Crimson Painting

Applying acrylic paint with a roller on stretched linen, Marioni’s work is narrative-free, focusing solely on the exploration of color and light, or as he says, “the liquid light.” Crimson Painting is a perfect example of Marioni’s oeuvre. The painting is built in layers of different colors, which when superimposed result in a monochromatic, luminous surface. Besides rollers, the artist often uses brushes, palette knives, spoons, and even his own hands to manipulate the paint in order to accomplish a sensation of flowing surface. Marioni also shapes his canvases to control the downward flow of liquid pigment, which by the law of gravity creates a density in the center of the composition, transparency in the upper part, and various drips and marks down below. It is through this interlace of opaque and translucent that Marioni’s work achieves strong visceral presence, triggering the most immediate bodily experience. Moreover, imbued by light, Marioni’s work evokes both the material and the immaterial. Painting, according to Marioni, is “the art form of the presentation of a dematerialized light.”