Colapesce Sinks into the Depths of the Ionian Sea

About Colapesce Sinks into the Depths of the Ionian Sea

At once elegant and expressive, this dynamic and colourful abstract painting is one in a series created by Canadian visual artist Richard Tosczak in collaboration with an Italian artist. The colour palette is vivid—deep blue, yellow, orange, green, pink turquoise and melon. Tosczak is perhaps best known for his beautiful figurative sculptural work. Angela Letizia Renzi, the Italian artist who worked with Tosczak is a ‘lover of literature and linguistics.’ This acrylic painting was inspired by an Italian myth—the story of a young man who saved the island of Sicily from sinking by diving underwater and shouldering the columns that hold up the island. Renzi and Tosczak paint these canvases together and at the same time. Their artistic interaction is important to the works they create.

“The philosophical artistic formation of one and the literary humanistic of the other, are intertwined in a common vocabulary, a visual language of colour, gesture and form: this is our lexicon, our morphosyntax, the grammar of our language." Tosczak and Renzi

Richard Tosczak was born in Belgium. He studied philosophy and sculpture at the University of Alberta. At that time, Tosczak began working in steel and was influenced by a number of his professors who appreciated the work of a British abstract sculptor, Sir Anthony Caro considered one of the greatest sculptors of his generation. Further studies were pursued in France with another internationally acclaimed classic sculptor, Martine Vaugel. Tosczak has exhibited in Canada, Brazil and Europe.
His work is held in private, public and corporate collections in Canada. Tosczak has studios in both Edmonton and Sicily.