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. . . . . A passion of talent combined with a rich Italian heritage gives Marc Savoia's art a singularity that attracts attention. As a first generation Australian, his highly individual artistic perceptions are heightened by his cultural background and given added direction through a grandfather who worked in mosaics. To this he adds a wit and idiosyncratic invention that finds expression in such a work as Spaghetti Mansion, the reference not limited to the Italian cultural and moral environment in which he grew up but extended into the very use of spaghetti as part of the actual medium of his art. Given Italian culinary mastery, it seems entirely appropriate that food should form part of Savoia's art. He is also the entertainer, once a performer currently on screen, and now on canvases which sparkle, dazzle and engross beneath such glossy surfaces. There is joy and pain, light and darkness in these particularly auto-biographical works. They call on his past and wrestle with the present in an exploration of the human condition and his journey in life. Life as a House, his parent's home, contains five smaller houses, each representing different stages of life, from youth to old age; while in Family Tree the many sibling branches bare the future generations; one is bare. . . . . . The spotlight also focuses on the individual in Social Butterfly and Night on the Town, of pulsating night life, alcoholic bubbles, flashing disco lights and many sequins and cut out sliver stars. Love flows from the heart in ribbons of red. 'I want my paintings to be life a performance on canvas,' Savoia says - and they are. He embraces all kinds of things to create his art - acrylic paints and gold spray, a dragonfly, sequins, glass beads, cigarette butts, cut outs from Marlboro packets. Even his own finger nails are used in Heavy Glow, in which he sees himself as being the ultimate medium by literally putting part of his physical being into his painting. The gold metallic wrapping paper cut and stuck on to the canvas, as in a mosaic, is an inherited response. . . . . . Layers of meaning abound; and naïve imagery is used at times to nudge profundities and explore complex notions and human relationships. La Tempesta probes a particular, evoking lighting and thunderous climaxes in recollection, coloured in passionate resonances of red. The moods and climaxes of nature are metaphors of human emotions and deeds. Within the horizontal landscape format, the downward vertical threads of silver mosaic squares are rain and resonate with physical connotations. This strong physical response is explored further in Tasty Rain - as metaphor, and of opening one's mouth to rain and allowing its drops fall on your tongue. Although there is a change in scene, Boxing under Water in all its brilliant transparent blues, retains the aqueous connection, likening relationships and internal struggles to the physical constrictions of being under water. . . . . . In his youth-given confidence to tackle the epic, Savoia also turns to addition - of love physical and religious, material nasties in the form of cigarettes, and other tantalisations, as in Addicted to Love and Homage of Bishop Pat Buckley. Somehow his art would not be complete without some presence of the Cross in his acknowledgment of the momentous nature of love. . . . . . © David Thomas Fine Art, Melbourne, 2007 |
