Description
Untitled. Original color etching and aquatint on golden leaf plate, unknown year. Edition of 100 signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper.
Mimmo Paladino is an Italian contemporary sculptor, painter, muralist and printmaker. He attended the Liceo Artistico di Benvenuto (Benevento Art School) from 1964 to 1968, when minimalism and conceptualism dominated the international art scene, which had effects on his art. He was also a part of Transavantgarde – the artistic movement with the neo-expressionist resurgence that swept through Italy in the 1980s. Paladino seeks his inspiration from both the ancient and the modern – from Egyptian, tribal, and classical artworks to the modern painting and sculpture. In his compositions we can often see a figure in combination with the signs like crosses, and techniques like the application of gold leafs, a symbol of eternity, borrowed from Christian iconography, as well as the hieratic pose of Byzantine figures and the gestural quality of that culture’s rites. This composition is one of those with the background created from golden leafs. It is showing a man with a house in his right arm, but we can see his left arm and leg and his head looks like he fell asleep. The figure plays a central role and the emotion suggested by human gesture and expression remains resolutely enigmatic, the figure itself create his own atmosphere of quiet drama.
