Paolo Canton for the Catalogue of the Exhibition Veni Vidi Bici
Gustave Courbet stated skeptically. Giotto, however, saw angels. And he painted them. He painted them just as he had seen them: young, beautiful and footless, with wings that revealed a careful observation of birds in flight. I don't know if Riccardo Guasco ever drew angels.
But I'm sure he has seen many of them, observed them with due attention and - more than anything else - reflected on the effects of their simple existence. When he was still at school, Guasco learned that a thing exists if it has mass and energy.
Having become a designer, and not having the desire to go around with a scale under his arm, he concentrated on energy. In Guasco's world a lot of energy is consumed: people struggle, push on pedals, climb over obstacles, sweat in the kitchen. Just like it happens in all our worlds. But if in our world fatigue is often suffering, annoyance, discomfort, in Guasco's world all this fatigue - his fatigue of drawing and the one he draws - is not transformed into suffering.
