Animal architectures
2003-2005

All the painted sheets of paper tell the same story; a sort of constant, obsessive variation on a theme, whose backdrop is a palette of deep warm colours: greens, oranges, dark browns, blacks and red enveloping different figures floating in a chromatic void and sometimes trying to latch onto the ground. They are actually dozens of pavilions, museums for one single object, which seek out natural light and welcome visitors as if they were archaic elementary animals distinguished by just a few simple marks. Or they are houses with archaic features evoking those later constructed out of wood and, at the same time, also helping De Lucchi freely reflect on the works he created and competitions he entered during that period of time. The techniques mix together and overlap, tempera, thick or thin pencil, acrylic, watercolours, always chasing after the form of the light, reflections and material which the architect dreamt of.

(from L. Molinari, The Drawing as an Obsession, in M. De Lucchi, Paintings 2003/04/05, Mantova, Corraini Edizioni, 2008)