OSVALDO MARISCOTTI: The Tree of Life
For more than four decades, the multinational artist Osvaldo Mariscotti has been producing meticulous paintings and three-dimensional abstract works that explore the possibilities of rhythmic color, geometric patterning and architectonic structures in quasi- Minimalist compositions. Over the years, Mariscotti has established an international reputation for these works, which have been referred to as ‘geometric conceptualism.’ In more recent years, the artist has loosened his ridged technique for a more free-form, expressive, and fluid approach that is perhaps technically less rigid but even more rigorous in terms of formal properties and conceptual aims. He has also introduced – or reintroduced – into his work elements of figuration in the form of abstracted, highly stylized trees and landscape, in an ongoing series titled The Valley. The subject suggests the proverbial ‘tree of life’ that is fundamental to so many cultures around the world. In the recent conversation below, from a recent, extended Zoom interview, between my office in New York City and the Mariscotti’s studio in London. I asked the artist about the new works, and about many other things.
David Ebony Tell me about the recent works and the latest exhibition. It’s a bit of a departure for you. What are your thoughts about the progression of your work from hard-edge geometry to a more expressive, gestural style of painting with references to trees and landscape?
Osvaldo Mariscotti It is my will. It’s not accidental. I was painting in a very minimalist style. I like that form of minimalism, but I could not go much further with it, and I decided to go in a more figurative direction. People can see that these are trees, or something like that, for example. But these are tough paintings. I had to work much harder; I had to concentrate a lot. I had to think a lot. It’s like a balance beam. I had to balance many things in order to get something harmonious. The earlier, minimalist paintings were more mechanical. The hard-edge stripes are based on landscape, too. But there are many more details in the recent paintings.
DE In the earlier works, did you start with a design that you had in mind? Or how much of it is improvised?
OM Everything is improvised. I dream my paintings. When I wake up, I know what I am going to paint. Not exactly. But I know basically want I am going to do. I begin with the pen, and I make some sketches on the canvas. I put all my colors on one side of my palette, and I know exactly what colors I am going to use. I know what the painting is going to look like when I am finished. Everything is already here. Nothing is doubtful. And I love what I am painting. When I’m in the process of painting, I like what I am doing. Now I’m painting another in the series of the trees.
DE The Valley, is that what the series is called?
OM Yes, now I’m painting The Valley number 12. Every one is different. It’s like they are growing.
DE I’m looking at Number 11 in the series on my iPad.
OM Yes, number 12 is like that, but with some small change. None of them are the same. There are tiny differences from one to the next. It’s like evolution. Some of them have two trees but it’s all the same tree. I have always liked trees. When I started painting when I was very young, I began with trees.
DE This was in Italy?
OM Yes, but then my father moved me to Germany, and then to South America, with many years in Argentina, and then in New York.
DE I wanted to ask you about your relationship to the Neo-concrete movement in Latin America, and to the traditions of geometric abstraction there.
OM I had no contact with that. I had nothing to do with any of that. I was well known in Latin America, but I wanted to live in New York, in America, and I moved there. And now I like to travel from one country to another. I like to be in Italy, and in Switzerland, and here in London, and Miami; my main home is in Miami. And I like to be in New York, of course.
DE You are truly international.
OM I feel like that. I travel a lot. I’ve been here in London for two months. Two months is too much. I like change. I feel like it makes me more creative. I can’t see the same faces all the time. It gets boring. Now I’m happy because I’m going back to New York for one month, and then I go to Miami, and then I’ll go to Milan and stay there for two months. Then I go to Asia, to Korea, And I’ll be back to New York at the end of the year. I have a studio in each of those places. I’ll be working everywhere I go. And I feel reborn each time. Everything is a little different. I can paint like I’m young again – everything is new.
DE Do you have friends in all of these places?
OM I have acquaintances. I have many. Having friends is difficult. My best friend lives in Los Angeles.
DE Have you always been a painter?
OM I started painting when I was five years old. Watercolors were the very beginning, and later I used oil. And I loved using a palette knife, or a spatula, and my fingers. But I had no problem with brushes. Early on, I always painted landscapes, but in an expressionistic way. Later on, I painted in the minimalist style.
DE Was that because you were inspired by Constructivism, and Malevich’s work?
OM Yes, Malevich’s use of black and white was very important. I have to say, though, that I don’t like many artists. I do love Mondrian, though, and I love Picasso. Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (1940) is great. That’s my favorite. I like Cubism, but for me, early Picasso is magnificent – the Rose Period, just before Cubism. I think those paintings are masterworks, better than anything he did later. There aren’t many other painters I love nowadays. I love my painting.
DE I was going to ask you, but now I’m afraid to – with the new form of gesturalism you’ve introduced into your Valley series, do you admire some of the Abstract Expressionist pioneers? I’m thinking of de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, or Franz Kline, perhaps.
OM I admire de Kooning very much, especially the Women series. I like Pollock. I don’t love Pollock. But if there’s only one artist I would hang in my home it would be Picasso. Maybe Mondrian
DE Your relationship to Mondrian seems to me most important now, because of the trees, since Mondrian began with trees, and his reductive compositions grew from his early studies of trees.
OM Yes, and there’s also a relationship I see with the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres-García (1874–1949). I knew the work of Torres-García first, before I saw Mondrian. Lately, though, I try not to connect my work with anyone. I don’t want to be influenced by anybody
DE I understand that, but we art writers are always trying to find a context for an artist’s work. I know artists hate context.
OM No. I know you need that. I connected a lot with the work of Torres-García and Constructivism early on. I remember when I was very young in Buenos Aires I wanted to buy a painting by Torres-García, but it was too expensive for me. The gallery director asked me why I liked it so much. I said because Torres-García was like an inventor. He had a whole school behind him; he’s not just a painter. Later, I saw many works by him in museums in Spain. And I realized there was a close relationship with Mondrian.
DE Does your new series, the Valley, refer to a specific place – someplace that inspired you?
OM Yes. It’s in South America, in the south of Argentina, Bariloche, in the mountains close to Chile. There’s a road outside the city, about two hundred miles long. It’s like a forest – trees everywhere, and there’s a small river. The image of those trees is fixed in my brain. I was there when I was young – very young. I went there with my father. He was driving. We stopped many times, and I would take photos. I started painting these trees at the time, but in an Impressionist style. I was about fourteen or fifteen years old.
DE Have you saved some of those paintings? It would be nice to include a reproduction of one or two in this book.
OM Yes. I can get photos of them. I always loved them. I used to paint horses, too. I used to include a horse in everything. My first exhibition was of watercolors of horses when I was six years old.
DE Your teachers must have been impressed. Did you always study art in school?
OM I always loved mathematics. I studied mathematics in school. Later I studied engineering and construction. In my paintings now, you can see that. Everything’s about balance. If you like a painting, it’s because it has a very good balance. But the elements you use in painting are different from anything else. You have colors, and you have shapes. Those are the things you use to achieve balance. Early on, I knew that with mathematics and engineering, I could earn a living, and I needed to help my family. Later, I was able to stop working in that field and to paint full time. You need time to paint, and for me lately, more time every day.
DE When you were working in engineering and construction, would you go home and paint at night?
OM Of course. And I would work on my paintings, on my artworks all weekend. I never liked to go out much. I always liked to work. I like to feel useful, and I enjoy what I am doing. I enjoyed my engineering career, too. In construction, the design was always mine. And I enjoyed that. But in that field, you need to work with many many people. At one point, I had two hundred employees. They were all very nice people, all of them. But one day I thought I can’t keep doing this. I want to paint. So I closed the company, I got a contract to work on my art in New York, and I stayed there. Everything has worked out very well. With painting I just deal with me.
DE Now you have everything you wished for.
OM The only thing I pray for is to be in good health so I can paint.
DE Are you in good health?
OM Yes. There are small problems, of course, because I’m not twenty-five anymore. But I’m in good health, and I can travel wherever I want and do whatever I want. I go to gym every day. And I eat very healthy, as I can.
DE Do you cook for yourself? What do you like to eat?
OM Yes. Fish. And I don’t drink alcohol. When I was eighteen, I used to have a drink every day at 5 pm, with my father and mother. But it’s not a good thing. I stopped drinking over ten years ago. If I have even a glass of wine I feel like I’m harming myself. And I don’t take anything from a cow. Everything is vegetables, and fish. And I never smoked, and never did drugs. I hate drugs. I like to be in control.
DE You seem to have a good attitude about everything. How do you keep yourself optimistic, despite everything happening in the world?
OM It’s because I feel that the best things are coming; they are ahead of me. Every morning I wake up and I know that good things are coming. I’m not depressed. I’m very hopeful.
DE That comes across in your work.
OM What I’m painting now has a lot of movement, it’s more dynamic. It’s kind of subtle, though. It’s not obvious. If you know my painting, you’ll see the evolution. Every painting is different because every painting teaches you something. And you have to learn from that.
DE In many paintings you include a bright orb, a sun. It reminds me of the British Romantics and Neo-Romantic painters like Samuel Palmer and Graham Sutherland, who paint stylized trees and a sun. For them, the sun, or the image of the sun has a spiritual connotation. Does it have a similar significance for you? Is this a spiritual quest for you?
OM Yes. In the way I paint the sun, the way I see it, is the way I feel myself at that moment. If is only one color or several colors depends on how I feel. It’s a state of mind. Sometimes it can seem aggressive, and even then it’s because I feel happy.
DE One last question – what are your thoughts about your viewers? What do you hope they will understand and take away from seeing your work, especially the new works?
OM The thing every painter wishes for or hopes to achieve is to move the viewer. When I paint, I want to move the viewer in a way that they can feel something of what I feel. That is what I wish. The best of me is in the painting, and I hope it can convey that. I hope the viewer will feel happy, relaxed, and that the painting would be good company for them, and that it would arouse a good feeling in them. That is very important to me.
