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The underlying thrust of Eugene Carchesio's work is energy - and his prolific output carries the same message. He has concurrently 61 works on show at Bellas Gallery and another 13 (courtesy of Bellas Gallery) in (l)Magical Poetics, a group exhibition at the IMA.
Mostly working in miniature, Carchesio draws threads from a past both classical and mystical, and weaves them into a contemporary framework which itself makes reference to ancient philosophical structures. Carchesio uses the grid, sometimes overlaid, sometimes underlaid, and referred to as "Test Pattern": a modern technological frame which is tied it back to the classical and mediaeval through its geometric structure.
The use of watercolour on paper, combined with enigmatic subject matter, produces a fairytale narrative quality in a number of the works. The immediate ingenuousness of the surface is belied, however, by elements of mystery in carefully constructed symbolism.
Carchesio has drawn on the contradictory symbols of early Renaissance to demonstrate virtually opposing origins of transformation: Christian symbolism finds its place alongside the alchemical cones of energy. The spiritual/mystical is continually placed against the geometrical/structural, each as sources of imagination and transmutation, perhaps complementary, perhaps opposing.
The geometric shapes most favoured by Carchesio are triangle, circle, and their product, the cone - all variously symbols of energy, the spiritual and the eternal. Where he does use more earthbound shapes, such as the square and the rectangle, they are given dimension and volume. Painted squares are tesselated cubes.
A sculptural work consisting of 14 small pieces and titled Monuments to Silence and Invisibility, is constructed from matchboxes, black-card cones (within black card cones), and (contained in a match box), a wooden cross overlaying a card