Sleeping Family (28B Erlanger Road), 2022

Patrizio di Massimo, Sleeping Family (28B Erlanger Road), 2022; Oil on linen; 200 × 150 cm

Patrizio di Massimo’s most intimate paintings feature his friends, acquaintances, and family – characters who are richly clothed as main actors and presences with strong identities, through portrayals exploring the interpersonal complexities of life that are brought to dramatic composition. His analysis of roles assigned to us, such as those of gender and family, is scrutinizing but never objectifying or judgmental, mirroring a vision of the world and its imperfections as well as its beauty.

In Sleeping Family (28B Erlanger Road) di Massimo depicts himself with his wife and daughter in a deep slumber, enveloped in soft bedsheets. Both father and mother are postured so as to encircle their sleeping child on both ends, a representation of the warm and protective relationship they have towards her.