Julio Larraz, Au Revoir, 2016, Oil on canvas, 152 × 183 cm | Courtesy Galleria d’Arte Contini

After the success of the Roman anthological exhibition at the Complesso del Vittoriano and the most recent solo exhibition in Venice entitled Journey Into Fantasy at theContini Art Gallery in 2018, Julio Larraz (Havana, 1944) returns to Italy with a major exhibition and a series of works inspired by surrealism and metaphysics. The major retrospective celebrates the Cuban artist's career through a careful selection of oils on canvas, drawings and watercolors made from the 1980s to the present day, retracing the artist's original and ironic production. The paintings describe the profile of an author with a multifaceted genius capable of dealing with different themes from time to time through a constant, strongly dreamlike and surreal expressive code, yet always referring to current themes. Central to Larraz is the theme of the representation of power, always treated with a peculiar ironic irreverence, as well as the landscapes and interior views, cases in which, often, the depicted subject is not placed in a clear position in the setting of the painted, thus causing a sense of estrangement in the viewer.

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