At 7 pm on Thursday 22 March the exhibition of work by Manuele Cerutti, Motus naturalis, will open at the Guido Costa Projects gallery in via Mazzini 24, Turin.
The paintings on show, the culmination of almost two year’s work, explore two aspects of painting: its formal limits and the ways in which it can express content.
The centrepiece in the show is the large canvas Motus naturalis. More accustomed to working on a smaller scale, often with the skilful touch of the ‘miniaturist’, this painting is in more than one way an exceptional artwork. But enlarging the pictorial surface to such a degree is neither an end in itself nor simple reflection of his technical virtuosity. The artist knew straightaway that to best express the precise narrative he wished to tell would require larger spaces for the brush and a different formal rhythm to accompany the figures.
Although the work includes elements that have characterised Cerutti’s oeuvre over the years, such as a crepuscular use of colour that stirs pietas for humble objects and their precarious equilibrium, this painting has clearly pushed his ideas, iconology and interpretation of classical forms towards new boundaries. While the figurative image as so often occurs in his painting appears to be composed of enigmas, suspended in a sort of metaphysical amazement, here the multiplicity of mutual relations that make it up and the subtle play between complete and unfinished are imbibed with mystery, suggesting something more and introducing us to a higher complexity to be investigated.
Motus naturalis is an experiment in cosmogonic painting, a pictorial essay on the origin of things.
The challenge Manuele Cerutti presents us with in this exhibition is precisely what makes his work so special: how can the ideas inherent in painting be told without simply illustrating them? It matters little, perhaps, that one of the subtexts used by the artist when imagining this large painting can be found in the darkest fragments of writings by Empedocles, where the philosopher provides an account of the origins of the world before the appearance of bodies, describing a scattering of limbs, heads, legs, hands, unaware of the fact that these are only fragments, guided by a mutual ethereal bond as they aimlessly wander a world without time.
Motus naturalis has no didactic ambitions. It does not inform, neither does it illustrate the wisdom of the Presocratic philosophers. Instead it feeds upon this wisdom, producing images that correspond to it.
The abstract movements of the smaller pieces that complete the exhibition likewise lean towards this sophisticated complexity. These fragments, however, tend to home in on, anticipate or digress from the obscure récit told on the large canvas. While definitely part of Motus naturalis, to a certain degree they complete it and even surpass it on their way towards the imaginary elsewheres of their making.
The exhibition of work by Manuele Cerutti will be open to the public during gallery hours until 15 May 2018.

Manuele Cerutti (Torino, 1976) has exhibited in galleries and museums in Italy and abroad, and his work is held in important private and public collections across Europe. This is his first solo show at the Guido Costa Projects gallery.