Face（2016），Watercolour on paper，76 × 56 cm each，Courtesy of the Artist

The subjects of Italian artist, Ugo Giletta’s canvases are the various forms of heads, faces or bodies lying down or crouching. They give shape to the fundamental narratives in Giletta’s work, where the enigmatic quality of identification with the other creates great emotional intensity.

In Face, Giletta created an oval shape with 5 stains, which ultimately defines the eyes, nostrils and mouth. However, the final visual effect is different every time, resulting in every face having its visual specificity and reflecting the human condition. His figures are not portraits; they do not depict any particular, identifiable persons. They are simply there, in their objective physicality, with no declaration of affiliation, origin, history or nature. They are impersonal and alien, physical and silent.

These forms are archetypal images of the human being: despite appearing without time and space framework, they are strongly bound to the contemporary existential condition. The individual lives in contemporary society where stability granted by a socio-ethical system is replaced by fragility and uncertainty.