In 1959, Armando Marrocco, who was just 20 years old at the time, met the famous Argentine-Italian artist Lucio Fontana, who was taken by the young southern Italian artist’s interest in Art Informel. By 1962, Fontana had encouraged Marrocco to move to Milan. There the artist developed a practice that bridged an abstraction of precision with a symbolic gesturality, informed as much by mathematicians Fibonacci and Luca Pacioli as by the beauty of Renaissance craftsmanship.

Marrocco began his Intrecci series in the early 1960s, consisting of vibrant monochromatic works made of enamel on cardboard. These works were his direct response to the 'beyond Informel' works of the previous generation of artists including Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, and Yves Klein, whom Marrocco knew as a young artist. The Intrecci defined his methodology for years to come, and revealed an allegorical dimension present in his art. 

Intrecci means intertwining; in these works, layered and woven cardboard sheets - a quintessentially 'poor' material - are transformed from humble substrate into intriguing, substantial objects through the artist’s application of enamel paint. The very specific compositional grid of each artwork in the series is created through complex layering. Shadows interact with the static proportions of the grid creating a unique dynamism. Beyond the minimilaism of the visual effect, Marrocco asserts that his Intreccio is an ‘interweaving of human situations, positive and negative’. Each work in this series therefore speaks to our very existence, with life in its ordinariness and its infinite unfolding.