Mario Narciso’s art is interior depth created through the pictorial effect. His works do not give a materialistic and utilitarian sense to art but art itself is brought back to its origins.
By Stefania Miola
Observing the works’ artist Mario Narciso spontaneously born a feeling of wonder before the beauty of creation and its mysterious language.
A variety of feelings arise that invite us to read from within – intus-legere, to reach the invisible from the visible.
At the same time, contemplation of the beauties of creation arouses inner peace and refines the sense of harmony. In the spiritual man, amazement and admiration are transformed into deeper interior attitudes where the art becomes a means and instrument for research and self-knowledge.
‘Mario Narciso’s art is interior depth created through the pictorial effect.
His works do not give a materialistic and utilitarian sense to art but art itself is brought back to its origins.
“I have no memory of artists who have followed such complex and innovative paths,” a completely personal consideration and without external conditioning”
In this era, more than in other historical moments, we need art rich in content without focusing on the merely visual impact, but ART capable of leading us into unexplored paths of the mind, leading us to a progressive deconditioning, changing our entire mental construct.
In that state of inner calm we will be able to consider ourselves free and ready to follow the paths imbued with Beauty.
And so art will become a clear mirror that will reflect reality for what it is.
“My name is Narciso Mario. I was born in Cesa in a small town in the Caserta area in Italy in 1966,” he said sharing his life journey.
I moved to Milan in 1968. We were assigned a small house of a few square meters in a dormitory neighborhood of Milan Quarto Oggiaro.
My childhood was all in all a happy one. I also have fond memories of Quarto Oggiaro being a hostile neighborhood at the beginning, especially to my mother’s attempt to look for work as a housemaid.
Every time she declared the area she was from, people refused to hire her.
I was not a designer or a painter. I continued to draw trees and trees all the time. Suddenly I discovered color and its magical function, relaxing, perhaps illusory but very fascinating
I seemed to live peacefully but the atmosphere seemed increasingly heavier. The very small house, to always be kept clean with 4 of us sleeping in one room. My parents often argued, I assume for reasons related to adaptation.
My mother could only speak in Campania dialect and was just under 25 years old and had 4 children. I increasingly developed a fear of aggression and violence experienced in a passive sense but also an idea of impotence that would accompany me at every critical phase of my life.
At the age of 14, before reaching the last year of middle school, my family moved to another area between street Padova and street Monza. It was a different atmosphere and the spaces became less cramped. I started my high school studies at a professional institute for tourism which didn’t give me much, I would have liked to study in the arts but high schools were considered non-refundable and risky schools for a jobless future.
After finishing my studies, with a lot of effort, I began to do all kinds of odd jobs. But the one I was most attached to in terms of continuity was the house painter. I earned enough to guarantee independent evenings, cinema and even the first exhibitions. My love life wasn’t very successful at first. A long and unfortunate relationship with a woman who was very mentally ill and older than me negatively characterized my relationship with women. Very dependent and ambivalent. Perhaps it was this that led me towards studies and jobs more focused on care. Perhaps seeking repair is an answer to impotence. I left the tiring experience of being a house painter to enter the world of care. First in an association that defended the rights of AIDS sufferers, then after finishing his studies as a professional educator as a psychiatric facility operator. A lot of suffering seen from the outside and after quite long periods of enthusiasm and love towards a profession that was transforming me and that would transform the world according to my ideal vision of the world itself, I finally began to have doubts about what reality really was, and what I saw. Meanwhile, the years passed. At thirty I knew true love. After so much wandering and meaningless stories.
My love life wasn’t very successful at first. A long and unfortunate relationship with a woman who was very mentally ill and older than me negatively characterized my relationship with women.
Love was an incredible experience. It came in a wonderful and simple form, like a sudden calming after an endless storm. Everything flowed. With love they came. I went to live in a small town, moving away from a city that I defined as dystopian with highly ambivalent and neurotic aspects. I continued to work in the social sector always with great frustration but the aspect of survival prevailed over that of intolerance. Drawing became more and more important in my free time like writing and playing.
I was not a designer or a painter. I continued to draw trees and trees all the time, sometimes conditioned by the art of my brother who wanted to live with art. I was attracted to female bodies. Suddenly I discovered color and its magical function, relaxing, perhaps illusory but very fascinating. My first jobs performed in the long intervals of a job that had ultimately relegated your role to supervision rather than care. From there my first paintings sold the color and my chromatic compositions made a lot. Then the art school required more work but a lot of confusion from a theoretical and practical point of view. It allowed me to discover other techniques including collage and digital collage, another series of works made in a considerable number. Oil and clay considered too visceral materials were replaced in my free time by the discovery of water-soluble wax crayons, resulting in a number of almost 500 works on paper and the first group exhibitions in Zagreb.
My intent is freedom of composition perhaps due to an intolerance towards rules and the desire not to reproduce reality but to create other imaginary and visionary ones that are reminiscent and evocative but which are unrepeatable.”
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[…] READ: THE WAY OF BEAUTY – THE COLOR WORLDS OF ITALIAN ARTIST MARIO NARCISO […]