Jack Ottanio - Maestro contemporaneo - Maestri di profilo nazionale

Jack Ottanio and painting beyond the unimaginable

What distinguishes the figure of the craftsman from that of the artist is the genius, understood in the true sense of the word, considered as the manifestation of a creativity that, on occasion, can go beyond the unimaginable. In this regard, it is also appropriate to dwell on the concept of inspiration, the nature of which emerges from an uncontrollable epiphany, its materialization tends to materialize only or exclusively through the exhibition of a finished work, both pictorial and sculptural; but, then, to achieve inventiveness, in its purest form, one must be able to dare, even in an unconscious way, and let oneself be guided by one's instinct. These are the characteristics that characterize the pictorial production of Jack Ottanio, an author who, by virtue of his already esteemed body of works, likes to define himself as a metropolitan pop artist; and this name has never been so appropriate, considering the style adopted for his compositions. Shapes, colors, signs, subjects of various kinds and post-modern iconographic references, are all elements that appear in Jack's painting, merging through a harmonious pictorial chaos, in which his vision of the contemporary world tends to become a concrete figurative reality.

Jack Ottanio's paintings emerge from the mixture of opposing forces that intertwine with a certain vehemence; from these intersections the expressiveness of the pictorial combinations comes to life, whose technical and modular dimension is revealed through suggestive stylistic references ranging from futurism to pop art.  

Uncontrollable colors explode from Jack Ottanio's painting, whose shades are of a surprising vital magnificence that attracts, in a hypnotic way, the gaze of even the most distracted spectator. Each element is aimed at the extreme of its possible structural connotations; it is as if each subject depicted were composed and decomposed to infinity, and then re-emerges in all its primordial beauty.

Jack Ottanio is an all-round artist and sets no limits to his kunstowollen, since the works he creates allow him to be able to communicate his emotions, but above all to be able to narrate his personal vision of the world and the nature of the human being. Every aspect of the everyday life that Jack depicts has to do with his multifaceted past, with his multiple previous experiences, considered, with good reason, the fruit of an entire and intense existence. From the particular to the global: ideas, points of view and moods, matured through contact with different races and cultures, are, finally, the result of an educational background that has been enriched over time through a series of trips that from Milan, his hometown, they took him to many other countries around the world.  Jack's artistic production is already a testament to posterity, the legacy of a painting capable of manifesting a "metropolitan" vision heralding joy, but above all of a chromatic vivacity and an informal vision unique in their kind. 

Professor Luigi Fusco 

Historian and Art Critic