The artistic research of Domenico D’Oora (London, b. 1953) is characterized by the use of colour and materials in a perceptive way and it focuses on the work’s physical presence and on the usage of colour as a research guide.
The surface – painting place – from simple bidimensional space acquires its own tridimensionality. His painting is made of monochromes and a full-bodied and materical mixture with a succession of overlapped glazes give a volumetric plasticity to the bidimensionality of the artistic surface itself.
Materiality and stratification are two very important concepts for the artist, who examines their possibilities not only on the artwork’s front but also on its edge, developing a research about materials and physicality of his work, made with particular angles that compose the frame. D’Oora – from the beginnings of his works with boards, slabs and stainless steel balls matched – doesn’t consider the surface and the frame’s volume only as a support but as a milestone of his painting.
Starting from 2000s, Domenico D'Oora realized monochrome surfaces by overlapping several glazes and outlining the work with vertical lines at lateral edges, with also a 45° flared frame to define the space. In this technical solution, the painting wraps the frame’s angle producing a very strong monolithic painting-sculpture effect to bring out the artwork from the wall where it’s located.
The wood frame from support became structure, shown in its strong “nakedness” in contrast with the ethereal painted surface of the work. In the recent years the structural support gets an exclusive nature defined by colours and different materials overlapped: transparent plexiglass and coloured plastic materials are added on the MDF, with an accumulation effect in which the identity of each material is related to the previous/next with a rhythmic cadence, almost as if to create a sound effect into the space.
The different materic scans of the “object”- structure are directly connected with the linear modulations of the artwork’s surface, where the colour, as an object, becomes material, thus creating a dialectical composition, a body of the artwork of great consistency and fascination. Moreover, this effect is reinforced by the reversed truncated pyramid made with the wood structure ending on the surface with a really bold and powerful pictorial mixture that seems to float into the space thanks to its visual lightness, even if firmly anchored to the underlying materic layering.
A selection of works on MDF multi-layer board and shaped PVC is on view the 25th May at Theca Gallery in Milan, presenting “Domenico D’Oora Dipinti Dimensioni”, a solo show by this extraordinary artist.
Artworks by Domenico D’Oora are available for sale on Kooness.com
© Photo Credits: Theca Gallery Milano. "Domenico D'Oora Dipinti Dimensioni", curated by Stefano Roberto Mazzatorta.