Pierluigi Isola is an artist in the classical sense of the term, a painter who has made the mimesis of nature his hallmark. A careful observer of the world around us, he knows how to reproduce it with a wise, centuries-old technique. He developed it over the years with talented Masters who instilled in him the capacity for painting that is solid, luminous and real. His is a contemporary work that challenges the informal and the abstract, that goes beyond the digital, yet remains absolutely current, recognisable and directly accessible.
A reality that is not hyperrealistic but the fruit of his keen eye. The Sasso series demonstrates this: the same subject seen and rendered in different ways, each one sensational in its simple naturalness. Using different tones for one same place, Pierluigi paints with a wonderful "macchia" technique, in umbra et luce. A palette whose tones, both technically and chromatically, capture that landscape made of shadow and light.
A similar quality can be found in his large-format vistas of Rome. Palaces from different eras, skilfully defined in formal and architectural terms yet undefined in their context. Enveloped in a cloud, with few but essential human references, Pierluigi Isola draws us into an urban reality shaped by a suspended, arrested time. The same sensibility appears when he represents the essence of nature, as in the large tree, a powerful work in which the great protagonist, a eucalyptus tree standing beside a modern asphalt road, reminds us all that nature will always prevail, no matter how hard we strive to contaminate it.
His still lifes deserve a separate discussion. Pierluigi has always been drawn to everyday objects that have long been part of his life: antique coffee cups, crystal glasses, flower vases, shells, books, exhibition catalogues, gourds of different shapes, small ink bottles, fine fabrics, which he sometimes combines with symbolic elements, iconographies borrowed from the iconological tradition, armillary spheres, philosopher's stones, a small and entirely personal Wunderkammer that he renders in paintings, often horizontal format. The Flemish tradition and Giorgio Morandi are just a starting point: the diffuse light and the luminosity of his representations show that – even in these small-format works, conceived for intimate contemplation and realised in an equally intimate setting – the artist achieves a lyricism and symbolism of the highest order.