Aldo is dedicated
to the human form. But he puts his formal virtuosity at the service
of human drama. Virtually all of his paintings buzz with narrative
possibilities. Who are the three inscrutable men in Conversation
III? What are they planning? What have they just done? What are
they going to do? And what about the couple in The Early Hours?
Are they lovers? If so, is their affair bursting into life or
fracturing?
Aldo is proud
to admit hes in the storytelling business, even if he lets
us fill in the gaps. I always try to put an element of
mystery in my work, he says. You can suggest so much
in a gesture, in the way someone stands. I like narrative in
painting, because it casts the viewer into a voyeuristic role.
The pull of suggested
narrative explains why so many of the figures in Aldos
work have their backs to us. When a person is face-on,
its a portrait, and the mystique is gone, explains
Aldo. Many of these backs belong, of course, to the be-suited
men that appear throughout the artists work. The prevalence
of so many jackets and ties has promoted some to describe Aldos
work as nostalgic. This is something hes keen to move away
from. I prefer to think of the scenes I depict as timeless.
They are little dramas that could be from any era.
But the suits
will remain. Simply, Aldo loves the formal challenge posed by
all those silken creases. Indeed, hes recently applied
himself to improving the way he renders the kind of sharp and
soft edges we see in a painting such as the aforementioned Osyssey
VI. It might sound highly pedantic to the rest of us edges?
but this dedication to detail is what makes Aldo such
a terrific craftsman. And this collection of formally superb
and profoundly mysterious paintings proves it yet again.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES:
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Front Cover. Artist International (Issue 27) - 5 page feature
Artists and Illustrators
Artist and Illustrator Magazine
COMMISSIONS
AND MAJOR COLLECTIONS:
British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
Lady Laura Paul
The Frieder Burda Museum in Baden Baden Germany bought 2 works
for their collection
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