Ivan’s work is born from gradual layers of tone-on-tone colour and overlapping glazes that evoke Venetian tonal painting and testify to Ivan’s strong bond with his Italian origins.
The artworks recall the relationship with time, where the search for a particular amalgamation of colours, along with the volume and sculptural finish, becomes the foundation of the work.
“My work is linked to time. “Tessere” “Rette” “Tondi” and “Compressioni” complete step by step my personal alphabet.”
Ivan begins his artworks by applying layers of highly pigmented paint onto canvases which are then enclosed in plexiglass moulds. De Menis continues his process by pouring consecutive layers of resin into the moulds which are then strained and “released” after solidification, slowly increasing the artwork’s volume.
An equation of time, colour and volume are clearly visible in the finished works. The contrast of the smooth, luminous surface next to the painterly, canvas sides demonstrating the complexity of the work and the relationship between matter and sculpture.
De Menis was born in Treviso, Italy in 1973. He attended the Bruno Munari Institute of Art in Vittorio Veneto before obtaining his degree in painting from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts in 1997. Ivan continues to live and work from his countryside studio in Northern Italy, close to Treviso.