Critical Essays

Critical writings, essays and curatorial perspectives on the artist’s work

At Home

Carmelo Cipriani

The work of Toni Alfano is grounded as much in technical mastery as it is in profound intuition. On the surface, he stages a detailed investigation of memory and personal identity. His latest works are influenced by his experience working in a treatment center for Alzheimer's disease—which the artist has described as "a closed, protected place where daily life is a constant reflection of archaic memories, while the present is completely irrelevant to the determination of the self."

In his recent works, expertly executed fragments of figuration in warm brown tones resurface like memories, while the support, embodying the aesthetic of the fragment, becomes a diaphragm—a refraction screen between past and present, between memory and the current moment.

While the artist draws on vintage, deliberately retro atmospheres, his descialbo technique, reminiscent of fresco, takes on the character of an archaeological excavation. This speculative effort focuses on complex research into materials and their mastery, intertwining technical experimentation with existential reflection. The tears and simulated losses of color act as perceptual stumbles—emblems of an imperfect memory, a fallible recollection that gradually fades, causing those who remember to lose both their past and their very identity.

Carmelo Cipriani – AT HOME, C23 HomeGallery

Ecstasy

Roberta Melasecca

Phenomenologies is the study of the effects of time and its related phenomena on memory and identity. This research is deeply influenced by the artist’s experience working in a residential care facility for individuals living with Alzheimer’s—a place where daily life is a constant reflection of archaic memories, and the present is completely irrelevant to self-definition; a place where the only remaining traces of existence are fragments of memory: a mother’s smile, stolen kisses, and childhood friends long since forgotten.

In Indian mysticism, the Trimurti represents the three fundamental aspects of existence: Creation, Preservation, and Destruction. Creation is the energy that generates form; Preservation fixes form and gives it meaning; Destruction redefines both form and meaning, releasing energy that becomes "creative" once again.

This cycle occurs within everything we define as "matter." In the Phenomenologies series, the creation and partial destruction of the paintings give physical expression to this very principle.

" Phenomenologies is a room of the past, emerging from the reading and rediscovery of deposits excavated and researched with the meticulous precision of an archaeologist: imprinted on the wooden support impregnated with the scent of cement lime is the veiled effigy of a figure emerging from an unknown sea of reminiscences, defined by dark charcoal lines and the amber patina of bitumen. Alfano affirms and denies his own identity with the final gesture of destroying the exterior, in the hope of rediscovering the lost self within an alienated consciousness, capturing the places, movements, spaces, and intervals of suspended souls."

Roberta Melasecca – ECSTASY, Wazu Tempora