RR VAGNINI and HIS ART
When approached to write an introduction for RR VAGNINI and His Art, I felt both honored and intimidated. A casual inspection of his work will make obvious the honor to which I refer; a body of work of this range and quality is something the average collector is never invited to comment on – narrative, in fact, is superfluous to the impression that the art makes directly.
In its scope, originality, and power, RR VAGNINI’s oeuvre almost defies description. Writers come amply equipped with adjectives, yet verbal description of these –as well as his many other works- is not a matter of stringing together modifiers. The writer's best service in such a case is to motivate the reader to examine the works themselves. I cannot hope to convey in mere words his clarity of vision, vitality of technique, or fluency of expression; it is for the viewer to determine that.
What I do hope to communicate is my intensely held conviction that RR VAGNINI is a genuine and valuable artist and driven by the same emotional intensity and impelled by the same thirst for truth that characterizes the greatest of those called to that vocation.
Here, perhaps, I can be of help, thanks to having participated in the compilation of his earliest catalogues. A frequent visitor to his studio and a friend of several decades' standing, I was involved in organizing the documentation of the first fifteen years or so of Vagnini's work in acrylics, mixed-media, collage, ceramics, metal, and wood. In the course of assisting in the photographing of these early works I have seen all of his important Series and Individual pieces.
What initially most impresses is the broad scope embraced by his passion. He moves effortlessly -as if impelled- between numerous schools of artistic interpretation, and his work is informed by a keen appreciation of design, music, humor, literature, history and current events. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must mention that I am also an avid collector of his art.)
Other than his sharp intellect and constant drive to create, perhaps this artist's most distinguishing characteristic is his profound natural aesthetic sensibility. In every way, Vagnini is an Artist in the World, but in practicing his métier,he brings the World into his Art as well. Many of the accoutrements in his studio were fashioned by his own hands, according to his own designs, and appropriate to his own purposes.
Striking, too, is the range of media Vagnini has mastered. His robust artistic spirit propels an integrated creative approach, and translates into an equally vigorous style of working. No timid aesthete, he revels in the delight of handling his materials, applying line and color fluidly and decisively and stretching his tools limits by continually improving his understanding of them.
Though never a copyist, Vagnini both respects and frequently adopts techniques central to a particular school or style, but in doing so he always takes them farther, or in a different (and often more interesting) direction from their originators. He approaches new methods as Einstein did Newtonian physics: not to copy, but to use as a starting point for his own innovations.
Some of RR VAGNINI’s work is cerebral, satirical, topical and humorous (“The Cardboard Jungle” Collage Series is a primary example). Much work - his paintings- are purely visual. He occasionally alludes the giants on whose shoulders all modern painters stand, but only as points of departure toward his own vision. And while that vision illuminates every work he approaches, Vagnini is commendably open to the ideas, suggestions and collaborations with others.
To watch Vagnini at work in his studio is to see his creative process close-up -he does not command his media to take the form he wishes; rather, he seems to become one with material and technique, leading the pigments where he would have them go.
An artist without persistent curiosity is a mere charlatan. Never formally trained, RR VAGNINI is curious –passionately so- about the ways we see and comprehend reality, and has used bold shifts of paradigm in his life-quest for truth. In the course of experimenting with technique and presentation, he has naturally acquired proficiency in both painting and collage. Rather than “sticking” to what becomes unchallenging and thereby founding a career upon executing the same work of art a hundred times, Vagnini takes each approach to it’s apparent limit, then often sets that style aside for a time to immerse himself in something else. Yet, to set aside is not to abandon, for what he learns in one phase of his art invariably enriches and informs what follows.
Over the past 20 plus years, I have seen Vagnini persist in his vision and grow dramatically in technique and artistic maturity, despite the economic travails that typically afflict the artist in our society. To my judgment, his potential for further growth, and for making a lasting contribution to our culture and to modern American art is virtually limitless.
Were I to be restricted to one adjective to describe Vagnini's art, I would have to request an adverb as well: RR VAGNINI’s work is not just compelling, it is overwhelmingly so. In examining literally hundreds of his early works, I have yet to see one that did not engage my attention from the outset, and very few that did not reveal more and more with each examination. That he is able so consistently to combine beauty with meaning and the patent with the subtle is ample evidence, I think, of the incipient greatness I have ascribed to him above. But ultimately, words fail me, as they will fail anyone who allows Vagnini's art to cast its spell.
If Vagnini has a significant failing, it is the one common to many "true" artists: his satisfaction comes from working and having people enjoy or ponder his work, not from pursuing collectors and gallery owners, and sales have always taken a poor second place to the joy of creative exploration. His art rules his life, and he can more often be found at work in his studio than eating, sleeping, or socializing.
Confidently respectful of the viewer's judgment, RR VAGNINI presents herein both who and what he is.
Friend, I urge you to browse this site and allow the art works depicted to have their way with you. Look, enjoy, learn. Then, please, buy.
Step Tyner
Carmel, California
2002
When approached to write an introduction for RR VAGNINI and His Art, I felt both honored and intimidated. A casual inspection of his work will make obvious the honor to which I refer; a body of work of this range and quality is something the average collector is never invited to comment on – narrative, in fact, is superfluous to the impression that the art makes directly.
In its scope, originality, and power, RR VAGNINI’s oeuvre almost defies description. Writers come amply equipped with adjectives, yet verbal description of these –as well as his many other works- is not a matter of stringing together modifiers. The writer's best service in such a case is to motivate the reader to examine the works themselves. I cannot hope to convey in mere words his clarity of vision, vitality of technique, or fluency of expression; it is for the viewer to determine that.
What I do hope to communicate is my intensely held conviction that RR VAGNINI is a genuine and valuable artist and driven by the same emotional intensity and impelled by the same thirst for truth that characterizes the greatest of those called to that vocation.
Here, perhaps, I can be of help, thanks to having participated in the compilation of his earliest catalogues. A frequent visitor to his studio and a friend of several decades' standing, I was involved in organizing the documentation of the first fifteen years or so of Vagnini's work in acrylics, mixed-media, collage, ceramics, metal, and wood. In the course of assisting in the photographing of these early works I have seen all of his important Series and Individual pieces.
What initially most impresses is the broad scope embraced by his passion. He moves effortlessly -as if impelled- between numerous schools of artistic interpretation, and his work is informed by a keen appreciation of design, music, humor, literature, history and current events. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must mention that I am also an avid collector of his art.)
Other than his sharp intellect and constant drive to create, perhaps this artist's most distinguishing characteristic is his profound natural aesthetic sensibility. In every way, Vagnini is an Artist in the World, but in practicing his métier,he brings the World into his Art as well. Many of the accoutrements in his studio were fashioned by his own hands, according to his own designs, and appropriate to his own purposes.
Striking, too, is the range of media Vagnini has mastered. His robust artistic spirit propels an integrated creative approach, and translates into an equally vigorous style of working. No timid aesthete, he revels in the delight of handling his materials, applying line and color fluidly and decisively and stretching his tools limits by continually improving his understanding of them.
Though never a copyist, Vagnini both respects and frequently adopts techniques central to a particular school or style, but in doing so he always takes them farther, or in a different (and often more interesting) direction from their originators. He approaches new methods as Einstein did Newtonian physics: not to copy, but to use as a starting point for his own innovations.
Some of RR VAGNINI’s work is cerebral, satirical, topical and humorous (“The Cardboard Jungle” Collage Series is a primary example). Much work - his paintings- are purely visual. He occasionally alludes the giants on whose shoulders all modern painters stand, but only as points of departure toward his own vision. And while that vision illuminates every work he approaches, Vagnini is commendably open to the ideas, suggestions and collaborations with others.
To watch Vagnini at work in his studio is to see his creative process close-up -he does not command his media to take the form he wishes; rather, he seems to become one with material and technique, leading the pigments where he would have them go.
An artist without persistent curiosity is a mere charlatan. Never formally trained, RR VAGNINI is curious –passionately so- about the ways we see and comprehend reality, and has used bold shifts of paradigm in his life-quest for truth. In the course of experimenting with technique and presentation, he has naturally acquired proficiency in both painting and collage. Rather than “sticking” to what becomes unchallenging and thereby founding a career upon executing the same work of art a hundred times, Vagnini takes each approach to it’s apparent limit, then often sets that style aside for a time to immerse himself in something else. Yet, to set aside is not to abandon, for what he learns in one phase of his art invariably enriches and informs what follows.
Over the past 20 plus years, I have seen Vagnini persist in his vision and grow dramatically in technique and artistic maturity, despite the economic travails that typically afflict the artist in our society. To my judgment, his potential for further growth, and for making a lasting contribution to our culture and to modern American art is virtually limitless.
Were I to be restricted to one adjective to describe Vagnini's art, I would have to request an adverb as well: RR VAGNINI’s work is not just compelling, it is overwhelmingly so. In examining literally hundreds of his early works, I have yet to see one that did not engage my attention from the outset, and very few that did not reveal more and more with each examination. That he is able so consistently to combine beauty with meaning and the patent with the subtle is ample evidence, I think, of the incipient greatness I have ascribed to him above. But ultimately, words fail me, as they will fail anyone who allows Vagnini's art to cast its spell.
If Vagnini has a significant failing, it is the one common to many "true" artists: his satisfaction comes from working and having people enjoy or ponder his work, not from pursuing collectors and gallery owners, and sales have always taken a poor second place to the joy of creative exploration. His art rules his life, and he can more often be found at work in his studio than eating, sleeping, or socializing.
Confidently respectful of the viewer's judgment, RR VAGNINI presents herein both who and what he is.
Friend, I urge you to browse this site and allow the art works depicted to have their way with you. Look, enjoy, learn. Then, please, buy.
Step Tyner
Carmel, California
2002
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