Alessandro Twombly

Alessandro Twombly (b. 1959, Rome) is an Italian-born painter and sculptor, whose exuberant paintings and textured sculptures reflect his intimate connection to his local surroundings, the countryside outside Rome where he lives and works.

 

Twombly is deeply familiar with the flora and fauna of the Italian countryside and understands the longer geological perspective which shaped the landscape. Describing this relationship, he says ‘I work with nature like another artist might focus on the nude,’ explaining that he uses nature as a point of departure to move beyond direct representation. Nature is shifted into a psychological abstraction, seemingly reflecting a state of mind through exuberant colours and bold brushstrokes which battle and blend on the canvas. This dynamism is the result of an energetic and varied method of painting; Twombly often rests the canvas on the floor and uses his bare hands to apply his broad and expressive brushstrokes. Twombly is a natural and skilled colourist, combining vibrant colours and layering them with precision, tone after tone to obtain varying nuances. In places, this direct application doesn’t allow the colours to mix and they sit next to each other in contrast, independent yet blended by the composition.

 

This intrinsic relationship with nature is also visible in his sculpture. The traces of his fingers on the raw material reveal his attempt to represent substraction as a form of abstraction, where the external image of nature is not his main model. The shapes of Twombly’s works present the ‘inside’ of nature that pushes something towards the light, which illuminates it and in doing so helps it appear. 

 

Twombly’s works have been exhibited in Rome, London, Zurich, New York and beyond, and are currently in the collections of the Museo Jumex in Mexico and The Glass House (Philip Johnson Foundation) in Connecticut, USA.