Marco Cali

Works on Paper

I love all sorts of imagery, from high Renaissance artworks, to cartoons, film noire, Mogul miniatures and so on. In fact, thinking about it, I really like how narratives are suggested in pictorial representation, from the play on memory that comes with photos, to how time and physical space are dealt with in paintings, graphic novels or movies.

I like to play with space and composition, especially with respect to what is figurative and what might be more abstract.  There is always, for me, an element of satire and grotesque representation at least at some level. Figures are placed in relation to each other, the overall space that is there on the flat page itself as well as what is the representation itself. I like the idea that shadows and form are of course just patches of colour.  I also like the fact that poses and compositions repeat themselves down the ages, much as stories and subject matter. Some works will start intentionally from an historically existing image or painting say, others will be from some encounter in my everyday life, a film even, and only after will I more consciously bring in aspects from this or that source.

Italian born but living in Britain for most of my life, amongst many things I've studied at Central Saint Martins and want to imbued my art with a personal sensibility rather then specific style.

Selected Exhibitions

2019

British Painting, Norwich Cathedral

Painting the In-Between, Bowery Arts, Leeds

2018 

Her Soul's Bright Armour, Royal Engineers Museum, Gillingham, Kent 

2017 

Testcard P, Crypt Gallery, London

Contemporary Masters from Britain, Tianjin Academy of Fine Art, China

 Masters from Britain, Jangsu Art Gallery, Nanjing, China

Contemporary Masters from Britain, Artall Gallery, Nanjing, China 

Anything Goes?, Art Bermondsey, London

Two Places at Once, Art Licks/Olympic Park, London

Contemporary Masters from Britain, Yantai Art Museum China

2016 

30x30x34, Contemporary British Painting 2016, London 

Parables Displaced, Whitstable Biennale Satellite, Kent

2015 

Contemporary British Drawing, Xi'an Academy of Fine Art, Xi'an, China

Counter Plymouth, KARST, Plymouth

365 Drawings, Galerie Anières, Switzerland

 Acts, Arnolfini, Bristol

Object, The Tetley, Leeds

2014

Berliner Liste, Postbanhof, Berlin Friedichshain

See Marco’s Lockdown Interview here -

About this work

Catching a glimpse of people's reflections in glass and thinking about imagery of supernatural being.