Giovanni Guida is a young painter already highly appreciated by critics for the originality of his painting technique. Born in Acerra 30 years ago, he grew up in Cesa (Caserta). In 2015 he graduated with honors in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. He later began teaching painting and art history in Rome. His paintings are characterized by the dynamism of the sign. Soft lines and deep scratches that the artist traces on the canvas using the two surrealist techniques of frottage and scraping.
Art, a continuous research
For Guida, art is a continuous research, a continuous digging on the canvas as if to scrape its soul to get to the essence. “The investigation of him penetrates the skin of painting, until it reaches the bottom of its bowels and, in the luminous fragmentation of color, captures its intimate essence ". His is a perennial inner research but it is also a research on color and light. In his paintings the bright tones of blue and light blue predominate which, together with the soft and sinuous lines of the signs, inevitably capture the gaze of those who observe them.
CAREER
Guida is appreciated when he is still very young. In 2015 he published an illustrated book entitled "Caesarius Diaconus". The artist is a scholar of San Cesario of Terracina (who is the tutelary saint of the Roman emperors). The cover image of the book, which represents the icon of the martyr, is exhibited in important Italian and foreign museums, as well as in famous cathedrals and basilicas (in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Corsica, Germany, United States, England, Israel, Philippines, Croatia and Slovakia). Later, Guida abandons the figurative and presents ambiguous natural forms in the painting “Apotheosis”. The latter is reproduced on the cover of the catalog of the Public Library of València for the “Avivament” Festival of Philosophy and Literature.
In 2019, the painter wins the "Faces of politics" competition, organized by the "Valenzi Foundation" of Naples, with the illustration "Diarchia: the embrace between Salvini and Di Maio". The work is exhibited in the Palazzo delle Arti in Naples, published in "Repubblica" and "Il Fatto Quotidiano". In 2020 he creates the illustrations “Agatha” and “Rita da Cascia, flying towards the Absolute” for the newspaper “Avvenire”.
The work dedicated to the pandemic
Guida, in 2020, paints “And you will recover from all diseases… and I, I will take care of you”, inspired by the pandemic. The painting is a huge success on the web and is published in the main Italian and foreign newspapers. On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of the Supreme Poet, she creates the work "Apotheosis of Dante Alighieri in Florence: the Love that moves the sun and the other stars". His pictorial works are published in important Italian and foreign newspapers.
The interview
Guide, you use two particular painting techniques: the scraping and the frottage. He explains, in simple words, what they consist of?
"The scraping is a surrealist pictorial technique which consists in "scratching", "scraping" - with pointed tools of various kinds - the chromatic pigment, still fresh, spread on a support. This technique has in itself a strong symbolic value, somehow very close to modus operandi artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, who worked the marble not by "placing", but "by force to remove". This phrase expresses the Platonic concept of the pre-existing idea, but also, and above all, exemplifies a struggle against the material in order to discover, free and bring out the figure. The frottageinstead, it is a drawing technique based on the rubbing principle. It consists in superimposing a support (such as a sheet of paper or a canvas) on a surface that has accentuated reliefs. Through the use of pencils of various softness, chalks or charcoals, the support is rubbed, letting the reliefs of the underlying surface emerge. The result of this procedure allows to obtain designs and chiaroscuro textures and suggestive, random and unpredictable images ».
Is digging on the canvas an introspective quest?
«Yes, it is a real introspective research. Creative forces rich in suggestions and evocations, less theoretical and more unconscious and spontaneous, are released. In the pictorial field, the surrealist principle of psychic automatism is implemented, through which we try to free and manifest the hidden and hidden discourse that resides in us and constitutes us in the most full and essential way ".
What's in his scratches?
"The determining principle of individuality (the individuationis principle) is inherent in my scratches, a sign of diversity, the ability to penetrate the" skin "of painting, reaching the depths of its bowels and, in the luminous fragmentation of color, be able to capture the intimate essence. In mine scratches, the deep scratches created enhance the bright colors of the underlying pictorial layers and create chromatic contrasts and strong chiaroscuro, underlining the importance of the tension between gesture and plasticity within the creative process ».
What “role” do light and colors play in your paintings?
"I am deepening my research on color and light, elements that give the" condition "of space in order to create airy and bright paintings, with results oriented towards solutions in balance between the realistic and abstract dimensions, in compositions that prefer polychromies and tonal scales dominated by blue and blue ».
What's in the vaults of its cathedrals?
“They are cathedrals, inner temples, made accessible through the process of externalization of art. Our gaze moves upwards. This brings us back to a physical representation of the ethereal, with a more subtle and refined use of scraping it evokes a diaphanous sensation, reminding us of the principle of interior necessity to free ourselves from the materialistic conception of reality ».
How important is faith in your life?
«I believe in everything I do, I try to make my life plans possible. I want to know, experiment, investigate, create and crystallize significant products within culture, but also confidently abandon myself into the hands of the Creator, the artist par excellence, having the courage to trust and entrust myself, to lean on a rock ».
During the pandemic, he painted the work entitled “And you will recover from all diseases… and I, I will take care of you”, which was a great success on the web. What does it represent?
«It represents the Creator who, opening his arms with a solemn and peremptory gesture, dematerializes the molecular structure of Covid-19 to prevent its proliferation and thus avoid its spread on earth. The work is intended as a wish to humanity to defeat this pandemic and rediscover the limits of man and the value of the community ".
In a dark period like the one the world is experiencing, marred by the war in Ukraine, what contribution can art come from?
«Art can seek peace in destruction. It has the power to heal, to sow beauty and culture. It gives rise to the courage and the need to act, to expose oneself and to be responsible for one's actions ".
Which, among the works not yours, would you have liked to create and why?
«I would like to experience the flight towards the immaterial from the French artist Yves Klein. He used blue (International Klein Blue, a very deep ultramarine blue color) as a central component of his works (color effectively transforms into art): a journey towards emptiness, the invisible, the union between sky and earth in search of a cosmic embrace ».
Despite his young age, he has already exhibited in various parts of the world. Is there a particular museum where you would like to bring his paintings of her?
«I see the world as a“ widespread museum ”, therefore art must come out of static, delimited, restricted realities and in its various ways to bring pulchritūdo (beauty), to approach the dimension of knowledge and to open minds to broader visions of life's projects».
From whom did you inherit the love for art?
«The love for art was transmitted to me by my father, Gennaro Guida (who passed away several years ago), who was very fond of the beauty, power and functionality of Roman art. He taught me the importance of the strength of one's own "genius loci”, Of the union with the cultural matrix of origin and the enhancement of the identity of the place. My father was in charge of the administrative area of the municipality of Cesa (a city in the province of Caserta which preserves the memory of the great Roman leader Gaius Julius Caesar and his adopted son Cesare Ottaviano Augusto - a memory later Christianized by the figure of Cesario di Terracina, the tutelary saint of the Roman emperors). Together we have designed and entered into twinning agreements with various locations around the world in order to enhance ours tradite cultural. My father showed me “where to put your feet, because a man who doesn't know where to put his feet doesn't make history” ».
Photo source: Giovanni Guida Facebook page (Artist Artist)
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