Norberto Spina

Norberto Spina's work seeks to investigate the tension hidden in the reality that surrounds us, starting from photography and moving on to the layering of drawing and painting. His practice was developed to help him communicate what he sees, feels and believes through generating both pictorial and plastic abstractions which are deeply rooted in reality. The work is created in multiple steps: layering through pen and paint, using found materials, images or codes and then through a process of subtraction, which manifests in scratching the canvas with blunt objects and abrasive cards. This is often a long and excruciating process, in which Norberto brings the canvas to its limits: cutting, injuring and scarring the work.

"The textured and abraded surfaces of Norberto Spina’s paintings, meanwhile, bear the marks of the artist’s punishing, dualist process of addition - image-making, painting, layering - and subtraction - comprising the infliction of violence of various kinds, scraping, scratching and trampling, inflicted on the work. The paintings here, depicting a foot and a hand holding a nail in its palm, carry intimations of biblical wounding and fate."

Excerpt from Field of Difference, an essay by Nick Hackworth