Speaking in Paradise

TECHNIQUE PHOTO-PAINTING
The technique used was defined as PHOTO-PAINTING by the art critic Silvia Pegoraro of Ravenna Italy and was an Artist's invention in 1994. In fact, since 1964 Dario Cusani had been working with photography and painting which had never been united.

The Artist:
"In 1994 I returned to Naples, the city where I was born and had been missing for 10 years after moving to Rome in 1984. I returned to see the MIRACLE achieved by the G7 with the Presidents of the most powerful countries led by Bill Clinton, US President. It was a wonderful visit to my city reborn in its ancient splendor! I took over 5,000 photos of the squares and monuments of Naples with my Nikon. I returned to Rome and had all the photos printed and put them on various tables and assembled all the various pieces. I immediately realized that parts were missing which I completed with paint. A spontaneous gesture with which I had unconsciously achieved a great innovation: I had combined the REALITY of photography with the DREAM represented by painting. Silvia, my muse who knew me well, when I showed her the first work IMPERATING MALE (R:0176) that I had done she said to me: "Dario you have united the TWO WORLDS of your life: that of your childhood with the sensitivity of the dreamer with the concrete one that they gave you taught your parents with education, training (degree in Economic Sciences) and work started at 15 years old in your family's copper industry. These formative years had distanced myself from those of childhood when I studied the piano and dreamed of becoming an orchestra conductor. I also drew and painted with my imagination in search of the affections I was missing as my parents were busy in the factory rebuilding Italy destroyed by the recently ended war. I then refined PHOTO-PAINTING which developed into DIGITAL PROCESSING having replaced the BRUSH with the MOUSE to fill the gaps left by the photography and complete the REALITY which with painting became another FANTASTIC reality."

SOCIAL RESEARCH
This work is part of the SOCIAL "research" which addresses issues that concern people and the "polis" which in Latin means city but also "political model".

SPEAKING IN PARADISE
In 1999 I was invited to have an exhibition at the Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò in New York scheduled for September 2000. So I went to the BIG APPLE for the first time at the age of 50 and was amazed by the great vital energy I felt. Until then I had traveled abroad little because I was busy with studies, sports and already at 19 years old in my family's copper industry and after a few years also with my children who I had cared for a lot since they came into the world.
This work pairs with FRESH FISH - R.1657 because I brought Naples to New York with that irony of the Neapolitans who always highlight the positive things. So I climbed onto one of the 2 TOWERS and began to take photos of the panorama that surrounded me, but it struck me that the skyscrapers did not have balconies like the old buildings of which Naples is full. So when I was informed that the windows were also sealed for safety given the height of the skyscrapers. From here, with my spirit of contradiction and with the imagination that allows you everything, this work was born to which I am attached like few others. So I imagined that 2 "wives" (the godmother and the mother of the baptized child), a Neapolitan and an American, could be "chatting" (conversing at length about this and that) on their little balcony while they watered the plants. He joins her with the clothes hanging in the sun to dry on a rope that runs between 2 pulleys. Inside you can see two of my works, on the right the Maschio Imperante symbol of Naples and on the left the Marilin by Andy Wharol created by me with a photocollage. All in the open air that up there is fresh and free of car smog. A true Paradise!!!