Mimmo Paladino ^©  

(1948)

Provenance:
Artiscope Gallery, Bruxelles;

Private collection;

Christie’s Milan, 2009;

Private collection, Rome

Artwork registered at the Archivio Mimmo Paladino, Paduli (BN) with number MP P84 053

-

«The artist, like an acrobat on a rope, moves towards more directions not because full of dexterity, but because he does not know which to choose». (from "La Transavanguardia secondo Mimmo Paladino», by Marco Napolitano, Il Mediano, 28 September 2011)

Among the main exponents of the Transavanguardia movement, Mimmo Paladino (Paduli, 1948) draws inspiration from a wide range of themes and stylistic registers, in particular from Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman and early Christian art, meaning art as a timeless creation that generates thought and knowledge in the observer. His language is not illustrative, not narrative, but figurative; the image stems from the proliferation and stratification of signs and materials: the surface is covered with successive layers of chalk and color, pure, material, and create tangles and fragments of signs and symbols that sometimes declare a meaning, sometimes allude to another, sometimes hide. (Taken from "Mimmo Paladino", edited by Luciano Carotenuto, "Art in Campania", 2022).

Since the eighties, Paladino’s works have been based on compositions characterized by violent traits and bright colors: this is the case of the work presented here, dated 1984, a period considered among the most important of his artistic production. In this work there are abstract and dreamlike signs with strong tonal values; the color suggests the entire space of the work: few attributes are enough to outline the entire structure. The lines and shapes with elegant and simplified signs and the color are recovered in their expressive recovery. Despite their apparent simplicity expressed by the icons represented, Paladino’s works always preserve an ambiguity full of allusions, whose signs like an unknown alphabet are still waiting to be completely deciphered and understood.