Andrea Ventura: Twins

Gallery Baton presents Twins, the solo exhibition of an Italian artist Andrea Ventura, from October 10th to November 12th.

Interestingly, Andrea is a full time artist, but at the same time he has worked with world-widely known media like Fortune, New Yorker, and New York Times on the portraits of celebrities or politicians. The immersive and heavy depiction of figures with its emphasis on achromatic color is different from the Caricature-like portraits that are used as illustrations highlighting the characteristic elements of the face. This is because the form and creating process of Andrea's collaborations are identical to those of conventional portraits found in Fine Art. The Twin Series that are introduced in this exhibition are extension of the long-standing sense of his style.

Since Andrea is one of the identical twins, the theme of this exhibition Twins is attributed to the artist's specific circumstances and experiences. It is generally regarded that the appearance of a person is regarded as one's unique identity. Therefore, due to the presence of someone who has the same appearance as himself, sometimes one is regarded as someone else, and vice versa. These situations are bound to repeat. The starting point of this topic is inspired from his experience that, even with the presence of the same appearance, this identity eventually becomes gradually deteriorated due to the change of time and difference of the circumstances.

Regarding the actual works, the artist's experiences and observations mentioned earlier act as the empirical factor in some ways. Let's look at Twin #4, Twin #5, and Twin #6, which are from the series of works with a palely smiling woman staring at a frontal direction. According to Andrea, these portraits are produced not based on the portraits of each of the triplets, but on the same photo. The end result shows the depiction of very resembling figures, instead of having the expected high level of sameness from the original photo. The same photo reveals disparity by indoor lighting, and the different interpretations of color and subtle differences in paint and paper act as similar mechanisms as the difference from the real life environment and eating habits that are found in the real twins.

The portraits thickly painted on papers with achromatic oriented gouache are depicted to unrealistic size through the artist's intentions. They reveal the artist's narrative, and it is long cultivated through his portraiture works of globally well-known people. The images of the twins who do not exist in real life are born through the artistic activity, and they are very interesting as they provide an opportunity to indirectly experience the artist's production method which is described at the beginning.