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1963-1974
material-shapeless
structures
changeable routes

1975-1988
pope for free painting
colour pages
holding a dialogue

1989-2002
cromatic bodies / surface sounds
achromatic stripes
painting time

1942 - Pope was born in Portogruaro (Venice) on 24 of July: he's the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. His liberal and republican father encourages him towards artstic actvities.

1957-60 - He enters the Liceo Artistico of Rome where he attends lessons of master Montanarini. Even if young he calls at the cultural and artistic ambient of Rome where he is impressed by Pop-Art: he keeps himself far away from such a figurative form since it is not matching his reflexive intellect and his exuberant temper. He shows interest in all cultural events of those years and often pays a visit to the places where Roman artists meet: some of these artists would have become famous afterwards.

1961 - He leaves the school and Rome and goes to Fano where he attends the Scuola d'Arte. In this period he seems to became indifferent to paiting: on the contrary he attends with great interest the lessons of sculptor Mannucci and a strong friendship links the two.

1962 - He graduates "Maestro d'Arte" and goes back to Portogruaro.

1963 - He attends the lessons of nude and etching lectured by Magnolato in Venice.

1964 - He studies at the Academy of Fine Arts (Venice) where he attends the painting courses held by Zotti, Saetti and Santomaso. He learns from them how to use different stuff and colours and parficulary the sand and earth colours techniques.

1968 - He graduates at the Academy of Fine Arts. His artistic rescarch goes forward until the exaustion of the motivation which has stimulated such a research. His artistic route can be divided into several stages.

1963-64 MATERIAL-SHAPELESS PERIOD The huge canvas of this period have often political contents: there is in fact a constant presence of social references which take origin from the youthful experiences he had had in Rome. Contest, engaged and street painting deeply marked the artistic life of Pope. Those experiences are really new in the region of Veneto of that period: and if in Rome they were at an embrionic stage, in Veneto with contact of political student groups, they flew into a poltical engagement. Linguistic and expression instruments characteristic of the sixties are deeply investgated. Huge canvas of political background alternate to others canvas which are more meditated and nearer to venetian art of that period. Pope's painting douring these years is rich of informal/material elements which are reminescent of academic studies but which have already inside something of personal that will become peculiar of his future painting.

1965-72 STRUCTURES During a visit to Paris, Pope is strongly impressed by the Masters of structure painting and optical-art particularly by Vasarely and Malevic. His painting takes a geometrical conformation where volume and depth are solved by colour and line means. Optcal pictures belongs to this peliod: through them he investigates the Gestalt theories of perception and composition. The works of this period are marked by analitic elements which tend to create different feeling in the spectator. Painting becomes a flux of propositions and rational proposals expressed by formal and chromatic play. Plexiglas and wood works alternate to painting as well as geometrical figures (squares, triangles, tondos) in a countinuos structural/formal composition often tridimensional.

1973-74 CHANGEABLE ROUTES After several exibitions in different Italian towns he starts to deeply investigate the subject of the surface in its semplicity and recurrence. The series of pictures carried out through the means of diagonal lines open to Pope the way to a production, which inserting itself into the surrondings, tends to become endless. The possibility of a continuous creaton of combinations, the intermutation and the symbiosis with the space give the painting confirmation and consistency so that the spectator is actively involved particularly in the perception phase.

1975-82 FOR FREE PAINTING During these years we have the temporary abandonment of formal structure: research and chromatic effects take its place. Colour and light, in their myriad of chromatic codifications, become object of investigation. Sometimes it is still possible to find some geometrical elements which had been the peculiar characteristic of Pope's works, but they are not so strong in this period. It is possible to note the presence of elements belonging to the Roman period, but particularly to the Venetian period where the colour, in its expressive form, becomes temporary, the element on which Pope's painting find his definition.

1983-84 HISTORICAL MEMORYThis period is characterized by the leaving of geometry in order to reconsider painting as an immediate expressive medium. It's the right time to think about artistical history.

1984-85 COLOUR PAGES After numerous contacts with artists of Milan and the representatives of the group Pittura-Pittura (Painting-Painting) Pope feels the necessity to veil the surfaces until they become remembrance which tends slowly to vanish into the mind, till almost to disappear: it is a moment of painting reflexion. He falls out with its past and his way of painting: monochromatic covering is the presage of a complete change of his artistic route.

1986-88 HOLDING A DIALOGUE If bloomig marked the end of the previous cycle, the works of these two years are a reflexion on himself, on his artistic capacities, but particularly a meditation on his own story as artist and painter. Pictures of this period are characterized by a new vitality. All the experiences achieved in twenty years of work and rescarch seem to fall on the canvas all together in a still confused way but in the sametime an operation of selection and consofidation of some peculiar linguistic elements starts.

1989-92 CHROMATIC BODIES AND SURFACE SOUNDS Some peculiar linguistic-expressive element: such as surface, colour and form come out the former experiences. In this period Pope goes back to the pure and mediated pictorial action: the energy of the sign can be noted as well as the composition of the surface and the construction of the forms. Maturity has come: the artist is able to put together his painting knowledge and his technical ability obtained through experience and work.

1993-95 ACHROMATIC STRIPES The painting of this period are the consequence of Pope's artistic approach. The forms follow the logic which goes from complex to simple. Many elements which characterized the articulated shapes of the preceeding works, abandon partly the canvas, and they are transformed in little memories. The complex become simple and the wide shapes and painting signs become smaller and more elementar. The lines essentially tend to follow the vertical or orizontal perpendicularity. The material become simply drawing of white and black: not two colours but two neutrals. The achromaticity doesn't exclude the strictly pictorial experiences, but opens again a short reference to the experimental perception theories of the past years. Again the most important role is played by the pure painting strenght.

1995 PAINTING TIME Pope's most recent researh embrace the painting surface, a place in which the painting action can reach the wider movement. Two main elements sign the research: the color's illusion, whith its false depth and perception plans, and the dinamic sing, linked to a new formal research. The color becomes the star, giving a lighter sense and more expression strenght to the canvas. Beside this the light is another important element because it follows the energy of the paintbrush movements.