CALEIDOSCOPIO DELLA MEMORIA
UN PITTORE CHE RESTA
In each Biancalani's painting there is something that astonishes. A vase that had fallen onto the ground, and there next to it, some flowers scattered, naked women offering themselves, either immodestly or falsely distracted; rolled up mattresses, twisted, abandoned, up against a wall, soaked in bodily liquids, dreams, exalting abbandon, solitude and suffering; beds like untidy altars where rites of life and death have been performed; objects from everyday life that you can see have lived and involve you. They are moments, visions, sensations that Biancalani captures with his quick but technically perfect painting, finished, and the picture becomes poetry. A pig hanging, quartered, is a cry of suffering, almost matyrdom, but never macabre ostentation. The self-portraits are moments of disturbing reflexion where the observe identifies with the face of the Artist, who is questioning himself and waiting for an answer from you. Biancalani's works speak, and move because the subjects are always real, meditated and poetic; because the colours are alive and perfect; because the Artist is true. A work by Biancalani doesn't decorate a wall it doesn't make a room more beautiful, it illuminates the mind and the soul. This is why he is a painter who will live on. The landscapes, while being part of the great Tuscan tradition, also contain the torment of a person who loves those places and is part of them: the trees have the austerity of monuments; the skies the breadth and colours that only people in love can see. The chairs, the armchairs the tables that bold drapes or sheets, become eloquent witnesses of daily episodes of family life and, at the same time, mysterious and evocative images blocked in time. But, above all, the female nudes involve you harmonious bodies, relaxed, caught in positions that are never tense; they exude sensuality that does not scandalise, that invites contemplation andfascinates. Then, all of a sudden, you realise tbe great ability of the painter in playing with the light, and only then are you able to understand the magic in Biancalani's paintings. His real ability is just there - the lights come down onto the objects, lightly touch the bodies, gently penetrating the folds of the cloth and the twisted forms and mattresses; they lap the walls, vibrate in the landscapes and everything becomes alive, excites, becomes true Art, that which lives on.
Galleria Gagliardi - 2003: solo exhibition "Caleidoscopio della memoria" by Antonio Biancalani, text by Guerrino Giorgettii
