Nicolas Party's 'Pietra Dura' at Kaufmann Repetto, Milan

Nicolas Party's exhibition 'Pietra Dura' at Galleria Kaufmann Repetto in Milan features trompe-l'œil wall paintings and interventions that distort space on an anti-perspective matrix. The Swiss artist (b. 1980) creates portals, windows, and tympana that reference what Lucio Fontana called 'the fourth symbolic dimension of architecture,' adding meaning through autonomous supports in dialogue with their environment. The works evoke early Renaissance influences, more akin to Giotto than Piero della Francesca, eluding Erwin Panofsky's theories of perspective as symbolic form. Space and bodies merge, as in Gothic and Byzantine art, where the artwork ceases to be a representation of perceptual reality and opens to unconscious and magical meanings. Materials are refined, recalling Germanic and Levantine tastes for gold and precious stones. On plywood supports treated to resemble stone, marble slabs form intricate inlays creating objects and figures in Party's unmistakable style. Murals of Nordic, barren landscapes evoke a mythical timelessness to which they seek to return among the plaster layers of the gallery.