Enzo Cucchi: First Day

Enzo Cucchi’s exhibition ‘First Day’ at the Timothy Taylor Gallery heralds both a re-introduction of his work to London, and a re-birth of colour and energy.  Cucchi’s work has not been seen in London for fifteen years, and his new paintings provide a fresh combination of conceptual thinking with a vibrant use of colour and paint.
 
The title ‘First Day’ implies a fresh beginning, which is fulfilled by the energy of these eight new paintings.  In terms of subject-matter, however, it is arguable whether these paintings contain the optimism of a new start.  An emblematic image of a man confined to a hospital bed is dwarfed against an expanse of energetic monochrome brushstrokes, and either humourously or pessimistically labelled ‘Uomo’, or ‘Man’.
 
Suspended within the viscous background of paint is the title text for each work: ‘Light’, ‘Life’, Oil’, ‘Jesus’.  The multiple connotations of these single words carry the same weight in the compositions as the images themselves.  Beyond subject-matter however, it is the intensity and scale of Cucchi’s use of paint, which dominates these massive paintings.
 
Cucchi rose to international fame in the early Eighties as a pioneer of international neo-expression.  Like his Italian contemporaries, Mimmo Palladino, Sandro Chia and Francesco Clemente, Cucchi employs symbolism and metaphor in his paintings, but it is his expansive use of a paint, colour and light which sets him apart.
 
‘First Day’ follows the artist’s acclaimed solo exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York in October.  This show at the Timothy Taylor Gallery contains eight large paintings in oil on canvas which together offer a graphic and painterly exploration of the stuff of life.