Oftentimes, in art and in life, the sky is seen as an a passive backdrop, a static canvas against which forms of life blossom and transform. David Florimbi's sky exists in a peculiar realm between matter and nothingness, not made up of matter but possessing a force powerful enough to slip the ground out from under your feet.
The Pennsylvania-born artist's exhibition "Coming and Going" harnesses the historical myths associated with the sky and throws them into a single image, whirring with force and movement. Florimbi incorporates Michelangelo's illogical axis -- spinning furiously against all odds -- with Rene Magritte's invitation to catch shapes in the clouds. Giorgione's storm warnings mingle with O'Keeffe's gaping spaces, all beneath Titian's exquisite sculpted clouds. Each painting emits a supernatural weather so strong it threatens to suck us in, uncertain as to whether we will sink, soar, float or fall. The world Florimbi tempts us with is so stunning we hardly care.
Although upon first look the paintings appear like pleasant landscapes, upon closer inspection they possess the same paradoxes as the sky itself: whimsical, in flux, placid with a looming chance of storm. Florimbi's paintings contain a snapshot of the pictorial representation of sky, starting with a Renaissance fresco and ending with a digital time-lapse photograph.
"Coming and Going" will show at Frank Pictures Gallery in Los Angeles until August 15.
See a slideshow of the work below:
