From the Daily Star, November 2003

There is something iconic to Fulvio Codsi's work by now, so instantly recognizable it is with its fantastic forms influenced by Pharaonic and Mesoamerican arts, but made completely distinct by their author's own tireless imagination. Although each painting or series is autonomous, the consistency of Codsi's style and subjects ties them all together as if they were all inhabitants, human or not, of one same cosmogony that the artist is recording.

For as far as he can remember Codsi, born in 65, whose ponytail and goatee have become as much a signature as his silent characters, has been drawing. His entirely self-taught art begun on a small scale in India ink before turning overnight, around 12 years ago, to large coloured canvasses in acrylics.

The title of the present exhibit, "Histoires à dormir debout", translates as "Stories to make one sleep upright", a French expression referring to something that makes no sense. "I gave it this title because nothing in there is real", he explains, "and also so that people won't take it too seriously. This is me having fun." He points out a common point between most of the exhibited pieces, which is the absence of gravity: "I felt like making everything lift off from the ground -- the people, the objects, everything is aerial &" This tendency was initiated by the first painting of the series, bearing the exhibit's title, that represents a man and woman suspended in the sky, their unearthly gazes moderated by a curious and very human tilt of the head. In the past Codsi's characters were strictly in frontal or side view, a direct link to Ancient Egyptian custom that made them look like they were carved in stone. Now a change is noticeable, not radical but sufficient to impart them with a certain dimensionality and fleshiness. Instead of the beings of stone, we now get a definite feel that we're looking at characters that may have a story and feelings of their own. Codsi acknowledges the shift, but says it was not deliberate: "I didn't do it on purpose, but they are now taking life and becoming more human."

Characters are but one of the themes that Codsi continuously develops in parallel from exhibit to exhibit. Others are stone walls that are very much alive, and spheres, an important motif of the artist since it finds its way into almost all his paintings, whether as small ornaments for the characters, elements that interact with the latter in some way, or as the very subject of the piece. "For me all these spheres are living beings," says Codsi, speaking of a large canvas where coloured spheres can be seen emerging from a large ornate stone object. The visual does not attempt to be symbolic of something else, but it does tell its own story: "Each of the little spheres has its own place in the large sphere. When it is born, it separates from it and leaves a cavity behind."

Codsi has a favourite among his exhibited pieces: "Flux Emotionnel", the last one to be done, that wasn't even originally planned for. "I finished it very quickly, so I love it very much. In general when a painting is quickly done it means everything went smoothly, without thinking, without hesitation. Sometimes you hesitate, you keep changing and changing the background until you like the colour..."

Not all the preparation went so swimmingly: unable to paint for several months, Codsi had to overexert himself to make up for it. "The last three months I was getting about 3 hours of sleep every night. I worked like a madman".

It takes an average of a full week for him to finish a painting. The creative process begins with a sketch or with a title for which the artist comes up with a visual. "The title is very important for me," he stresses, "I'd never put up an untitled work." Sometimes he develops an idea that came to him in a dream.

The painting as a physical entity begins as a canvas covered with an acrylics texture, applied with a sponge. The placement of the characters is applied over this in several coats of white paint, then they are then drawn and painted. The airbrush gives the finishing touch that is characteristic of Codsi's work and makes his elements seem to jut out of the canvas so dramatically. Perhaps what makes his forms so attractive is that he doesn't attempt to recreate reality, but just imparts very realistic features (shadows and highlights) to highly stylized characters. This makes them look smooth and plastic especially in contrast to the roughly textured background: one just wants to reach out and feel them like sculptures.

Aside from his painting, Codsi is an animator at Future TV: "Contrary to what one would think, having a job allows me to paint better. It's very important for me to separate commerce from art. I make a living thanks to my job, therefore I have the peace of mind necessary to paint what I want, the way I want, without having to worry about wether it can be sold or not, if it's too big, etc." Time however is an issue, as some projects dear to his heart are still at a conception stage: "I've been wanting for a long time to animate my paintings. I really feel like creating a world where everything will be moving, with my paintings in the background."

The perspective of an interactive environment where one could wander in Codsi's dream world is indeed something many would look forward to.

Article by Joumana Medlej