Melancholic Encampment メランコリックなキャンプ　[Malinconico Accampamento]

Chia is an artist to represent the new movement in figurative painting（called the transavanguardia in Italy）that arose in the early 1980s．As can be seen in this painting, his work is characterized by a rich, bright picture which combines warm and cold colors in forceful brushstrokes. Many of his paintings feature a figure that can be considered the artist’s imaginary self-portrait－a well-built figure with a Mediterranean fullness that floats weightlessly. In this particular work, he is lying under the tent, but the spatial confusion caused by the huge paintings incongruously placed on either side and the uncertain positioning of the elements in the middle ground creates the unstable composition characteristic to this artist. The huge paintings, which make us think of de Chirico, undoubtedly a major influence on this artist, juxtapose diverse things taken from past works of art, everyday life, and a11 kinds of fields in an accidental and personal manner. The artists here a “citationist” who presents a picture that is seemingly narrative and lyrical but actually without any depth to allow interpretation.