SALVATORE EMBLEMA

Naples 1929-2006

“This light can't be found in colors made in factories.

This is the reason why i used material from the volcano to make the color.

But not even this was so important to me.

What was important to me was to go beyond the picture without refusing it, this picture."

The development of his approach during a formative period of his career,

and across which an array of influences are palpable. The artist’s engagement

with the interplay between space, colour, texture and light – and the creation of

compositions relying on pure pigment and abstract, minimalist forms –

foreground his focus on the notion of transparency in painting, which would go

on to become a lifelong subject of enquiry. This fascination with transparency is

best reflected in his preference for sackcloth and raw jute as painting supports.

Considering the materials’ open-weave structure, the artist emphasises the

journey of light as it penetrates the surface, light being a guiding principle above

all else. ‘I was born on the 25th of April 1929. To be exact, I saw the light of day.

And once I saw that light, I could never leave it. I belong to light’, the artist has

stated.

Emblema was born in Terzigno, Naples, which sits at the foot of Mount

Vesuvius and overlooks the archaeological site of Pompeii. In 1944 he witnessed

the last major eruption of the volcano, which smothered his hometown in layers

of ash. This experience had a profound impact on the artist, instilling in him an

awareness of how landscape, identity and geological conditions inform each

other. In the late 1940s, Emblema decided to withdraw from his studies at

Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, choosing instead to travel to Rome, where he

first began working with dried leaves and jute sacks. Though this was a decision

initially driven by financial limitations, the artist attested: ‘my main concern was

to have a direct relationship with truth, with what I felt was truth. Leaves and

sackcloth were truth to me’. It was during this period that Emblema also met

Jean Dubuffet, whose unorthodox approach – including mixing oil paint with

mud, sand, glass, gravel and cement – further encouraged his interest in working

with materials widely considered debased, in pursuit of the natural, textural and

earthly.

In 1957, Emblema was invited to New York by David Rockefeller, who was a

significant supporter of his practice. There, he encountered the Abstract

Expressionists, including Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, whose studios he

frequented. It was also in New York, ironically, that Emblema discovered the

vibrancy of Roman frescoes and the ancient secrets of Pompeii on his visits to

the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Salvatore Emblema

1997 -120 x 100 cm ( 47,24

X 39,37 inches)

Raw pigments mixed with volcano soil

on de-threaded jute canvas