Thursday, 25th February 2010 Velan will open XXL 2 TAGLIE FORTI (Outsize) with works by Till GERHARD, Paolo LEONARDO and Nicky HOBERMAN. The exhibition presents three important artists whose common characteristic is the use of the large sizes of their works, rather then in a poetic similarity. Works by Till Gerhard, Paolo Leonardo and Nicky Hoberman will be presented in the exhibition.

Till Gerhard was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1971 where he is still living. Gerhard paints large size canvases and in general adds colour stains and drops. His images have a disquieting atmosphere. In ‘Dawn’ he represents the morning after a festival and the figures are not well defined, still in hangover and roaming in a lawn full of abandoned things and among the tombs, which symbolize the connection between the carnal and the spiritual world, the forms loose their solidity while colours melt and superimpose to create surreal light effects. Paolo Leonardo was born in Turin in 1973 and lives in the same city, he does not work on canvases but on advertising posters detached from walls to create unusual works upsetting the images with neo-expressionist violence, and the images loose their original aspect and take the shape of undefined forms and faces. – I believe – he says – that serial photographic reproduction in advertisement and television, but also in cinema, disqualify our vision through an obsessive bombardment of images. In consequence of this we are no more able to see we have become blind. I think that certain photographic images really have their own autonomous life, something like a magical power. I take care of them and bring them to eternity, where every metamorphosis is possible - . Nick Hoberman was born in Capetown, South Africa in 1967, she lives and works in London. In her works she portrays young pre-adolescent girls with excessively large faces and with expressions which force the observer to look at them, as if they were claiming attention but avoiding contact. Her works explore the ideas of isolation, identity, individuality. Those girls live in a world where everything is dissociated, no matter how near to each other they are, there is never an emotive connection. Perspective and their artificial poses reinforce this sense of dislocation. We thank Region Piedmont for the contribution. The exhibition will remain open from 25^th February to 19^th March 2010 in the following opening hours: from Tuesday to Friday from 03.00 PM to 06.00 PM.