Paolo Collini, La lumire se mfie, 1990s, Lithograph for sale at Pamono

Description

Original lithograph by the artist entitled: la Luce diffidenta / La lumire se mfie. Lithograph signed lower right and numbered 98 / 125

Produced in 1993.
A certificate of authenticity is on the back of this lithograph (see photo).

Paolo Collini:

Paolo Collini’s artistic activity took shape with his first solo exhibition in Milan in 1970. Indeed, it was in the city where he was born in 1950 that he began his relationship with the art world, a world in which, from the outset, he moved within the realms of symbolism and surrealism.

After a formative period in which he explored, in particular, metaphysical painting and the visions of the Surrealist masters, his research turned towards a dreamlike, naturalistic vision, nourished by romantic inspirations concealing metamorphoses and enigmas revealing inner worlds.

During the 1980s, he moved closer to “citationalism”, an artistic movement developed at the time, with a painting rich in mysterious architectures where “Myth” and the sign of “suspended time” occupy the center of his narrative. The house-temple becomes the focal point of his exploration, and often, on deep waters, winged emblematic figures wander, hiding inviolable secrets, tracking down signs of a lost or perhaps forgotten classicity, inventing further allusions and symbols.

His love of ethereal atmospheres intensified as he approached German collectivism. During this period, as he traveled frequently, he abandoned Mediterranean colors for the cold colors of the North and the mysterious foliage of the Black Forest. The sunny hues disappeared, giving way to a kind of bloodless monochrome, with evanescent azure shades and misty, mother-of-pearl-transparent lights. Nostalgia permeates his work, and from the depths of his mind emerge archetypal creatures, symbols of immortal beauty, and waters as deep as the mists of time, waters that recur obsessively in his compositions: they often refer to the silences of the lake (where he had a studio at the time) or to the sea, which for him is not just a physical entity, it’s much more: it’s the symbol of the eternal feminine, of fecundity and unfathomable, enigmatic depth.

The 1990s saw the relationship between the real and the imaginary transformed into a pure, shifting memory, wandering between Eros and Thanatos, icy pain and eternal doubts that often exceed the limits of reality. He prefers to work at dusk, when the noise of everyday life gives way to nocturnal reflections, listening to the suggestions of music, while the boundaries between reality, memory and dream are often undefined.

In recent years, the city and its outskirts have become the focus of his research, through fragments of images that offer the opportunity to observe the individual and his environment: it’s the possibility of entering a “non-place” of the individual soul, balanced between everyday life, often suffered, lived too quickly and violently, and a personal space where time is still, a time where we can stay as long as we wish, meditating and moving to return to the real world perhaps a little different from what we were before, certainly enriched and involved as if returning from a journey.

Collini’s painting has attracted critical interest for thirty years, inviting him to take part in numerous public and private art events, including the Venice Biennale.

He has held over eighty solo exhibitions in Italy and abroad, which have been widely reviewed in leading newspapers and magazines. Among the publications devoted to him are the monographs: “Magie antelucane di Collini” by Riccardo Barletta (d. Ghirlandina, Modena), “L’enigma della nostalgia” by Mario De Micheli (d. Mondadori, Milan), “Dimore dell’invisibile” by Luciano Caprile (d. Vinciana, Milan) and “Paolo Collini” by Mauro Carrera (d. MUP, Parma 2015).

Dimensions: 65cm x 44cm