The Italian artist Mirko Barone build up quite a large and diverse oeuvre, ranging from traditional paintings and drawings, to the digital erotic art displayed here. In most of his work the human figure plays a central role, often embedded in a psychological or surreal setting.
Some of his images are clearly related to surrealism, one image ( “soft woman” in landscape ) can even be seen as an ode to Salvador Dali, who created many of these soft constructions of human flesh in wide and endless landscapes. An other similarity is the visualization of the impossible, the nightmare or the dream. The surrealists attempted to display our subconscious, our repressed desires and frustrations. I’m not sure if Mirko Barone wants to go that far in his art, his work seems more like a visual play with surrealistic concepts. Nevertheless quite a few of his artworks have the same charged and rather “mental” feeling.
The wonderful nudes in landscapes are definitely my favorites, like the woman flying, with insect wings and feet, such a subtle play with form, color and composition. An other image that’s very intriguing is the “Woman in kit”. You can look at this work from a feministic perspective, how men use women, or how they look at the female population. It could also be a man’s ultimate fantasy to ensemble the woman for the occasion, or it’s just a visual Joke. I did not ask Mirko Barone what he intended with it, I think it’s great that one image can be interpreted in more than one way and I wanted the image do the talking.
