U R B A N S U B U R B I A

Have You Heard?, 2024
Oil on canvas
60 x 80 cm.

The Cornfield, 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 100 cm.

Marco Minozzi had previously titled this group of paintings depicting segments of suburbia “Counter-urbanization.” Such paintings as The City Bridge (Ostiense Station), Rome and The Canal question the concept of typology. Both urban and suburban, neither urban nor suburban, peripheral, in-between, composite, transitional, inconclusive: such are the unstable semantic implications of the afore-mentioned two paintings, as they render linguistic taxonomy somewhat insufficient. While addressing taxonomic issues of the landscape genre, Minozzi unapologetically practices perspectival representation of architecture and the space it inhabits. A number of paintings from this series elicit dialogues between the suburban and rural as well.

Arizona, The Long Avenue, 2019
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 cm
Private collection, New York, United States

Empty Factory, 2019
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 cm.

Gas Station Chevron, 2023
Oil on canvas
40 x 60 cm.

Electric Tower, 2018–23
Oil on canvas
35 x 50 cm.

As suggested by its title, Piero della Francesca (L.A. The Artificial River) recalls innumerable paintings of the Renaissance, including for instance Perugino’s Consignment of the Keys to Saint Peter in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, although rendered on a relatively minuscule scale here. These works of Minozzi may also momentarily bring to mind the paintings of Randy Dudley, a forerunner of the photorealist style. Yet Minozzi neither utilizes a specific system of geometric perspective nor does he trace the projected photograph. Rather, his rendition of imagery is primarily intuitive and mainly content-driven, even though he stains the canvas with oil in a manner that water and nature have stained the concrete of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. “Stains are the most abstract forms, although they’re not abstract at all,” says Minozzi.

Trespass, 2020
Oil on canvas
70 x 100 cm.

Homecoming, 2022
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 cm.

Laguna, 2020–23
Oil on canva
30 x 50 cm.

Confini 1, 2024
Oil on canvas
50 x 90 cm
Private collection, Bucine, Arezzo, Italy

Another Time Another Place, 2017
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 cm.

Enfolded, 2023
Oil on canvas
60 x 90 cm.

Piero della Francesca (L.A. The Artificial River), 2020
Oil on
canvas
50 x 90 cm.

The Iron Tower, 2015
Oil on canvas
50 x 70 cm.