Eolo Paul Bottaro | Urbs Aeterna

13 November - 1 December 2024

You are cordially invited to join us for drinks with the artist on Thursday, 14 November 2024, 6-8pm.

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‍Urbs Aeterna

Rome. The eternal city, or urbs aeterna as it translates in Latin, occupies a space in the story of western civilisation rivalled by few other cities in the world. In its streets and civic spaces modern life buzzes over and around the accumulated vestiges of an ancient past. The throb of immediacy and the weight of history converge in each shining moment spent in the eternal city.

For many years Bottaro painted dramatic scenes from mythology, enacted by everyday people in Melbourne’s streets and urban environment. This use of local subject matter to contextualise ancient narratives makes them relatable to contemporary audiences and highlights the universal and timeless relevance of mythology. However the current series reflects a marked shift, not only in the settings depicted, but in approach. Instead of painting the climax of a myth, it is a mythically infused alternative dimension that Bottaro now generates in his painting. Personal and idiosyncratic symbols are married with the universal. As a result these new works possess a greater sense of space and openness, not just aesthetically, but in their capacity to engender a wide range of responses in the viewer. In the exhibition Urbs Aeterna, the artist leans toward suggestion over story-telling.  

The seeds for the current series were sown during time spent in Rome, during and after Covid. The influence of an enforced period of isolation and introspection is present throughout the series, where monumental architecture and sweeping vistas are minimally populated. This also reflects Bottaro’s interest in Italian metaphysical art, which is characterised by dreamlike juxtapositions of disconnected elements within almost empty public spaces.

Pioneered by Giorgio de Chirico in the early twentieth century, metaphysical art exerted a profound influence on the development of surrealism, and cues to De Chirico are dotted throughout the current series. In Neo Metafisica, Bottaro depicts De Chirico’s famous lone train cloud hovering in front of a shopfront on an urban street, as a woman wanders past oblivious to the strange phantasm. In The Fall of Rome a baboon borrowed from the great eighteenth century printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi sits in an unusually empty piazza, with a large bust of Mussolini in the background – a visceral reminder of Italy’s fascist past. While Puff the Magic Dragon sees a Henry Moore sculpture serenely float in the sea framed by illusionary stairs and arches, as smokestacks from the oil refinery in Gela, Sicily dominate the background. Visionary in nature these mindscapes of the imagination transcend the possibilities of physical reality – hence the term metaphysical.

Bottaro uses a geometric application of the rule of thirds to guide the composition of each painting. This, coupled with his skill in generating balanced chromatic intensity through the application of hand-made paints creates the deeply satisfying visual cohesion in each work that keeps the eye and mind engaged.

Mysteries abound in this exhibition.There is a sense of searching, or of something about to be revealed: the goddess under the veil, the monster under the waves. In the major work, also titled Urbs Aeterna, the classical archaeology of Rome is reinvented in an architectural fantasy. This monumental painting stretches over four metres and recasts fragments of the Colosseum in a fictitious forum, which sees the artist explore the symbolism and compositional power of arches.  

Ancient arches appear throughout this body of work, sometimes framing a dark space that is empty, or occupied by a single, shrouded form. As its strongest point arches are often the last element of a building to collapse, and in Bottaro’s work they serve as portals, openings … of ways through.

Through to where exactly? Something the artist no doubt asks himself. Perhaps as portals of perception, they prompt contemplation of the different realities possible at any one time. The painting Urbs Aeterna sees the influence of Piranesi in Bottaro’s use of spatial illusion and multiple perspectives that echo the many pathways and choices that we each encounter in life’s long progress. It’s a visionary Choose Your Own Adventure story on an epic scale.

While redolent with intellectual intrigue and psychological complexity, Bottaro still relies on old-fashioned skilled craftsmanship to create his art. Rich colour, exquisite paintwork and mathematically driven compositions seduce the viewer into the space of the picture plane, where something deeper may be revealed to those who seek to find it.

- Marguerite Brown, MA ArtCur