DAROSA’S INVENTED GESTURE
by Harold Kitner, Professor Emeritus Kent State University (Artist, Critic, Art Historian)
Where does the world begin and where does it end? Simply look for the hands of Eduardo daRosa, for seemingly he is satisfied with nothing less than embracing life and the world in its entirety in his art. DaRosa’s art is nothing less than a very talented artist’s record of his love of life.
His art world is made visible through the disciplined marks, colors, textures and in his sculpture the volumetric forms. They are infused with his personal meanings, and although his forms are realistic, they are imbedded with his won visual language which shapes the contour of his forms. Therefore, it is the importance of the invented gesture, rather than realistic representation, which is at the root of his art.
DaRosa’s art is always cleansed of the incidental and deals only with the essential elements required to project his content. Until very recently the central elements of his paintings consisted of one or two figures boldly rendered in symbolic gestures, not unlike icons in all religious cultures.
It is this ability to use the gesture as a precise visual language which is one of the most important characteristics of daRosa’s art; very much like the choreographer of the pantomimist he makes the language of his art inescapable and direct. DaRosa does not waste a motion, and his ability to make the unequivocal visual statement is further enhanced through the low relief he creates through the use of acrylic modeling paste, which also demands an emotional response because of its overt rough surfaces.
DaRosa also sculpts in full dimension. Some pieces are transitional; the stark figures of his paintings are relieved of their backgrounds and therefore permitted to be curvilinear, often his basic stark white material is used in combination with a variety of metals used as symbolic enhancements.
Recently daRosa has increasingly pursued the monumental in often large archaic figured sculpture. The gestures remain but now incorporate the entire figure, often uniquely set in symbolic landscapes.
All of this: pursuit of the energetic, the dynamic, is interspersed by a series of delightful still-life paintings featuring the classic curves and wonderful pallets of soft, intermediate color ranges.