Claudio Parentela

Born and raised in Catanzaro, Italy, artust Claudio Parentela isn’t the average creative mind. As a result, he created a life filled with activities he likes most. His collages describes itself best as “art with a freakish taste“. His pieces are a mix of paintings, photography and undefinable scribbles.

https://tributetomagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PAINTING864.jpg

Parentela hasn’t been making art his entire life. Back in 1995, he decided to dedicate his entire life to art. He explains: “I feel fully free when I create art, shoot photos, cutting, painting and glueing. Freedom is the most essential object in life to me. It’s essential to breathe, to continually live day after day.” His decision to fully focus on his artistic career, happened by chance, when he “started drawing and painting compulsively.” Short after, he started to exhibit his work and soon collaborations with other artists followed. “Since then I never stopped.” In the meantime he became a professional succer for everything that inspires him, for example black ink. “For the first 14 years I’ve only drawn in black and white. I created many rivers of black Indian in. Hence, I love the thousand shades between the black and white of the ink. They’re like the thousand shades of the human soul.”

Drawing his inspiration from fashion, books and “everything that attracts my attention“, Parentelo commonly creates a diverse range of work. Big names such as Sara Vaughan, John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld inspire him on a daily basis.

When asking about his survival method during lockdown, he has a resolute answer: “I don’t have a very social life, I like to stay locked up in my studio all day to work on my drawings, my paintings, my music and other projects. My life didn’t change much during the lockdown, except for the fact that I drew a lot more. Furthermore, I participated in many mail art projects and I drew, painted and sew many masks. In these strange days, in these dark days, the time has passed very quickly. It’s a strange feeling. But I made the most out of it.”

https://tributetomagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/PAINTING1646.jpg

https://tributetomagazine.com/interview-artist-claudio-parentela-on-his-inexhaustible-desire-for-freedom/

The rigidity of conventional responses to sexual imagery takes a beating in Parentela’s collages – their brutal exposition of the flawed humanity beneath and beyond the adland exterior is made obvious by crude overlays of cartoonish meta-commentary, or by cut-and-pasted features.

Does it make a difference that Claudio Parentela is a man?

On seeing his garish collages, the initial reaction is to misread the final vowel of his name and assume that the artist is of feminine gender. The conceptual attack on conventional images of femininity, and of feminine sexuality, are something we have grown to expect from a post-YBA crop of female artists hacking furiously at the dominant visual trope of the 21st century.

That it comes from a man then, is somewhat of an affront. It’s the difference between the anti-semite and the self-hating Jew; the diffference between the word ‘nigger’ uttered by the black emcee or yelled by the pasty-white EDL member; the arch self-definition by the outre ‘fag’ versus the vicious spitting of the same word as the blows rain down.

the difference between the anti-semite and the self-hating Jew

What right does a man have to confront the holy temple of the airbrushed, primped, teased and toned female form, attack it as visual fascism, as the endlessly-paraded passive-agressive definition of how a woman should look, should act, should be?

Talk of oppression is far-fetched. On the face of it, the heterosexual male has never had it so good. Western media saturates him constantly with sexualised imagery of idealised women, their allure a series of visual cues designed to appeal to his involuntary hormonal responses. These are pre-ordained, defined, restricted to a lowest common denominator choice of zones, curves, skintones. Conformity of stimulus is assumed, homogeneity of chemical triggers a given.

https://364434.smushcdn.com/276103/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/claudio-parentela4.jpg

And if stockings and suspenders don’t turn him into a ravenous sex pest, there must be something wrong with him, right?

The rigidity of conventional responses to sexual imagery takes a beating in Parentela’s collages – their brutal exposition of the flawed humanity beneath and beyond the adland exterior is made obvious by crude overlays of cartoonish meta-commentary, or by cut-and-pasted features. In style, we see the colours and frivolity of pop-art combined with a Dadaist use of cynical absurdity. In composition, there is no point in ignoring the obvious influence of Picasso. It’s bright, disjointed, initially familiar, and then a little disturbing. Claudi Parentela lives and works in Cantanzaro, Italy.

https://364434.smushcdn.com/276103/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/claudio-Parentela-e.jpg

https://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/claudio-parentela/

Interview with artist/writer Claudio Parentela —

1. Who are you and what do you do? I am Claudio Parentela, a visual artist and journalist freelance…. I live in Italy … in South Italy …. I do this wonderful work since over 20 years ….I paint, I create collages, installations. I also shoot a lot of photography, crazy videos, tons of illustrations, comics, etc.

''PAINTING 111''

”PAINTING 111”

1. Why art? Oh… I feel completely absolutely free only when I’m amongst my “artistic things” and in my studio, with my photos, my papers, my colours, my glue, my scissors, my ropes, tapes, plastics, all my 1000 things I found around in the city. It’s been difficult to arrive here where I’m now but it’s a wonderful continuous magical journey, every moment and every day. ''ASSEMBLAGE 1867" ”ASSEMBLAGE 1867″ 3.What is your earliest memory of wanting to be an artist? Since I was a kid I drew strange beings with big eyes.I always drew terrible and long battles amongst these beings. I drew always eyes, eyes and again eyes. I don’t know why, perhaps I’ve always been interested in the study of the human soul.
2. What are your favorite subject(s) and media(s)? I love fashion, high, low, weird fashion. Underground comics too, but really I don’t think to have and to love a particular favourit subject. I love to play with all in my creations, with all I feel, I watch, I smell. I drew and painted for years, only in black and white with tons of black indian ink. Then, I needed colors, the colors of new materials to know myself again. I like to experiment and reinvent myself again and again and again … to decompose me … to tie and untie myself in knots and then to knot them again and again …. ''ASSEMBLAGE 376'' ”ASSEMBLAGE 376”
3. How do you work and approach your subject? The subject approaches me instantly, magically, every day. When I have my music, all my things all around me, all happen magically in a fantastic shamanic trance. Every day when I’m in my studio, I program absolutely nothing. I’ve no idea of what I’ll do, but in few moments all flows magically on the paper. ''ASSEMBLAGE 2015'' ”ASSEMBLAGE 2015” "PAINTING 205" “PAINTING 205”
4. What are your favorite art work(s), artist(s)? I love all the artists of all the times. Every artist has a wonderful gift to give, every artist’s work is unique and unrepeatable. I love Pablo Picasso, all his art, pure light and beauty.
5. What are the best responses you have had to your work? During all these years, many years really, all good responses and results. Many many different things done, collaborations, shows. Always wonderful experiences and always fantastic people encountered. ''ASSEMBLAGE 139'' ”ASSEMBLAGE 139”
6. What do you like about your work? The total freedom that I have. I feel free only so, when I create, and when I can express myself in my art. ''ASSEMBLAGE 1719'' ”ASSEMBLAGE 1719”
7. What advice would you give to other artists? To be and to continue to be, and try to be themselves. It’s so important, and then to have fun to have fun to have fun . . . ''PAINTING 117'' ”PAINTING 117” 10.where do you see yourself in 5-10 years? I’ll be a cook on Mars. Claudio Parentela Claudio Parentela LINKS —

Website: http://www.claudioparentela.net

Blog: http://claudioparentel.altervista.org/

Facebook: https://www.faceboo k.com/claudio.parentela.1

Google Plus: https://plus. google.com/u/0/110183603506146850232

Tumblr: http://claudioparentela.tumblr.com/

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/98296270@N03/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ClaudioParentela/videos

https://www.artsillustrated.com/claudio-parentela-artistwriter/