Black Velvet Painting

Luca W M Blood, These painting seem to be almost thrust into existence, as much as they're thrust into the viewers' vision. There persists a collision between structured form - established through hypnotic patterns that hark back to ancient rituals (Aztec, Egyptian, Shaman and so on) - and the dirt of evolution. But this is then twisted further through haunted reflections on the artist's seeming belief in the tampering by alien's with the human being. Strange beings - both known and unknown - stare straight at us, as in a work titled Trench Mask - or luminous patterns lead us into complex spaces, as in the beautifully named Opium Cobweb. What are we looking at here? The result is ambiguous. Though maybe one can see these intoxicated designs as microscopic samples, as imagined scientific data of the human blood stream opening up a trail into Man's supposed alien ancestry. Fragments of mutated bacteria shimmer magnified from a petri dish, forging otherworldly gateways. This collision is further established in the balance that Luca creates between the ancient and the modern. The viewer is forced to think of both ancient pre-Christian tribal religions as well as the contemporary. For instance, in some works, such as Automatic Session, we can see the mirror of Aztec temples, but also the nexus of patterns that one finds on a computer "˜chip card'. One is also reminded - especially in the thick application of paint, of artists such as Francis Bacon and Willem De Kooning, but also in Ibrahim El-Salahi and Giger. Such an original synthesis adds greater depth to the idea previously suggested of Luca's reflections on Mankind's origins, and the persistence of patterns and forms that signify a complex spiritual world, which is sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing: just as one feels immersed into the hypnotic shapes, the glimpse of a pair of unknown eyes makes its presence known, jolting the receptor back to consciousness.