After his debut last November with Carminium, Italian artist Federico Vezzaro has returned to New York for his second solo exhibition in the Big Apple, Beyond the Surface, which opened yesterday, April 3, at the Temple Gallery in New York. Once again, he brought with him a medium he himself has described as “new,” one he has refined over the past fifteen years: Rust Art.
“For me, it’s a way to represent everything I’ve understood, researched, and studied over the last 10–15 years,” he explained. At the heart of his work is iron, a humble material made expressive through the use of acids and the chemical processes of oxidation. Colors that emerge not from a gesture, but from a reaction. “Just by using acid,” says Vezzaro. But what comes out is anything but ordinary: it’s matter that reacts, transforms, surprises.
The new show follows a stop in Berlin, which wraps up this week, and his participation in Art Expo, also in New York. Two experiences that strengthened his belief that this city is the most fitting place to host a language like his.
“New York is the ideal place to present this new medium I’ve experimented with and developed,” he said. “The environment here is just right.”
Vezzaro, who comes from a background in design and bio-construction, found in oxidation a way to explore matter and time without relying on traditional drawing. His works have no titles; instead, they are numbered using sequences derived from the golden ratio — an attempt to escape the limitations of names and pursue a form of invisible order.
This new New York chapter follows the same direction: seeking, through matter, a form. And perhaps, in a city used to seeing everything, still managing to surprise.
The exhibition will be open to the public through April 5, from 12PM to 6PM, at 108 Madison St., New York.