A soothing message from PAOLO MASSIMO RUGGERI’s paintings

Artists who manage to instantaneously convey at least a part of what they feel when confronting themselves with their surroundings or what stirs their imagination when in the throes of the creative process if painting from pure fantasy are most certainly artists who fully master their subject matter, expressing its contents as if part of themselves.

The artist thus becomes the veritable spokesperson of the objects that speak through him by means of a simple, straightforward code easily accessible by all in a process of mutual communication. That’s why a work of art calling for additional explanation under “separate cover”, so to speak, points to a lack of those elements that allow the work to fully account for itself on the visual plane.
Art is an expressive form of communication that must be capable of standing alone. It must speak for and of itself by itself; it must be able to make itself understood or merely “felt” without recourse to other means.

There’s hardly any doubt that whenever a viewer, any viewer, is confronted by one of Ruggeri’s paintings, they are almost sure of falling under its spell, sharing with Ruggeri the very same sensations felt by him upon confronting the original situation triggering his artistic endeavour, an endeavour that essentially consists in “translating” his reactions into a idiom capable of making for a more immediate and fuller comprehension of that situation.

But his mastery of technique alone cannot suffice to account for his outstanding artistic results. There are reasons that well up from deep within that explain and account for his being always in a state of artistic grace, of which the spectacle of his paintings witness to.

His love for painting as an art form stretches back to his early childhood. But many years were to pass before he was able to begin practising it, and then only after having gone through a profound personal crisis. Indeed, nought but painting, practised totally and with utter abandon, could and did free him from his sore condition. His spirit cried out for release, release that could only be had from painting, practised, though, not as a profession or by way of a diversion.

In the end, then, Paolo Massimo Ruggeri’s personal crisis was to prove nothing short of propitious for him. Initially, though, he had to wait to capture the moment when his spirit was receptive to the concealed contents of his physical surroundings and ready to make the effort to scrutinise and decipher their inner meaning. At last that moment came and his enthusiasm and commitment have since never waned, despite the passing of the years. Indeed, they have gathered momentum as his “expertise” has grown, permitting him to instantiate with increased immediacy and brevity what by now is a permanent state of heightened and intense emotional awareness.

One of the essential elements emerging from the artist’s acutely sensed linguistic transpositions is silence. It’s thanks to this silence that he can concentrate and condense his sensations, tuning into to the vibrations pervading any milieu and tapping them out with rapid and daring, colour-laden brush strokes that don’t betray the slightest pentimento. Such self-confidence and precision is born of a well structured internalisation of what he has physically experienced. This inner structure is therefore firmly in place, simply waiting to show itself and make itself known, even in its frailest and most secretive values.

Ruggeri’s paintings are always intense, unrestrained, soaring. Before setting in motion the expressive mechanics that bring out his emotions, bringing them to rest on the physical support he has in front of him and thus turning them into communicable documents, Ruggeri has pondered at length on these emotions, quietly fostering them within himself. And before them the viewer invariably perceives the lofty and deep silence pervading the temple in which the miraculous transfiguration takes place thanks to an ever inspired “priest”, faithfully committed to celebrating the propitious rite with deep spiritual devotion.

Ursula Petrone