PIERMARQ* is pleased to present 'Celebration of Life', an exhibition of new work by Italian artist, Cosimo Casoni. This is Casoni’s first solo exhibition at PIERMARQ* in Sydney. Celebration of Life consists of 12 new works in the artists’ signature mixed media of oil paint, enamel, acrylic, fingerprints, pencil and occasional skateboard marks on canvas. Using a combination of classical painterly techniques and unconventional, improvised mark making, the new body of work portrays charged sexual imagery with inspiration as diverse as Etruscan tombs, Old Master still life and Pornhub. The exhibition explores themes of eroticism as celebration—with images of stylized figures alongside realistic objects and intuitive, abstract finger painting, linking the images to the direct and physical act of creating. In works such as 'Still Life (with grapes)', the pornographic content is less explicit, with implied eroticism through food or other symbols. The still-life recalls Dutch masterpieces, revealing the historical links between the artists’ classical treatment of form, light and shadow. Casoni blends characteristics of surrealism and post-graffiti aesthetics with traditional painting techniques. Approaching mark making in a variety of styles, his use of a skateboard as medium was influenced by skating as creative expression – a subculture Casoni has been immersed in since his youth. Looking for meaning and new formal geographies, Casoni creates images that exist in a balance between stillness and movement, reality and illusion.