high contrast dichromatic palette of white and blue, red, green or black. This, combined with the imposing scale of the rooms, provides a powerful magnetic quality that keeps the viewer glued to the canvas. “My portraits are timeless stories,” says Tresso. “They will go beyond the earthly life of the person they represent and become immortal.”

See the portraits below.