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Pierre ANTONIUCCI

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Darling

Pierre ANTONIUCCI

Darling

2012

tempera, oil and acrylic on paper mounted on canvas
89 3/4 x 57 1/2 inches

Summary

Drawing from sources ranging from antiquity to modernism, French artist Pierre Antoniucci melds these together, dissolving the classic periods of chronological history in favor of an unbroken layer of globalization that stretches back to the dawn of human history, which day by day gets denser and more tightly woven than the previous day. 

Antoniucci’s work often examines the theme of time, in one case via literary inspiration with a series of large-scale paintings based on French author Alain Borer’s dramatic work "Le Quadrige Invectif" (The Unruly Four-In-Hand), which depict a cavalcade of figures across various time periods (Pegasus and his mare Darling; Fausto Coppi, the dominant cyclist of the 1940s and 50s; and Richard Mille, a contemporary luxury watchmaker), who come together in an abstract expanse that can not really be described as a physical place. These characters engage in a “race against time” on hoof, bicycle, and Bugatti, bantering back and forth as they go along.
Time is also examined in Antoniuccis ongoing series of portraiture. Color resides only in faces and hands of these works. The bodies are reduced to a kind of silhouette, which seems to be vanishing. “It’s the passing of time,” says Antoniucci, “that makes these figures fade, shrink, lighten, and  disperse—it minimalizes them, turning them into ghosts or angels.”
Pierre Antoniucci lives and works in France. His work has been exhibited extensively in Europe, and is in the collection of several French museums.