Corrado Gai, born in Livorno, Italy, in 1977, was born with the qualities and stubbornness of one who
never gives up and strongly believes in his work and in his own mission. He started painting in the later
90’s, initially fascinated by the great Tuscan pictorial tradition. Indeed, his first paintings follow in the wake
of Labronic and Macchiaiolo art; they describe spots and moments of the surrounding territory, focusing
on the atmospheres of the seasons, by means of the typical “macchia” paint-strokes and colorjuxtaposition,
that keep them vivid and transparent. This Tuscan-tradition period was destined to be
just a brief one in the wide panorama of Gai’s work, because figurative painting forced him to respect
rules and models, as well as conventions and times of execution. In other words, figurative painting forced
him to be faithful to reality, to eye perception, that is, stopping at the superficial level of things, without
reaching their core, their essence. The painter points out “when I was painting that kind of thing I was
feeling imprisoned. I dreamed of vast spaces, and felt the strong need to be free, to tell other stories,
to penetrate life and its mysteries…into existence itself”. The evolution of his painting, was coming into
being in his thoughts, reflections and, above all, in his will. It would have been just a question of time.
There was (and it is still present) in Corrado Gai, a natural and perhaps unconscious attraction for the
most famous historical avant-gardes, for their way of feeling and facing problems and their search within
contexts and expressive languages. In conclusion, Gai, for his personality and nature, felt and still feels
on the same wavelength as those “movements” that changed history, offering new inputs and
new paths to follow: first of all Expressionism, as it was represented by Ensor, Nolde, Kockoschka and
Munch, expanding bodies and lacerating forms. The Expressionism that screamed and shouted,
following the impulses of the moment: joy, fury, rage and tenderness. Corrado Gai’s painting has
a strong personality and draws its elements both from good and bad, as well as from life and death.
The color-sign rebels against every rule and order, just to pursue dreams of freedom, provocative
intentions, moments of social and existential denunciation. To this pictorial cycle belong works
like “Sorrows and Regrets of Denied Motherhoods”, in which the compositional framework reaches very
high levels and human tragedies are represented with extraordinary effectiveness and empathy.
The painting is a mixture of rage and emotion that breaks against pale and dim backgrounds, thick
and mysterious spider-webs, drippings of pure, controlled and disciplined color, dropping like a
curtain on hardly recognizable human cocoons. Another work belonging to this cycle is “Hell’s Gate”
a painting full of tension yet absolutely wonderful in its dramatic evocation of a never-ending sorrow,
visible on the blank looks of human beings reduced to screaming masks, mere icons of an unspeakable
pain. A third painting, “The Value of Memory”, deals with the existential solitude typical of modern life. In
the lower part of the painting a multitude of joined hands raises upwards, where evanescent, hardlysketched
shapes, like shadows of someone’s mind, turn become memories, as in a desperate effort
made by contemporary man to escape from his own fate and loneliness by clinging to remainders
of happiness and to positive memories. Another painting deserving special attention is undoubtedly
“Self-Portrait”. Here the figure comes out of a thick and pasty substance, full of tears and rips. The picture
is very dramatic and strong thanks to the play on dark grey tints and tones, suddenly lighted up with
bright yellow and crackling red shades, that drip to the lower part of the canvas, splitting in liquid trickles,
just like blood coming out of unhealed wounds. Gai’s particular kind of philosophy leads us back to the
great artistic movement that dawned in Italy during the 50’s, known as “Existentialism” and exemplified by
such great painters as Gian Carlo Ferroni, Giovanni Cappelli, Giuseppe Zigaina and Giuseppe Banchieri.
However, Gai’s art is quite different. His language is more direct and smooth, its pictorial acts are bolder
and its brushwork and creativity are very peculiar to his style.

Several paintings belong to this stage of Gai’s work: “War’s Horror”; “Denied Childhood”;
“Escape and Pain”; “Evolution and Roots”; “Slaughter”; “Conflict between Good and Evil”, to cite a few. In
these canvases we perceive the vaguely surreal, ethereal atmosphere typical of Gai’s art. It is a kind
of special Surrealism, created by the artist himself. In his canvases the border line between dream and
reality, while present and easily recognizable, is thin and nearly imperceptible. His mind roams among
associations of ideas and images but still it keeps itself in close contact with the real world and its
troubles. This expressive tension seems not to fail him even when he decides to dedicate himself to
the painting of landscapes or objects, just to slow down the flow of emotions. Even in these cases, Gai’s
painting isn’t calm and relaxed. Instead, it looks as if a strange anxiety runs through it, like a sort of
inner storm shaking it restlessly, a swirl made of light, color and dynamic forces capable of creating
sensations of life, urge and energy. This is an art full of strength that perfectly mirrors the artist’s personality
and character, his wish to find new paths to follow, new motivations. That of Corrado Gai is actually
a continuous progress towards more difficult and apparently unreachable goals, so challenging for him
because he has aims, objectives and ways of his work clear in his mind. After this free and spontaneous
(though still related to figurative painting) period, Corrado Gai felt the need to simplify his way of
expression, to make it more immediate and fluent, to remove every superstructure and constraint from
it, to plunge it into atmospheres made only of light, color, and transparent shades. Therefore the Tuscan
painter, leaving behind all graphic devices, chooses to rely only on his informal chromatic gesture, which
becomes a denunciation of an existential crisis, tormenting incomprehension, incommunicability,
voluntary or forced isolation in a society that gets more complex every day. In this context there’s no
room for thinking and for autonomous decisions. In these paintings we witness a growing clash between
formal and informal, iconicity and non-iconicity and between line and a total freedom in the use of
color. Thus, a brand new language seems to develop, one made of inspiration and thought as well as
immediate and thought-inspiring. This personal language is often enriched by the use of particular
materials (like nets, glues and resins) to make the message clearer and emotions more direct.
To this period belong such works as “The Memory of Traditions” and “The Tuna Net”. These paintings are
intense, full of light and energy. In them the balance between color, gesture and materials is fully reached
and the rhythm of execution is fast-paced like a narration stretching between order and chaos, light
and darkness, matter and chromatic evanescence. In the collection of works by Corrado Gai there are
also some paintings made exclusively of matter and gesture: they are color explosions suddenly lighted
up with unexpected flashes. In these canvases the color turns to incandescent magma, telluric matter,
volcanic lava that seems to come out of the very core of the earth. “An Explosion and its Color”; “Fire’s
Energy”; “Flash”; “Flash of Color”, “Intense Heat”; “The Universe and its Power”; “Meteora” ecc…

By Luciano Carini

A wide range of emotional patterns

By Dott.ssa Alessandra Rontini

For an artist the wish to get away, at least with his own mind, from everything around him so as to give free rein to his unrestrainable personality and to freely express whatever his stormy soul feels is a constant presence. Undoubtedly this strong wish can be considered as the real basis of Corrado Gai’s art, one that is capable of expressing a wide range of emotional patterns, by means of effective play of colours. The artist uses colours, shapes and matter to immortalize everything he feels; being an eclectic painter he successfully dedicates himself to the figurative painting as well as to the surrealism, to the abstract painting and to the non representational one. Sometimes in Gai’s works it looks as if the emerging shapes wanted to let go off the canvas, thus moving and coming to life. While some of these figures come straight from the painter’s mind, many others bring back memories of a plain reality, highlighting the wickedness and the sorrow of man. Other shapes show the nature as it is seen through the painter’s eye. However, beyond the subject we can feel the presence of the artist’s soul inside the colours, the shapes, as well as inside the matter… we can feel it wherever because … the artist’s soul is the true core of his art. Corrado senses that he must find a way to express what he feels inside and thus, almost subconsciously he produces his works of art, by means of an aggressive, passionate language, intoxicating himself with colour, living within colous and letting colour sweep him along. He knows the sorrows that wickedness can bring, and he knows the relativity of man compared with the universe. Nevertheless he chooses to isolate himself and to follow his own instinct. Through is inner strength he is able reproduce vivid sensations on the canvas, thus letting emotions overwhell him. As in a kind of metamorphosis all of his creations take shape thanks to an inner boost through which the painter communicates and fullfills himself . There is in his painting a constant vein of melancholy but at the same time also a reluctant and invincible force, springing from the wish (never to be completely satisfied) to see light beyond darkness, to see hope beyond death, to see the salvation of mankind. This melancholic vein is evident in the sorrowful figures, in the visions of nature, as well as in the colourful explosions. The use of colours (both in the oil and in the mixed technique) is always an end in itself, and that is evident in the use of bright tints on dark backgrounds. I personally have had the opportunity to appreciate the work of this young talented painter for some time, trying to follow his artistic path. I must recognize that on the course of time his technique has personalized, and he refined both his style and his taste. I think Corrado is a very sensitive person, I have always felt his will to overcome every obstacle, to meet his audience, to freely communicate with it , and, at the same time to look to the future with a moderate optimism, trying to pluck from obscurity in a World that is now overwhelmed by all kind of means of communications.

Corrado Gai took part in a lot of national and foreign exhibitions, receiving prizes, certificates
for his artistic contributes:

2004 Gabbro, Leghorn
2004 Premio Rotonda, Leghorn
2005 Bottini dell’Olio, Leghorn
2005 Premio Rotonda, Leghorn
2005 “Studio Logo” Art Gallery, Rome
2006 XXI Edition of “Italy for Visual Arts” Award, winning a special “under 30” award), Certaldo (Florence)
2006 “A drop of Art”, Pieve a Nievole (PT)
2006 Torricelli, Leghorn
2006 Effetto Venezia, Leghorn
2006 Premio Rotonda, Leghorn
2006 “The wild boar”, Larciano (PT)
2006 XXIV Edition of “Florence Award”, Florence
2007 Torricelli, Leghorn
2007 “Il Candelaio” Art Gallery, Florence
2007 XXII Edition of “Italy for Visual Arts”, winning a special explanatory award, Certaldo, Florence
2007 XXII Edition of “Italy for Visual Arts”, winning a special publishing award, Certaldo, Florence
2007 Piombino, Leghorn
2007 Suvereto, Leghorn
2007 Rotonda Prize , Leghorn
2007 Mattarello - Trento
2007 Sezione DS Porto - Leghorn
2008 XXIII Edition of “Italy for Visual Arts”, winning a special explanatory award, Certaldo, Florence
2008 XXIII Edition of “Italy for Visual Arts”, Certaldo, Florence
2008 Palazzo della Cultura - San Vincenzo (LI)
2008 Correggio in Arte - Reggio Emilia
2008 Palazzo Pretorio - Campiglia Marittima (LI)
2008 “Agorà” gallery- Piombino (LI)
2008 Rotonda Prize - Leghorn
2008 “Studio C” Gallery - Piacenza
2008 “Vicolo del Pavone” Gallery- Piacenza
2008 Cultural association Maria Luisa Tosi - Leghorn
2008 III Internetional Prize “Boè”,winning a special explanatory award - Palermo
2009 Gallery in Villa - Castiglioncello (LI)
2009 Palazzo Appiani - Piombino (LI)
2009 Klaipeda - Liuthania
2009 Rotonda Prize - winning the 1° Prize "Daniela Nenci" about sculture - Leghorn

Top Page