Maurizio Valch Abstract Painting / Territory and Thought
CUSTODES, a vertical abstract painting with two dark and green forms set against orange, red, blue, and greenish-grey fields.
Maurizio Valch, CUSTODES, EMERSIO series, 80 × 120 cm.
Overhead view of CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch, resting on a rug between wooden flooring and furniture. The painting shows two dark vertical forms over orange, greenish-grey, red, and blue bands.
CUSTODES in overhead view: the two presences read as masses positioned within a territory divided by fields of colour and discreet incisions.
Detail of CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch: a dark green vertical form beside a red edge, orange and blue fields, painterly texture, and fine incised lines.
Detail of CUSTODES: layers, glazes, and incised marks keep the relationship between the forms and the chromatic territory around them visible.
CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch installed within a wall composition of old doors and shutters; the vertical painting shows two dark figures against fields of orange, greenish grey, blue, and red.
Among doors and shutters marked by use, CUSTODES sustains a threshold with no resolved entry: two presences separated from a territory that still supports them.
CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch on a weathered green wall beside a dark staircase; the vertical work features two black and green forms among bands of orange, blue, and red.
Beside an actual staircase, CUSTODES sets two vertical presences that rise without indicating a defined route.
Side detail of CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch. A dark green vertical form rises over an orange field; a small stair-like incised mark appears in a crimson area beside the edge of the canvas.
The detail brings a small step-like incised mark into relation with the scale of a dark green form; the sign measures the field without turning it into a route.
Side view of CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch on a worn greenish-blue wall, with a chair and lamp in the background; the canvas’s left edge is visible.
The oblique view of CUSTODES reveals the canvas edge and underscores the material weight of the forms emerging among bands of colour.
CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch hangs on a terracotta exterior wall with cracks; the vertical painting shows two dark forms over bands of orange, greenish grey, blue, and red.
CUSTODES, from the EMERSIO series, presented on an aged wall: the two vertical presences sustain their tension against a surface marked by cracks and wear.
CUSTODES by Maurizio Valch, hung on a dark blue wall in an interior with armchairs and a wooden floor. The vertical canvas presents two dark forms over orange, greenish-grey, red and blue bands.
Within the interior, CUSTODES concentrates the gaze on two vertical presences that do not resolve the distance between them, but keep it active within the divided field.
Low, lateral view of CUSTODES, a vertical painting by Maurizio Valch, leaning against a wall in a contemporary interior with wooden shelving.
CUSTODES in a contemporary interior; the low, lateral perspective reveals the canvas depth and emphasises the verticality of its two forms.

Published work / EMERSIO

CUSTODES

Two vertical presences in a territory of chromatic bands.

Size
31.5 × 47.2 in / 80 × 120 cm
Series
EMERSIO Painting series EMERSIO 2025–Present · 2 works In EMERSIO, Maurizio Valch addresses the uncertain instant when a form begins to distinguish itself from the territory that contained it. Fields of colour, horizons, and structures under tension give substance to an emergence that remains vulnerable, situated between landscape, architecture, and presence. View series
Context studies
10

Conceptual Note

CUSTODES places two vertical presences before a territory divided into bands of colour. Without becoming narrative figures, both hold a condition of watchfulness: one a tall, dark mass split at its summit; the other lower and oblique, formed from deep green, red, and shadow. In EMERSIO, where forms begin to separate from their origin without attaining a fixed identity, these bodies seem to have acquired a weight of their own, though they still depend on the chromatic ground around them.

The question is not what they guard, but what is demanded of a form by the fact of remaining upright. Between the upper dark band, the orange fields, and the pale middle zone, the painting arranges a world of successive boundaries. The two masses do not dominate the landscape; they are exposed within it. Their steadiness retains something precarious, as though keeping watch also meant accepting distance, exposure, and a responsibility without a narrative.

There is a specific affinity with Nicolas de Staël in the ability of chromatic masses to oscillate between architecture, landscape, and presence. Valch departs, however, from a construction based on compact blocks, bringing these presences towards greater ambiguity: the tall silhouette may recall a tower, an animal, or a figure, yet it resists being fixed in any of these readings.

Applied in two warm expanses, orange creates a luminous pressure against which the blacks, greens, blues, and reds gain density. The greenish-grey band acts as a suspended distance, crossed by faint incised lines and small, barely visible geometric outlines. Below, the sloping areas disrupt horizontal stability and make the forms appear to emerge from a ground that also cuts through them, measures them, and contains them.

I am not interested in turning these presences into decipherable characters. I seek the moment when a form begins to sustain itself and, in doing so, loses the protection of remaining indistinguishable from the territory. Perhaps every appearance entails an act of guardianship: holding an uncertain position while the layers from which we come are still at work within us.