Jorge R. Pombo Reimagines Michelangelo's Last Judgment in 1:1 Scale

Spanish painter Jorge R. Pombo (Barcelona, 1973) has created one of the largest oil paintings in history, a 1:1 scale reproduction and reinterpretation of Michelangelo's Last Judgment. The work spans 13 large canvases totaling 180 square meters. It will be exhibited at Villa Da Porto in Montorso from March 2 to 31, 2024. The project is curated by Sandro Orlandi Stagl and is part of the Movimento Arte Etica, promoted since 2016 by ARTantide Gallery of Paolo Mozzo in Verona. Pombo initially copies the Renaissance fresco with similar painting techniques, then lays the canvases on the floor and floods them with solvents. The reaction with still-wet paint dissolves contours, freeing figures from their narrative function. Pombo states, 'In my paintings there is not a single gesture that is mine; none of the fluid stains that form the Last Judgment are subject to my criteria; it is a self-determined painting, I provoke accidents and accompany them, but I renounce the romanticism of imprinting my gesture on them.' He explains that dissolving the figures of saints and recognizable characters annuls their identity, making the scene more universal so that anyone of any religion can identify with it. The work maintains and accentuates light and darkness while erasing character identities.