Bastard exhibition

The project was born in the previous year, when the production of the TV series I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone commissioned the artist to realize the set paintings of one of the episodes of the fiction.

The subject of the artworks is obsession: in the paintings a blonde woman plays the role of Ophelia, Medea, Giuditta, Salomè, Antigone. Her face depicts the fictional character Francesca Valletta’s, the boss’ daughter who must marry the heir of a rival family and who is the secret obsession of her future brother-in-law.

Beyond the fiction, Conte’s obsession is not about the morbid attraction towards a woman, but it is the constant and passionate practice of art and painting. The exhibited works mark the arrival point of his path: each canvas has a manifest reference to a classic painting which is reinterpreted through his research echoing his artistic education.

The result is a unique synthesis, in which his signature style, his use of modern materials and the bright chromatism inspired by Pop Art create a contemporary representation of classic subjects of history of art.

The fulcrum of Mostra Bastarda is Ophelia, a tragic Shakespearean heroine who is painted suspended in the water, surrounded by plants and flowers. Although inspired by the famous painting by John Everett Millais, Conte’s modern Ophelia does not possess the hieratic and contemplative gaze of the nineteenth-century canvas. She rather looks towards a point that cannot be seen by the living leaving something unspoken on the lips.