Inspired by William Barnes Wollen’s “The Last Stand”, an 1898 work depicting the final battle of a British infantry regiment at the battle of Gundamuck, Gianni Politi’s newest exhibition at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill features 11 monumental works composed of canvas cuttings painted in oil and acrylic. These works seek to investigate painting’s role as a bridge between past and present, as a format through which the artist might assume a combative, politically engaged stance. The exhibition embodied Politi’s desire, much like the soldiers of Wollen’s work, to take a stand, a stand which for him will define the social responsibilities of a modern artist.

Gianni Politi’s second exhibition at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, ‘In the Belly of the Serpent’, opened in April 2019. It features over twenty large paintings divided into two distinct groups: first, large colourful abstract paintings which the artist referred to as ‘interior landscapes,’ and secondly, portraits based on a 1770 work by the neoclassical Italian painter Gaetano Gandolfi. Attached to each of the paintings is a small bronze sculpture, cast by Politi, representing an ouroboros, the ancient emblem of a snake holding its own tail – a reference to eternity and the cycle of life, and a reflection of Politi's own ideas on infinite regeneration and mutation.

For his first solo show at Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Gianni Politi presents three types of work: abstract paintings made using scraps of canvas with acrylic, oil and household paint; small portraits on canvas; and bronze stretchers of varying sizes realised with multi-colored patinas, marble and painted wood inserts. Exploring the creative process that binds the three distinct groups of works, Politi points to a debt owed to both Abstract Expressionism and to the twentieth century Italian masters, both of which  freely converged in his work.