Gallery Poulsen is proud to present De Prospectiva Pingendi by Nicola Verlato (IT) and Lorenzo Tonda (IT). The exhibition is Nicola Verlato’s fourth show with Gallery Poulsen since his debut in 2015. For Lorenzo Tonda, this exhibition marks his first visit to Denmark and Gallery Poulsen. The exhibition opens Thursday, May 4th from 17.00 – 19.00 and runs through June 3rd. Both artists will be in the gallery at the Thursday opening and on Friday, May 5th, for an Artist Talk at 14.00. On Friday the gallery will be open from 12.00 – 15.00.

Nicola Verlato and Lorenzo Tonda have both taken the trip from Italy to Copenhagen and will be present at the opening, where we will serve Hveder in celebration of (the last) Store Bededag.

In the exhibition, the two artists invite us along for a journey through the technological evolution of the painting. From the early 1400’s captivation of the linear perspective to our own age’s dependence on technology where the line between virtual- and physical reality is slowly but surely being blurred. By focusing on these mechanisms, the exhibition exemplifies how Verlato and Tonda employ Italy’s baroque and mannerist painting traditions to convey contemporary issues, sensitivities, and narratives, as well as the modern world’s new conditions of existence.

With his portrayal of the distorted human body in detailed compositions, Nicola Verlato has been an established part of Gallery Poulsen’s ever-growing lineup of hyperrealist painters through the past eight years, while presenting his works in numerous museum- and gallery exhibitions across the globe. Now, Verlato has invited his assistant and pupil Lorenzo Tonda to present their new works side by side in our gallery space in Copenhagen’s Meat Packing District in what undoubtedly is going to be a masterclass in figuration and the painting traditions of Italy. With a contemporary perspective of course.

In his new works, containing oil- and acrylic paintings and two resin sculptures, Lorenzo Tonda relates to the existential dilemmas of the modern age, specifically the inclination, need, and not least the possibility of idleness. On the theme of his works, Tonda elaborates;
“When attempting to resolve the moral dilemma on the practice of ‘doing nothing’ we get stuck in the impossibility of defining the limits of it, struggling to understand whether it is a healthy practice or if it rather begins to fade into self-destruction. It is unclear what the man is observing on the display. Our judgment stops. His body and his posture tell us about him. Idleness is the time that is granted outside the Trade, which can be wasted or well used, it all depends on us...”

- Lorenzo Tonda, 2023

Tonda examines how our contemporary ways of communication and altered conditions of existence demand idleness and, more importantly, the moment where this idleness changes from being a natural part of the contemporary human’s life to being a self-destructive habit with negative consequences for our relationships to other human beings and, ultimately, for our society as a whole.

In addition to the painting, Tonda also uses the 3D-printed sculpture as a way of expressing his artistic reflections. By doing so, he exemplifies how modern technology can be incorporated into the practice of an artist whose inspiration and oeuvre is classically founded.

This assimilation of technology into the visual arts is also the overshadowing focus of Nicola Verlato’s continuous series of works titled The Merging Project, which the exhibition’s works are a significant part of. In the series of works, Verlato argues that the painting, due to our altered conditions of living in the wake of the past years’ substantial development of new digital media, has entered a new era in which its relationship to modern technology is both essential and undeniable. During these years of rapid development, we have slowly and automatically transferred large parts of our physical existence, relationships, and experiences into virtual spaces, a new reality that has birthed a contradictory need to extract parts of the digital world’s continuous stream of information to be manifested in our tangible world. In this transition, the painting and the sculpture are particularly useful because they possess a transformative potential, making them applicable both physically and digitally.

The project’s primary method of work starts off in the physical world with a pencil sketch on paper through which the artwork is initially devised. Subsequently, the sketches are molded and rendered digitally as a three-dimensional ‘sculpture’ giving form, light, and shadow to the work. The digital sculpture is used in the last part of the process as a model for an oil painting that exists and embodies the essence of the artwork in the physical world. Hereby the work undergoes two transformations, establishing it equally in the digital and physical reality.

With a strong foundation in baroque traditions of painting merged with modern technology, the works of the exhibition convey, in collaboration with one another, the two realities in which our contemporary lives are lived, and by doing so expresses the existential division between two opposite worlds that we are experiencing right now.

De Prospectiva Pingendi

Nicola Verlato & Lorenzo Tonda

04.05.23 – 03.06.23

Opening reception: Thursday, May 4th, 17.00 – 19.00

The exhibition presents oil and acrylic paintings and three sculptures
Please contact the gallery at [email protected] or tel.+ 45 33 33 93 96 for more info