Artwork of the Week: "Italy" by Allan Pachino Wallace

04/19/2018

This week’s highlighted Artwork is Italy, one of Allan’s paintings currently on display for our latest exhibition, MUSE, curated for Transforming Spaces this year. 

Unlike many other works in the show that found direct inspiration from Brent Malone’s paintings (for example: Rebirth of a Goddess is a direct response of Malone’s Lucayan Goddess) this image is a response to Allan’s 2016 trip to Italy which was awarded by the D’Aguilar Art Foundation’s Global Discovery Program. The painting thus mimics technics that he encountered in works while visiting various Italian Museums and churches: among which are the cartoons, a preparation drawing for a fresco painting. Italy’s texture resembles that of these charcoal drawings on dusted, thin paper; his brushwork is sketchy but precise, with lots of negative space which would have been filled with the bright colors used in frescoes. In the past this preparation drawing was not viewed as very interesting without the added color, but now these sketches are often seen as a more dynamic version of the image.  This painting is one of many that Wallace displayed the joint Exhibition with Brent Malone.