Series Blue Codes. 9C8921

Unique piece. Piero Addis creates a sort of digital rococo that is both stunningly contemporary and deeply rooted in aesthetic tradition. The title “Blue Codes” refers to the codes for specific flights the artist has taken in recent years: “LH3959” for a trip from Milan to Frankfurt, “AF511” for Damascus-Paris, or “SU279” for Moscow-Milan, for example. During such flights he photographs the sky as seen from the airplane window, gathering visual material that is subsequently fused with “heavenly” scenes from the paintings of Giambattista Tiepolo, in which the sky often played a central, highly theatrical role. An entire sequence of images is overlaid, edited, printed on the finest handmade paper, augmented with watercolor or ink, scanned again, printed and finally mounted on canvas. Even this final stage may well be overworked or even highlighted with gold leaf. …those who have seen Addis’s “Blue Codes” will perceive the view from an airplane window in a new way. In the process, as the artist himself reflects, “A simple glance can become a vision.” David Galloway