Emilio Gola

Tangerine dream, the work in the competition shows us three young people gathered in a languid embrace in the shade of a large tree, not far from a picnic cloth strewn with tangerines, cookies and other remnants of a recently eaten lunch. A graduate of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Gola practices an almost experiential painting style: he does not act as a demiurge directing each pose, but “lets the painting happen,” making a very spontaneous drawing from life that he then reworks by successive additions and layering.
If the choice of subject is reminiscent of Édouard Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe - a milestone in the history of modern art for its ability to infuse the country theme with a modern sensibility -, the intimate atmosphere and uncanny elegance of the protagonists, on the other hand, hark back to the poetics of Balthus. From the latter, in particular, the Milanese artist inherits the dedication to the human figure, understood as a red-hot core around which the entire work thickens. Everything is visible and yet secret in Tangerine dream, everything exposed and yet inaccessible, and the boy who turns his gaze toward us seems to seek contact and at the same time sanction a distance, making us accomplices of a mystery that we can only scratch.

Giulia Oglialoro