Mimmo Paladino

Rome 2 may 2012

“Timeless Portraits”

Timeless Portraits by Antonio Finelli.

Timeless as the refinement of the face portraiture, near and authentic faces of the Fayoum, the elegance of the details of the Renaissance
painting already affected by the Flemish and, above all the deep and inner research of the nineteenth century.

Finelli, with his forceful mark, practical knowledge and wisdom, illuminates the details of the white hairs and the wrinkled epidermis but hides what he doesn’t want to show.

He never gives a context, he never describes; we just catch their eye and their smiles, we feel free to see in those faces whoever we want to and to reflect ourselves in them.

Flawless and penciled paintings as instantaneous and essential pictures, made with a hard pictorial mark. He doesn’t copy from the past but he belongs to it, or rather he belongs to that academic practice of the past to set free from it.

Observing his work, Finelli already frees himself from the past. He doesn’t try to enter into the contemporary age, he doesn’t imitate. He just draws.

Mimmo Paladino for Antonio Finelli