Ettore Tripodi on narrative, fragments, and the alchemy of painting

In a conversation with Davide Dal Sasso for Artribune's 'Dialoghi di Estetica' series, Italian painter Ettore Tripodi discusses his practice, focusing on narrative, fragmentation, and the role of misunderstanding in art. Tripodi describes his small-format works as cinematic frames suspended between past and future, where the viewer's imagination completes the story. He explains that his process begins with an intuition that evolves through studio work, reading, museum visits, and dialogue. He likens his method to a game of broken telephone among mirrors, where the original image is lost and transformed. Each painting is a fragment, like a page from a book, that gains meaning in relation to others. Tripodi emphasizes the importance of the filter through which a story is told, comparing it to someone recounting a film from their perspective. He sees technique as inseparable from thought, with the hand acting like a seismograph. The artist values the moment of surprise when the work deviates from its initial concept, calling this 'alchemy' that emerges through the material process. He cites his 2016 solo exhibition 'Storie' at Studio d'Arte Cannaviello in Milan as an example. Tripodi concludes that art lies in what remains unsaid, allowing for unexpected associations and multiple interpretations.