Giacomo Santiago Rogado

2006

Schlaf

Solo show

Galerie Mark Müller

October 28 – December 16, 2006

Zürich

Whether the painterly or the graphic element carries more weight in the work of Giacomo Santiago Rogado is difficult to determine – rather, the two are in perfect balance: for subject and abstraction do not stand in opposition to one another, but are symbiotically intertwined. The artist’s main interest, therefore, lies in the image as image, rather than in the means by which it is achieved; its formulation emerges through the process of image-finding and engagement with it.

Considering that humans spend one-third of their lives asleep, it makes double sense to reflect on this fact. In this spirit, Rogado titles his exhibition Sleep, triggering countless associations in the viewer. Ideally, one recalls a beautiful dream and begins to drift away in reverie – yet this is a false trail when it comes to deciphering Rogado’s visual language: it is less about the dreamlike and more about the imaginary – the intersection between sleep and wakefulness, consciousness and unconsciousness.

Rogado is interested in sleep as a state whose qualities he continually redefines. It is, in a sense, about the conscious conception of images generated in the mind, rather than those that surround us.

Pathos illustrates this idea: like a surgeon, the artist lays bare his pictorial concept by looking into the head, filling the interior – our world of thought – with color, while leaving the exterior in darkness. He speaks of a “pictorial” sleep. With eyes closed, combinations of colors and real or imagined situations emerge, finding their way into his paintings. Yet Rogado does not pursue this with manic consistency; instead, he peppers his oeuvre with real depictions rendered almost one-to-one on paper. Mount Pilatus, which rises in full grandeur before his studio, is just one example.

Marina Olsen