z2o Project is pleased to present Quasi ombra, the first solo exhibition by Luca Moscariello, at the gallery space on Via Baccio Pontelli 16, with a text by Saverio Verini.

Moscariello’s artistic practice revolves around perception and the ability of painting to destabilise the boundary between reality and artifice. Using trompe l'œil techniques, Moscariello creates images in which surface and depth, material and representation continuously overlap.

In his most recent works, the grain of wood and subtle linear marks become central elements within this perceptual interplay. The wooden surface is observed, broken down, and then reconstructed through a painting technique characterised by a disorienting hyperrealistic effect.

It is within this ambiguity that the lines running across the paintings also emerge: slender, suspended forms that sometimes resemble ideograms or signs belonging to an indecipherable language. Through precisely rendered shadows, these forms appear to acquire volume and detach themselves from the pictorial plane. Only upon closer inspection does the nature of the illusion become apparent: shadow and form belong to the same surface, and what initially appeared three-dimensional is revealed to be entirely painted.

Quasi ombra emerges from this very ambiguity, from images that are simultaneously plausible and fictitious, capable of calling into question what we see. The shadows crossing the works appear coherent and convincing yet remain painterly devices: shadows that are almost real, suspended in the gap between what we see and what we believe we see.