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untitled (circle), spray paint on paper, ca. 1960's, 27 1/2 x 25 1/2"

Don't miss the exquisite Afranio Metelli show! Last weekend is May 3rd

#afranio metelli #schema projects #bushwick

(boxers), gouache on paper, ca. 1970's, 12 x 7" each

Now on view:

AFRANIO METELLI

Odyssey & Odes: Works on Paper

April 4–May 4, 2014

Schema Projects is pleased to present a selection of works on paper by the Italian artist Afranio Metelli (1924-2011). Selected from 5 decades of Metelli’s production, these works wander in and out of contemporary currents, picking up here and dropped there, their thread. Just as the work embraces and retreats with the outside world, so did this essentially Umbrian artist, who left his home region to travel to France, Mexico and the United States at moments of important artistic foment: to Rome, during the post Fascist years of the “Informal” movement, to France and Picasso’s ceramic studio at Vaullauris, to Mexico in the heyday of the great 20C muralists, to LA at the birth of Pop Art. He absorbed all these bright artistic movements into his own personal mix. Neither did he neglect the great local artisanal workshops having first studied after graduating from the Academia in Perugia, in Gualdo Tadino, a town know since the 14C for it’s superb ceramic works in lusterware . His early work here was an important influence throughout his life.

Metelli’s work often reflected his interest in styles and modes of other artists. He loved to experiment with different techniques as in his spray series, his odes to Klee or the torn paper/collage works that resemble Rotelli. At other times he turned to more classic heroes, such as Caravaggio, Velazquez and Antonello da Messina. He took up abstraction or discarded it at will. There was a surrealist thread that wove its way through his work that animated and gave mystery to his own brand of figuration. In another series, he celebrated iron tools, lovingly and realistically rendered symbols of a slowly dying lifestyle as Italian life shifted away from the agrerian to new modern modes of industry and technology. Afranio had a great love of boxing and did countless drawings of boxers in an array of states and poses. He was an avid collector of sewing machines, (probably an influence from his fathers shoemaking shop) and was a regular presence aside his wife Ann’s flea market table on the monthly antique circuit in Pissignano. Love and lore were continuously stitched together in his work, always authentic, his studio a rich and wonderful place to visit, each nook and cranny filled with various treats. One could never pigeon hole this artist: he remained a bit of an enigma and in this and so many other ways, he defied definition yet never managed to allude his fans, which included a host of local, national and international artists and visitors who gathered in this rich and beautiful area of the world.

#afranio metelli #schema projects #Bushwick