OMAR GALLIANI y la belleza

Omar Galliani has participated in three Venice Biennales, as well as numerous international exhibitions including, more recently, China. For the past 30 years, Galliani’s experimentation with form has evolved to greater imbibe the “soul” of his subjects within his works. Since the 80s, Galliani has exhibited an almost clairvoyant awareness of rich, spiritual nuances and dynamically combines the serenity of Oriental meditation and mantra with Western spirituality and iconography.
Technically, Galliani uses pencil, pastel and ink in his works, employing the same classic skills of chiaroscuro and sfumato as his forebears Leonardo da Vinci, from this excellent tradition emerges Galliani’s work, in a continuous variation of drawing with different materials and on different supports, in order to express possibilities yet unexplored.
Galliani works with techniques and supports taken from nature and melted in a sort of alchemic combination. This happens in his unusual drawings on poplar, a white wood, marked with the bright signs of black graphite. Upon the natural wooden surface graphite lays; wood and graphite are two elements rooted in the deepest of earth, the vegetal one is destined to emerge, while the mineral one has to remain in the profound geological layer, close to diamantiferous veins.
Many of Omar Galliani’s subjects are young women, although his collection does include a few portraits of young men – the faces of his subject matter are at times overlaid with expressive markings or “tattoos”, which creates the impression of veiling form with an otherworldly layer, lending texture and substance to an already realistic image. Through such experimentation, Galliani injects sensuality into his expressive force, drawing together emotion, eroticism, thought, reflection and a sense of infinite contemplation into the expression and stature of his figuration.
This combination is the result of the superposition of signs that create the image and it is made visible by the bright and shining surface of the black graphite that emphasizes the veins of the white wood.
The complexity of Galliani’s work is thus a texture where technical perfection, talent, creativity are combined with sensitivity and culture, a universe where working is like a faith: life, women, new myths and ancient wisdom weave a pattern of deep beauty never seen before.