Statement

The focal point of my research is portrait painting; I paint with oil, both fresh and layered, searching for compositional cuts inspired by cinema, using photography as a source of suggestions. I mix elements from classical painting and pop culture (illustration and advertising posters), painting every square centimeter of the canvas in detail. Along with body expressions, I aim to explore the relationship between subject and landscape.

Growing up in a tailoring workshop, I conceive clothes as a second skin.

Although being a “realist painter”, I am interested in projecting what reality does not say: a certain temporal and psychological suspension conveyed through the use of diffuse light, illuminating provincial domestic scenes permeated by a subtle nostalgia.

SHORT BIO

Manuel Pablo Pace, based in Bassano, was trained at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Sociology in Trento.

A contemporary portrait painter, he develops his painting through a national and international path: Spain, the United States, Germany, Chile, France, England and Italy host his works.

He has participated in international collectives and art fairs such as Art Verona, Scope New York, Blooom Art Fair Cologne, Parallax Art Fair London.

In 2008 he joined the INFART artistic collective in Bassano Del Grappa as artistic director and collaborates with Italian curators and art galleries.

Described as “the optimistic portraitist” in “Excellent Painters – The diary of Italian living painting” (C. Langone), Pace concentrates his artistic research on the revision of the classical theme of portrait, strongly investigating the relationship between person and landscape, between subject and territory, with an apparently “hyperrealist” vein, which hides messages of deep aesthetic sensitivity.

In 2017 he joined the prestigious The Bank Contemporary Art Collection.