Before a bigger splash by Carlo Trevisan

1. Introduce yourself in a nutshell? What is your background? 
Carlo Trevisan. Profession: color dreamer. Painting is the means to give life to my emotions, my ideas, my dreams. I live in Italy dividing myself between the sea of Versilia in Tuscany and the romantic city of Verona. I have been painting for over 30 years, without ambitions and false steps, without fuss and in the silence of my home-studio in an ancient Tuscan village. I try to give small emotions that everyone can hang on the wall of their home and live it every day, continuously. 


2. How was your vocation as an artist born? 
From the early years of school it was easy for me to draw and color. The technical studies first as a surveyor and then as engineering helped me to rationalize the view of reality, managing to synthesize the concept of ideas and images in essential and minimal elements. In the 1990s, my friendship with an important Tuscan painter made me rediscover the greatness of art and I understood that this had to be my path. Like all artists, I started with simple group exhibitions, on the street, outdoors, in the midst of people. Then more important group exhibitions. At my first solo exhibitions in Tuscany I was able to sell almost all of my paintings. I won some awards. I understood that this was the right way to go and that art would be my life. And I was not wrong ... 


3. How does a painting session take place? What is the process of creating one of your works? 
I paint every day. The subjects of the paintings are many because there are so many ideas in my mind. But the time and the days are only 24 hours and it is not possible to achieve everything. I have painted with all the pictorial techniques, but I have been painting for years now mainly with oil colors and linseed oil. I carry out several works at the same time, respecting the drying times and therefore I work with continuous glazing, as was done in the Renaissance. I am very quick to paint: in my mind I already know how a painting should be completed, what are the colors, the shades, the composition of the subjects / objects. To paint is to regain possession of my time and my being. And a continuous and relaxing meditation: a zen of color. During the execution of a painting all attention is focused on that canvas until it is completed. But then, once finished, we detach ourselves and start a new painting, a new experience, a new emotion. And it's nice every time to start a new adventure of color and emotions. 
 

4. What are your artistic inspirations, influences and references? 
The life. Every day I experience emotions that are sometimes intense and sometimes superficial. Yet every situation manages to suggest colors, scenarios, situations. I think the painting of the past is all particularly interesting, from the Renaissance (I grew up in the city of Piero della Francesca, a Tuscan Renaissance painter in 1400) to the contemporary one: I'm talking about Banksy, Hirst, Murakami, Hockney, Sherman. Of course I was born as a surrealist painter and Dalì, Chagall, Magritte, De Chirico were great masters for me. I love Hopper's poetics and Rothko's minimalism. 


5. What is your relationship with the themes that emerge in your paintings? 
A dreamy life full of positivity. What one experiences and dreams is expressed, otherwise I would not be a true artist. In my paintings there is always a subject / object that expresses a story, a situation, an emotion. Even a simple isolated tree tells something. Or an animal that looks at us and wants to tell us something. Behind each of my paintings there is a story to tell, it is up to the observer to enter that context and to give course to the story with his imagination. I only give the stimulus, the "Once upon a time .... But then, whoever looks at the painting, starts with his feelings and emotions. 


6. What are the meanings of the colors you use? 
I almost always use bright colors, full of light, of air. In my backgrounds I almost always use Payne's gray, he manages to give the painting a dreamy and dreamlike atmosphere. A clean space in which the eye and therefore the mind can escape without obstacles and impediments. And the more the space is free, the more the painting remains universal and capable of bringing the observer's imagination into infinite spaces of his soul. 


7. What was the best advice you were given as an artist? 
I have received so many advice! By family tradition since 1800 I had to be an engineer like my ancestors, my father, my brother and design and build and build: do not get lost behind my "color dreams". But I made the right choice and today I am happy with how I managed to carry out my artistic projects and where I arrived step by step. Many great collectors have bought my most important paintings, especially in the United States. If I had to do a retrospective it would certainly not be in Italy, but in the United States. 


8. Can you tell us something about yourself that people might be surprised to hear? 
In 2016, thanks to the Carrè d’artistes gallery in Philadelphia, I was the protagonist of an important project for an important new hotel in the university. Americans are not ordinary people, they always think big. They asked me for 216 oil paintings to decorate their 216 hotel rooms! Thanks to the organization and logistics of Carrè d’artistes we were able to deliver the work within the set time. It was proof that painting is my life. And painting is a Zen breathing that makes you feel good about myself and with others. 


9. Can you tell us about your capsule collection? What were your inspirations? 
"Before bigger splash" is my recent capsule collection. It is born from the famous pop art painting by the British artist David Hockney "A Bigger splash" and he wants to pay homage to him by recognizing that he is one of the greatest contemporary artists. In his painting he depicts a swimming pool next to a modern house featuring a large spray of water created by a diver. In my capsule collection paintings, everything is located a moment before the big splash. Sun, blue water, celestial sky, palm trees, architecture are the common denominators of this collection. They are Californian atmospheres full of light and color, water and sky, peace and relaxation. Paintings that are united in pure and uniform colors. Paintings that recall the heat and the summer. Atmosphere in which the observer would like to immerse himself and be the protagonist, in a bathing suit, in the cool of the pool water, in the silence of the palm trees posse from the wind.