Italian artist Agostino Arrivabene paints otherworldly scenes that move between the romantic and the terrifying. His paintings, often oil on wood, both reference and emulate age-old concepts of transformation, death, and bonds between subjects and concepts of alchemy. At times, the works rely on familiar symbology; in other works, the image appears as something wholly novel. The artist was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
“Arrivabene’s approach to painting stems from his artistic influences Gustave Moreau and Odd Nerdrum,” Cara Gallery said, in a statement. “He follows traditional methods that include grinding his own pigments and the almost forgotten technique of mischtechnik. In mischtechnik, egg tempera is used in combination with oil-based paints to create translucent layers which, when laid over each other, refract light creating a sense of luminosity. This attention to the minutiae has resulted in Arrivabene’s paintings actually embodying a process of alchemical transformation, in which the physical matter of painting itself is transmuted into extraordinary light-filled visions.”
Sculpture has also been present in relaying the artist’s vision, pulling in the above expressed concepts in three-dimensional detail.