Angels of Beauty (2018)

This work chronicles the painterly retouching of the back streets of
Florence, Italy and draws a source concept from Ruskin’s essay Mornings in Florence
(1875-77), where the author bemoaned the destruction of old buildings and the
retouching of historic works, as ‘miserable repainting’. Likening himself to a kind
of cultural emergency service, Ruskin strove ‘in a fierce and steady struggle to save
all I can every day, as a fireman from a smouldering ruin, history or aspect.’ While
the traditional ochre painted external plasterwork is typical of the region, Florentine
public sensibility seeks to restore, repair and retouch the walls external to the
very cultural artefacts they seek to protect. A volunteer force Angeli del Bello scour
the city and retouch graffito or billposting with new paint yet rarely with sufficient
opacity to remove traces of the original surface. To maintain standards,
walls are retouched on a regular basis, creating exquisite patches
of painted plaster with complex layers of colour in abstract
forms, overlaying new against aged, sharing complex formal associations,
unintentionally albeit, to the paintings of Sean Scully, Per Kirkeby and Peter Kinley.

Buckram covered three panel folio containing 12 triptych c-type prints. 14.5x43.5cm

Edition of 30