A. 158

From the middle of the 1960s Claudio Verna's work was purely analytic and linguistic, investigating the act of making paintings and the relationship between colour, tone and surface, rejecting all reference to emotional and naturalistic elements. The work on display, winner of the 9th edition of the Premio Gallarate in 1973, presents a surface divided into two fields where a delicate but perceptible tonal variation reveals the structure of a geometric drawing and documents the artist's interest in colour and form as pure, compositional elements and expressly non-symbolic. It is emblematic that in the very same year the artist participated in an exhibition with the title iononrappresentonullaiodipingo (I do not represent anything, I paint). (AC)