GIANCARLO BERTINI
Bertini was born on January 3, 1973, near Quilpue, Chile, place of the turtledoves. He spent his adolescence in the semi-urban territories that surround his native Quilpue. This area was formerly made up of country fields, and during his youth, underwent a transformation to industry. The country fields are no longer predominant. His memories of those square, rectangular, and isolated patches of land, are manifest in his work. Man is small, may be depicted as a remembered silhouette, or is an ethereal floating figure. These figures are insignificant in size. It is the surroundings that have power. After years of labor, Bertini has acquired a recognized identity as an artist. Painting has constituted for him, his blood, the vital sap that feeds his life today. His style is distinctive and immediately recognizable. No uncertainties appear, the steps are sure, and the destiny has been reached. The colors – ochres, blues, and browns, flow from his hands, the vehicle for the ingenuity of his soul. In the late 1990’s, Bertini was transformed by an extended stay in Mexico City. The forms and tones of the Aztec lands captivated him, yet he experienced an aloneness and a lack of acceptance in a place that belonged to others. That experience appears in the canvases we appreciate today. There is a feeling of solitude. Bertini’s work has been exhibited in South America, Mexico, and the United States. He has won many awards, including first place in the Salon Regional de Arte, Galeria Municipal de Valparaiso.
GIANCARLO BERTINI The Big Bang, 55”x74”, $8,000
GIANCARLO BERTINI Countryside, 32”x40”, $5,000
GIANCARLO BERTINI Girasol, 39”x47”, $6,300
GIANCARLO BERTINI Houses on the Hill, 30”x40”, $4,200
GIANCARLO BERTINI La Masa, 30”x40”, $4,200
GIANCARLO BERTINI Homage 33, 32”x40”, $4,300
GIANCARLO BERTINI Arbol Rojo, 32”x40”, $3,800
Giancarlo Bertini — A Painter of the Future By Daniel Santeliers, Art Critic, Valparaiso, Chile For Giancarlo Bertini, laws of visual perception are applied by pure instinct. His work is a visual act converted into a visual judgment. It has always been thought that the word judgment had to do with rational understanding and was different from the perception perceived by the senses. Bertini’s work is based on controlled impulses that create a tension between the elements. His paintings show a certain convergence and a perspective, as well. This convergence is curbed by light that infiltrates, underlining the intersection of planes by means of an unstable equilibrium. Bertini’s complete work forms an entity under tension from lines, planes, and small geometric elements. They combine to create an extraordinary solidness. The passage from one to another shows color variations masterfully resolved. Viewing the oeuvre, one sees the invisible power of perception through a hidden structure. When we indicated in the first sentence of this article that Bertini applies visual laws instinctively, it is because we know him as an artist free from intellectualizing his pictorial processes. He has used artistic license. In these visual laws of equilibrium, space, movement, and tension, Bertini has taken liberties with, and created new, laws of physical properties. Yesterday, Bertini’s pictorial surfaces were predominantly black and white and structured towards the borders of the canvas, a risky format which he resolved with outstanding ability. He seemed to be playing Russian Roulette all of the time. Today, he experiments with color and utilizes the human figure with its profiles and contours. He utilizes it to anchor the composition. The canvas escapes its actual size and reformats itself from the composition. Incorporated in the works exhibited for this occasion are abstractions of urban landscapes, graduated scales that transform the surface tonalities, and illuminations that act like past spiritual transfigurations. Inverted hills and narrow stepladders, run through the painting in ascending directions. Successive layers of colors are superimposed onto each other, creating transparencies and luminous tonalities that we see between the brush strokes. Bertini’s favorite medium, and the medium of all of his works, is oil.
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