256A1677

Exploring Roots

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Giulio ‘Julio’ Acconci is perhaps best known in Macau as one half of local band Soler, which he formed with his twin brother Dino in the mid-1990s, and for his acting work on screen.  But his artistic talents run deeper than just music, and recently he exhibited his latest collection of paintings at the fourth edition of Art@Ambiente, an art initiative organised by Ambiente Properties aimed at providing a platform for local artists to share their work with the public.  
 
Entitled Roots, Acconci looked into his family’s interesting past for inspiration and experimented with abstract painting for the first time, producing a striking collection of impressively textured and layered works.
 
“I’ve always sketched a lot and I still sketch almost every day, mostly human figures. I’ve always loved abstract but never attempted it. So these paintings are my first attempt at abstract and I found it very liberating,” say Julio. “I have a background in graphic design so I’m very rigid in my form, so I needed to break out of that. I actually had quite an adventure!”
 
 
In his experimentation, Julio opted not to use a brush but instead a metal scraper, resulting in very long, flowing, textured strokes.  He also played with different materials, adding wire sculptures to some works, and even using red wine for one painting entitled Tinto.
 
“I painted it with seven bottles of Portuguese red wine. I probably could have used more, but seven felt good. God created the world seven days after all,” he says with a grin.  
 
Painted on Chinese paper and sealed with glossy acrylic, the artist wanted to achieve the effect of an old oil painting.
 
“For this exhibition, everything is based on roots and memories of my past, so I wanted this to look like a table because my father hosted many parties at home. His guests, often Catholic priests, would get drunk and spill wine all over the table, and the smell of wine was always overwhelming,” Julio recalls.  
 
His father, the renowned Italian architect Oseo Acconci, who designed the famous façade of Hotel Estoril among other local structures, was an inspiration for other elements of Julio’s artworks. 
 
“My father was a sculptor and I used to see him working. He was also an architect and I used to go to the construction sites and see all the steel reinforcing beams inside the concrete walls, so I’ve added a number of wire sculptures to some of my paintings.”
 
The wire sculptures also point to the artist’s passion for sketching, often taking the form of human figures.  
 
On the other side of his family, Julio’s mother, Deanna Soler Acconci, came from the ethnic Karen tribe in Myanmar, and a number of the new art pieces are inspired by her background. 
 
“She used to tell me stories about growing up in the jungle because she really came from a rural area, and how she used to fish in the stream.  The painting Sarong is about her story, but after I finished it I felt that memories are not so vivid so I washed over it a bit at very the end to give a more cloudy effect. And then later I decided that since it’s about my mum, I added an extra layer to turn it into a sarong. My mum used to make her own sarongs and she would add the black fascia which is a stronger thicker cotton, the part that you tie,” he explains. 
 
With his painting exhibition successfully held, in November Julio got back to his music roots, headlining a concert of local talent at The Venetian Theatre.  The second “Soler & Friends Macau Live” concert saw him team up with singer-songwriter talent from across the Greater Bay Area for a tremendously fan-pleasing night of great entertainment. 
 
“Getting started with a collection of paintings is hard, but when I finally came up with the theme of roots for this exhibition, it suddenly sparked a whole array of forms in my head that could be connected, both literal and abstract. Some paintings are clear references to my family’s past, and then the rest are really just inspired by all the lovely memories I have of growing up in Macau.”
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