Lot 37 Dα

Piero Dorazios work, which was dedicated to abstraction early on, was subject to continual individual forms of expression. Free arrangements of gestural structures in the 1950s were followed by close-knit mesh and grid paintings. In the mid-1960s, these grids opened up and the artist now worked with thick strips and bands of colour.
In his tireless exploration of colour, Dorazio strived to reach a full-fledged intrinsic value similar to that of natural phenomena. “With the means of colour, one must create a space that is itself a living reality, in which others can identify the living progression of existence and growth as a fact. I wish it were possible to create a colour from which neither a dream nor the interpretation of an external reality could be deducted. A colour that, by the way it assumes its own identity and "simply is", would contain the fundamental values of our relationship with nature, at least those that we know and feel.” (Piero Dorazio, cited from: exhib.cat. Piero Dorazio, Galerie Im Erker, St. Gallen 1966, n.pag.).
In its colouristic force, “Gli Incamminati“ (the wayfarers) exemplify what Dorazio describes here. In a panorama-like format, an autonomous colour space unfolds that incorporates the natural tone of the unpainted parts of the canvas. Vertical and diagonal strips of colour populate this space, reaching out dynamically, and refer to moments of movement without reproducing representational subjects.