“Art keeps us in touch, as if we are falling into the paintings and meet each other there.” Mary Cinque.
Cities, intense use of colours and instant portraits are the main features in the work of Mary Cinque, the Italian artist based in London since 2017. Her series "Titled" is an insightful look at several aspects of the urban context, translated in images of the city through the use of horizontal and vertical lines.
The architectural research is clear in her work, most of the paintings are a response to the influence of the great cities where she lived like Naples, Los Angeles, New York and London. Inspiration comes from the metropolitan astonishment from different areas of the city. This is very well translated in her "wanderer" series, a collection of drawings featuring the urban space of Stoke Newington and Dalston in London, where she use to live nowadays.
Mary Cinque, 017_Odeon_ Tottenham, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
Mary Cinque, Sunstreet, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 40 cm
Mary Cinque, Barbican, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 31.5 x 31.5 cm
Mary Cinque, To Wilton's Music Hall, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm
Photography has a primary role in the entire process of composition: a simple shot acts like a sketch and the analysis of it is a deep reflection on the "reality" she sees around her. A process of elimination in order to simplify reduces the image to the essence. “Lots of elements in the composition are almost disturbing the total perception of the image” says Mary “so it becomes necessary to deny their presence”.
"The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object. Therefore, the object must be eliminated from the picture" Piet Mondrian
The influence of Piet Mondrian is instantly recognisable in Mary’s paintings. The drive to reduce is a necessity to see the unity in natural things.
Mary Cinque, Vesuvius, 2018. Acrylic on canvas , 100 x 100 cm
Mary Cinque, 016titled#012 1, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 100 cm
Mary Cinque, 016titled#04 , 2016. Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 70 cm
The use of colours is persistent in Mary’s work, but the use of different mediums, from acrylics to brush pens, has a clear purpose. “The acrylic on canvas is mostly used to represent the cities because it allows me to reflects more on what I saw and it is a chance to think on the painting itself while working on it," says the artist Mary "instead I prefer the brush pens for my live portraits to catch the personality of the person in front of me and express it with few lines in a fast way. This allows me to capture the energy of the person I am looking at and transfer it immediately in the drawings”.
Mary Cinque, The portrait project girl bl, 2017. Marker on paper, 24 x 17 cm
Mary Cinque, The portrait project stripe bl, 2017. Marker on paper, 24 x 17 cm
Mary studied art and decoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, where the cultural richness of the city with its complex architecture offered her great inspiration to work and experiment with different techniques and subjects. Her last solo exhibition, "The illusion of Dedalus", curated by Massimo Bignardi and with a text by Ada Patrizia Fiorillo, was showcased in 2017 at "Centro di Sarro" in Rome and at "The Italian Cultural Institute" in Cologne, under the direction of Lucio Izzo. In this cycle of paintings, dedicated to urban views, Mary reduces the volumes to flat colours celebrating the enigma of visibility looking at the city through the painting itself, as if the canvas is the new place telling us a new story.
She has been recently selected for the Saatchi Other Art Fair of Los Angeles, a platform for artists to present and sell their work directly to art buyers. She presented her "Titled" series along with her live portraits and the "wanderer" series realized here in London. Her painting "Vesuvius" was chosen by Art aficionado and Host Committee member Jose Lemus from Paul Smith as one of the 6 must- see artworks and artists at #TheOtherArtFairLA.
Mary Cinque, The wanderer Stoke Newington Church Street, 2017. Marker on paper, 24 x 17 cm