About the artist
Born in Milan 1949, Ernesto Pescini grew up in Italy on the banks of Lake Como. As an adult, he moved to South Wales, where he lived and worked for many years before relocating to Cornwall in 2018.
From a young age he would spend much of his time alone with his thoughts and during these long periods of isolation and reflection, the young Ernesto discovered his gift for painting.
He would often lie on the lawn of the family home staring at the sky, conjuring up imaginary worlds in the clouds. Today, those flights of fantasy are recalled in his ethereal skyscapes which uniquely combine the style of the romantic landscape artist with the imagination of a modern day video animator.
The inspiration for Ernesto’s work comes from two key sources: the English artist J.M.W Turner and paintings such as Snow Storm (1842), and the writings of the Indian spiritual master Meher Baba who taught the concept of Perfect Masters, the Avatar, and the various stages of the spiritual path.
Entirely self-taught, Ernesto held his first exhibition in 1982 in the Milan’s Centro Cultura e Costume.
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Exhibitions
1982: Centro Cultura e Costume, Milan
1983: Museo Rotativo D'Arte Moderna, Alberto Viviani, Florence
1983: Azienda Autonoma Soggiorno, Portofino
1983: Hotel Victoria, Cortina D’Ampezzo
1984: Galleria St. Ambroeus, Milan
1984: Salon des Independents, Paris
1985: Barzacchi’s Ideas Art Gallery, Centre Pompidou, Paris
1985: Le Denichoir, Lyon
1985: Toulouse Collective Italian painters
1985: Galleria Bocca in Galleria, Milan
1985-86: Catalogo Bolaffi Mondadori
1986: Galleria Delfino, Rovereto (Trento)
1989: Galleria ATRIO, Como
2015: Brick Lane Gallery, London
2016: RWA Open Exhibition, Bristol
2016 to date: The New Gallery, Portscatho
2022: The Poly, Falmouth
Ernesto Pescini: Visible Invisible
Cornwall and Storms are Ernesto's core inspiration. He describes air and water talking to him in their multiple forms. Whirlwind, hurricane tails and magnetic interference are all ingredients he uses to create a visual menu and much more. Each storm wave or cloud, or a drop of water, are all living intelligence playing with us. Ernesto describes it as learning to feel, to delve deeper in our existence and listen to the unspoken words. Forget day to day life and allow yourself to start a different journey - into the unknown that is part of Creation.
The principle of the exhibition is a vision of what are not normally aware of or see - a view of what's going on beyond our vision of 3D life. There are other dimensions and more life than we can possibly imagine. There are entities and highly evolved souls flying around and everywhere. We can see them in clouds formations. We receive messages at all time, but to many of us these messages seem like nonsense and many people simply cannot be bothered to look further and find out their hidden meaning.
In this exhibition, Ernesto offers an opportunity for more. His work changes colours with the light. It all depends on the source, any bulb will show a different colour. Shadows in the morning or evening light from outside will give an unexpected look. Ernesto views his paintings as live works not decorative ones. Those lucky enough to purchase a piece of his work will experience, at length, something completely different. Ernesto describes this as ".. a huge energetic wave, a true bombardment has started to hit this planet years ago. Things will change dramatically. These paintings will give an idea of a tidal wave that is an energetic push to challenge all of humanity. Paintings are not just a vision they are a dream at times, a living experience in those few minutes whilst looking at them." The paintings on display are created with a technique Ernesto has perfected over the years - using acrylic on plywood and Da Vmci synthetic brushes for the best smooth results.
Exhibition open: Tuesday 28th June to Saturday 2nd July 2022 FREE ENTRY
The Poly, 24 Church St, Falmouth / tel: 01326 319461
An article by the art critic Dalmazio Frau​
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Ernesto Pescini, l’ultimo dominatore del mare
5 Set 2021
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'La pittura, quella vera, quella del nostro Ernesto Pescini è una forma di Magia e come tale chi la padroneggia, essendo come la Magia un’Arte, può dominare gli Elementi.
In questo caso il regno elementale ad essere governato, o lasciato libero se è il caso, è uno dei più potenti e difficili da dirigere, assieme al Fuoco, ed è quello delle Acque. Acque di mare, inarrestabili, irruenti, delicate e mai ferme sono le onde che compaiono sulle tele dipinte da Pescini, insieme con i cieli ad esse sovrastanti.
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Sono le acque del suo amato Galles e dell’Isola Verde che in esse si riflette. Distese equoree d’infiniti oceani che si estendono a perdita d’occhio, gli stessi abissi azzurri cantati nei propri versi da Charles Baudelaire, sognati da Jules Verne, e temuti da Edgar Allan Poe.
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Sono i flutti agitati dove echi del battello ebbro di Arthur Rimbaud ritornano, tra colori algidi di vetro e di ghiaccio, verdi opaline che certo sono gli stessi riflessi che Pescini vede dal suo cottage affacciato proprio sul mare di Cornovaglia, su quello stesso specchio oceanico dove millenni fa s’inabissarono la perduta terra di Lyonesse e la dannata città di Ys, distrutta quest’ultima dalla concupiscenza della sua principessa per un diavolo errante.
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Sono le sue le onde che ricoprirono Atlantide in una sola notte e quelle primigenie abitate dal terribile Leviatano.
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In controcorrente, è il caso di dirlo, l’opera pittorica ed ermetica di Ernesto Pescini, si pone sul solco certo romantico dei grandi paesaggisti inglesi come William Turner e rievoca a tratti onde preraffaellite dove dimorano sirene e tritoni o ancora più semplici mari impressionisti, ma assumendo nel moto vorticoso di quelle risacche un’eco leonardiana e quasi apocalittica che fa di lui un pittore del “diluvio”, astratto e naturalista, figurativo ed evanescente al tempo stesso così come sono l’aria e le nuvole, l’acqua e le onde.
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Rarefatto, lontano, avito e distante, questo italiano ingiustamente e immeritatamente ignorato nel proprio paese, ha trovato rifugio e dimora ideale là a Land’s End, ovvero dove la terra finisce, in quella Cornovaglia epica e arturiana, tra le nebbie marine e quelle magiche che ammantano, velandole le antiche pietre fitte.
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Schivo, sfuggente come forse un tempo lontano fu Merlino, rifuggente ogni banalità che troppo invece affligge tanti altri artisti contemporanei, Ernesto sogna le nubi che solcano il cielo di Gran Bretagna e i suoi mari che uniscono i mondi. parti di quell’Oceano del Tempo che soltanto i folli, gli eroi e gli innamorati osano attraversare.
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In quelle gelide acque che egli sempre dipinge, si possono intravedere gli spettri dei vascelli fantasma, della spedizione di Lord Franklin perduta tra i ghiacci o la barca cantata in Baidhin Fhelimi e persino la ballata The Sky Boat Song ne può essere colonna sonora. È forse il suo anche il retaggio dell’esser nato sulle rive del lago di Como, lascito che Pescini si porta come un mantello sulle spalle quasi fosse un novello Prospero appena evocato dai versi de La Tempesta.
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In quei flutti raggelati sulla tela, ancora di certo naviga, feroce e spietato, il Nautilus del Capitano Nemo, forse alla ricerca delle rovine ricoperte d’alghe della perduta R’Lyeh dalla quale riemergerà un giorno l’incubosa forma aptera di Cthulhu e del suo non fratello Dagon.
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Ma a differenza dell’immaginario liquido e notturno di Howard Phillips Lovecraft, i moti d’acqua dipinti da Ernesto lasciano aperto una varco odisseico verso l’avventura e lo stupore romantico. In quelle acque tumultuose, seppur con fatica e con la bravura del nocchiero si possono navigare e raggiungere le Isole Fortunate e una terra dove non sia mai inverno e tutti vivano felici.
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Pescini dipinge il suo mondo di spuma di mare con la perizia consumata d’un artista del Cinquecento ma con la forza romantica di uno dell’Ottocento, facendosi beffe di qualsiasi avanguardia e transavanguardia novecentesca in ogni sua onda che s’innalza e si piega su sé stessa come un’amante sotto l’amplesso dell’amato.
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L’elemento aereo è dunque il maschio che possiede l’acqua, sua compagna e sposa, in un matrimonio alchemico che sempre sfugge e sempre si rigenera, all’infinito dando consapevolmente all’inconsapevole osservatore, un messaggio arcano fatto di simboli naturali e occulti.
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A noi dunque non resta altro che osare salire a bordo di uno di quei suoi fragili vascelli dipinti e far naufragio, volontario, da questa vita in un’altra fatta di splendore e sogno e avventura, come Gulliver.'
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Dalmazio Frau
Ernesto Pescini, the last ruler of the sea
5 Sept 2021
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'The painting, the real one, that of our Ernesto Pescini is a form of Magic and as such whoever masters it, being like Magic an Art, can dominate the Elements.
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In this case the elemental kingdom to be governed, or left free if it is the case, is one of the most powerful and difficult to direct, together with Fire, and it is that of Water. Sea water, unstoppable, impetuous, delicate and never still are the waves that appear on Pescini's paintings, together with the skies above them.
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They are the waters of his beloved Wales and the Green Island reflected in them. Equatorial expanses of infinite oceans stretching as far as the eye can see, the same blue abysses sung about in his verses by Charles Baudelaire, dreamt of by Jules Verne, and feared by Edgar Allan Poe.
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They are the agitated waves where echoes of Arthur Rimbaud's drunken boat return, amidst the icy colours of glass and ice, opaline greens that are certainly the same reflections that Pescini sees from his cottage overlooking the Cornish sea, on that same ocean mirror where thousands of years ago the lost land of Lyonesse and the damned city of Ys were sunk, the latter destroyed by the lust of its princess for a wandering devil.
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His are the waves that covered Atlantis in a single night and the primordial ones inhabited by the terrible Leviathan.
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Going against the tide, it must be said, Ernesto Pescini's pictorial and hermetic work follows in the romantic wake of the great English landscape painters such as William Turner and at times evokes Pre-Raphaelite waves where mermaids and tritons dwell, or even simpler Impressionist seas, But in the swirling motion of those surfs, he takes on a Leonardian, almost apocalyptic echo that makes him a painter of the "flood", abstract and naturalist, figurative and evanescent at the same time, just like air and clouds, water and waves.
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Rarefied, distant, ancestral and distant, this Italian unjustly and undeservedly ignored in his own country has found refuge and an ideal dwelling place there at Land's End, or rather where the earth ends, in that epic and Arthurian Cornwall, among the sea mists and the magical ones that cloak and veil the ancient, dense stones.
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Shy, elusive like Merlin perhaps once was, shunning all the banality that afflicts so many other contemporary artists, Ernesto dreams of the clouds that furrow the sky of Great Britain and its seas that unite the worlds. parts of that Ocean of Time that only madmen, heroes and lovers dare to cross.
In those icy waters that he always depicts, one can glimpse the ghosts of the ghost ships, of Lord Franklin's expedition lost in the ice or the boat sung in Baidhin Fhelimi and even the ballad The Sky Boat Song can be its soundtrack. Perhaps his is also the legacy of having been born on the shores of Lake Como, a legacy that Pescini carries like a cloak on his shoulders as if he were a new Prospero just evoked by the verses of The Tempest.
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In those frozen waves on the canvas, Captain Nemo's Nautilus certainly still sails, fierce and merciless, perhaps in search of the algae-covered ruins of the lost R'Lyeh from which the incubous apterous form of Cthulhu and his non-brother Dagon will one day re-emerge.
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But unlike the liquid and nocturnal imagery of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the water currents painted by Ernesto leave open an Odyssean gateway to adventure and romantic wonder. In those tumultuous waters, albeit with effort and the skill of the helmsman, one can navigate and reach the Fortunate Islands and a land where it is never winter and everyone lives happily.
Pescini paints his world of sea foam with the consummate skill of a sixteenth-century artist but with the romantic force of one from the nineteenth century, making a mockery of any twentieth-century avant-garde or trans-avant-garde in every wave that rises and bends over itself like a lover under the embrace of the beloved.
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The aerial element is therefore the male that possesses water, his companion and bride, in an alchemic marriage that always escapes and always regenerates, endlessly giving the unwitting observer an arcane message made of natural and occult symbols.
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All that remains for us, then, is to dare to climb aboard one of his fragile painted vessels and voluntarily shipwreck from this life to another made of splendour and dream and adventure, like Gulliver.'
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Dalmazio Frau
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Click here to view original article on Arte e Futuro (in Italian)