Gregarious to the point of being effusive, Johannesburg’s Giorgio Trobec is an easily likeable artist, the very antithesis of the broody dreamer who dribbles paint on a canvas and then expects others to recognize a work of a genius.  Trobec is almost child-like in his very real enthusiasms.  He says that he does not like art that is too realistically representational and this is why he allows his imagination to run wild when he depicts a harbour or a landscape. His boats have vast prows, stern lines that wriggle their way across the canvas, doors that abut at crazy angles.  He uses colour with a gleeful abandon that is all the more effective for its impact.

Trobec was born in Italy, within the ancient city gates of the renaissance city of Florence on St. Valentine’s day in 1944.  His father ran a food shop and one of the artist’s earliest reminiscences is being scootered around with his mother and sibling on papa’s Lambretta, the four of them on this tiny machine realising a wave and a smile from the Italian police rather than the stern encounters one could easily envisage here.  Is this where he started storing those mental images of Italian seaside villages with deep blue seas, cobbled streets and boats packed to the gills?  “Oh yes,” he replies lost in the reverie of those far bygone days. “I remember them so clearly.  Those seaside towns and the countryside of Tuscany.  Both have formed a strong basis for my art in recent years.  “But how does he recall the detail, the architecture that forms the basis of a balanced work?  Did he take photographs or was it all stored in a retentive memory?   ”Neither,” says Giorgio happily.  “I don’t like to have to clear a memory of those places we visited.  I enjoy a vision, perhaps some small detail and then I use my imagination to tease out the painting.  I am not trying to make a work that is indistinguishable from a photograph.  I want to make paintings that say this work is by Giorgio Trobec.  They are playful, fun and usually everything is very disproportionate in size.

“Don’t you think that these days imaging is more to do with the art of capturing a detail?” Trobec says. 

Perhaps a word that truly describes Trobec’s art is that it is cheerful, it induces in the viewer a feeling of joeie de vivre and this is probably the kernel of his success.  You can’t help but being drawn to paintings that light up your life, that banish dark thoughts, and that often bring a smile.  There is a rare talent behind this achievement and Giorgio Trobec is busy perfecting it.

Come join artist Giorgio Trobec this weekend, 8 & 9 May, 9am to 4 pm and experience art that lightens up your life!!