Filippo Cegani’s plastic-sheened paintings interrogate the commodification of religious iconography

It was this experience that inspired Filippo’s series Grazie. A title of double meanings, it refers to the idea of sacrifice-free graces and gifts from God, something Filippo sees “as a rarity both in religion as well as daily life”, as well as referring to the informal Italian ‘thanks’. Throughout the series Filippo creates hyper-real, intensely close-up paintings of classical religious figures and imagery, attempting to demonstrate “the binary relationship between pain and ecstasy in religious iconography”. The close-up focus of each face depicted removes the context of each painting, making it hard to decipher whether the expression and tears are one of sadness, or overwhelming joy.

Each one of the paintings throughout Grazie has a heightened sheen, with highlights used meticulously to give an unearthly glow. This effect, Filippo explains, is to give the impression of plastic – directly referencing the plastic figurines he encounters every day across Milan. This creates “an extra layer of distance between the viewer and the subject depicted”, as the artist believes such figurines have created oversaturation in everyday life. To create the effect Filippo works in layers of brush and airbrush until a smoothness is achieved, with no brush strokes visible “so that the painting itself wouldn’t even seem painted in the first place,” he says.

Reflecting on the project, Filippo hopes that people don’t view it as a mockery or ridicule of religion, or the plight of women’s suffering. Simply, the series has proved a way for Filippo to work through his own personal feelings towards Christianity and how it has been visualised, repurposed and sold on a mass scale. “I hope it is seen as a personal reflection made physical,” ends Filippo. “In a way, it is my own exorcism through work.”