Patrick Tuttofuoco

In Freddy Boy, that was part of Like They Were Eternal, Patrick Tuttofuoco's solo show at Schiavo Zoppeli Gallery, the colored neon lights, which draw the outlines of upside-down humans, are the representation of the souls that pass from the real world to the afterlife, in the famous Book of the Dead of ancient Egypt. This work is the “memory” of a cousin who passed away too soon, who has become the representation closest to the artist of the connection between the earthly and the otherworldly. The boundaries between transcendence and immanence blend together, there is an alternative dimension where the limits of time and space become fainter, there continues to be a flow, a movement, a transfer of energy.

Patrick Tuttofuoco, Like They Were Eternal, 2021, exhibition view at Schiavo Zoppelli Gallery, Milano. ph. Andrea Rossetti

If the work’s vertical development recalls a transcendent and spiritual approach, horizontally it becomes the symbol of a material dimension. The lights go from a warm to a cold color, signifying a dispersion, or, vice versa, an accumulation of energy. The two axes generate a cross: its center represents the encounter between materiality and spirituality, which is nothing if not the human dimension.

Patrick Tuttofuoco, Like They Were Eternal, 2021, exhibition view at Schiavo Zoppelli Gallery, Milano. ph. Andrea Rossetti