Francesco Villicich's Paesaggi exhibition at the Moores Building (Fremantle, WA)

Paesaggi Francesco Villicich Moores Building 46 Henry St Fremantle Opening Sunday 9 March at 3.00pm On view 10th to 30th March The ever-moving interaction between colour, light and energy in nature is the focus of Italian artist Francesco Villicich’s first solo exhibition in Australia. Francesco’s large oil paintings are alive with their tactile play of generously applied pure colour. Imagined landscapes lead the viewer on a journey towards a distant horizon incandescent with light. The Italian title of the exhibition Paesaggi, means landscapes, but Francesco’s landscapes are more metaphysical than real. Francesco talks about paintings as being like the footprints of a hunter, someone searching for something that is always fleeing, like the ever elusive horizon. “The horizon is only, and always, visual; you can never catch it. It is always distant. The footprints that you leave behind you are your paintings. They are the residue of the painter, the means by which you seek to express an emotion.” “My sensation of nature is that it involves great distances, a distant light, a journey,” Francesco continues. His own journey has been an extraordinary one. The first 15 years of his professional life were in the world of ballet. At the height of his career as Primo Ballerino and then Principal Guest Artist for top ballet companies around the world, he decided to hang up his ballet shoes and re-dedicate himself to his first love, painting. However, ballet continued to shape his journey. It was an intimate connection to ballet that brought him to Western Australia, when his financée, ballerina Alessandra D’Arbe, was offered a place in the West Australian Ballet and the couple moved to Perth in 2006. This exhibition is the result of four years intense work, begun in a studio in a small mountain hamlet above Bergamo in northern Italy, finished in the back shed of the house in Victoria Park where the couple now live. Francesco has held a number of solo and group exhibitions in Europe, winning prizes and recognition from both public and critics. He has recently been included in the prestigious international encyclopaedia of artists, Dizionario Comanducci. The exhibition will be opened by Minister for Culture and the Arts Sheila McHale MLA at the Moores Building at 3.00pm on Sunday 9 March and will remain on view until 30 March. Gallery hours: 10.00am – 5.00pm daily. For further information contact: Jody Fitzhardinge 0410 639 554 email: J.Fitzhardinge@curtin.edu.au