ART AT THE PALACE

International prize for painting, sculpture and photography - collective exhibition

(Bologna, Farini's gallery - March 2016)

Mysticism, deriving from, that is "belonging to the mysteries, is a philosophical approach that habitually has to do with art, in particular, in the Eastern world, but not only. The link between the mystery of the universe, of the deities, in addition to having ancestral roots, has followed the development of human life, in a manner parallel to religiousness today understood day. Art, therefore, linked to a knowledge - or to not knowing - mysticism, has characterized the Central and South American, African and Northern European cultures. However, to date, and especially in Central Asian societies, this relationship continues to play a privileged role, tying itself in tandem with the philosophies belonging to the peoples of that continental area. such a nod, only to introduce the artist, Giovanni Mauro Prandi who arrives in the Farini Concept gallery, on the occasion of Arte a Palazzo - International Award for Painting, Sculpture and Photography, with two works entitled Portale and Namaste. From the first glance, the observer will realize that he is faced with two particular, unusual paintings, in which the reference to oriental conceptions is very strong, not so much in the shapes or the choice of colors, but rather, for the base conceptual that serves as a path for the creation of these works. Prandi, Cuneo, established himself in the seventies as an artist, then, for about thirty years he no longer painted, until the beginning of the 2000s, when he decided to return to his passion. Of course, creativity has developed conscious of a long lived experience, which has poured new lymph and new ideas into creative language. A conceptualism characterized by the considerable use of symbolism, new techniques - has abandoned the oil on canvas to go to the acrylic on wood. However, although Prandi resumed painting in 2001, he remained on the sidelines in recent years, without participating in exhibitions or competitions. Decides now to venture back into this world and resuming to be known by a new audience and be found by those who had known him in the '70s. The two works presented here are figurations that play with the symbolic and conceptual reference, linked to the idea of ​​an emblem, behind which lies a complex system of coding, usually shared and comprehensible through the use of an image, the sign, or a term. The relationship between meaning and signifier is thus transformed into reasoned interpretation. One of Prandi's two plates is titled, paradigmatically Namaste, deriving from the Indian language and which, basically, is a greeting, a good wish. The work is concluded in the representation of a symbol, from which derives a great mysticism. Semiotically, it is based on a linear figurative composition, basically abstract and geometric, which recalls, imperceptibly, in some signs, the figure of the Nautilus and its parallel with the infinite. In the same way, the other painting, Portale, bears in itself the same symbolic matrix, the same semiotic language and spatial construction implemented according to the same management of space. In this case, however, the subjects are more recognizable - the hands, for example - and the concept of communion between the parts, appears more specified. The works of Prandi, like these, are then connected to an electrical system that allows the artist to install lights that offer a focus within the staging and to guide the interpretation by starting or arriving at a punctum that becomes the knot of the whole painting. The works are characterized by a color palette declined in shades of gold, black, white and blue, the pictorial sign is much more similar to the graphic line, for accuracy, the meticulousness and recalls the workmanship of Indian mandalas. The circle - an infinite symbol and an all-seeing divine eye - returns as a figure of Prandi's production and accompanies his poetics. The user, even if unaware, will have to be inspired and guided, through what appear as the artist's visions and take part in it, in a free way, free from chaining superstructures.

ART AT THE PALACE

XVI international collective painting, sculpture, photography

(Bologna, Farini's gallery - January 2017)

Back on the occasion of the XVI International Collective Painting, Sculpture and Photography of the Farini Concept Gallery, the artist Mauro Prandi and he does it with 6 works that refer to your recognizable style and to the language that he chose to use to convey messages that refer to a sort of celebration of creation. Second day, Archangel, Blue Sun, Terra Madre, Namaste and Portale are the works with which Prandi presents a sort of graphic, symbolic and conceptual compendium capable of referring to a revisitation of the ancient oriental traditions and philosophies to which an iconography is linked. it is typical of the western sign. The fusion between these two universes and these two times, an almost primordial past and a present capable of renewing ancient symbols, the artist makes it clear in works like those here in object.  Namaste and Portal are already impressed in the memory of the users, while the new works exhibited in the sixteenth-century halls of Palazzo Fantuzzi attempt a reunification with the contemporary paths investigated by this exhibition through the conveyance of a semiotics and an iconographic composition able to tend to the matrices iconic of our times. Eastern mysticism is confirmed by the desire to merge different beliefs and beliefs but not according to the purely dictated by the religious sphere, and in particular it is a profound and intimate inner analysis. The link that Prandi intends to create, or at least enhance, establishes an alterity that has specific cultural responsibilities and relies on a language that wants to become universal; some of the works presented here refer to symbolism and allegories that have their roots in Hindu matrices and a kind of animism pervades them, as if it were a viaticum towards a deeper cosmic union. Portalale and Namaste, Second day and Terra Madre refer to a typically oriental iconography and the synthesis that Prandi applies to large supports plays a role which is capable of creating a subjective and profound dialogue. There is nothing or almost to be recognized in the phenomenological synthesis that the artist applies to his works, however an intense bond takes on a soul and is strengthened thanks to the chromatic and technical choices in some works; what is the philosophical light conveyed by the work's message is made such through an electric lighting system that the artist has created ad hoc. This is not an assembly, the symbology is not simple to understand graphisms that rarely belong to our culture are from universalized Prandi, the energy that they carry with them are the common thread of a new objectification and even what is more to us known, as the protagonist figure of the opera Arcangelo, raises some initial perplexities that, despite everything, is demolished by the masterly rendering of essentiality. The object itself, the contemporary paths that Mauro Prandi manages to determine, cover the entire surface of his works that become pregnant with supports for a very broad concept. The maieutic aspect translates into a suggestive representation within which it is not necessary to look for something to be recognized at all costs, even if the synthesis carried out by the artist can make a tendency towards an interpretative level that differs from the pictorial surface. and embrace the deepest dimensions of the soul.

ART AT THE PALACE

XV international collective painting, sculpture and photography

(Bologna, Farini's gallery - November 2016)

Namaste is the Indian term commonly used for greetings and derives from a Sanskrit word, composed of "namas", which means "bowing, reverentially greet" and "you", translatable with "to you". It contains, in an implicit but crystalline way, the egalitarian recognition among human beings and honors them, absolutely the sacredness. "I honor the divinity that resides in you, the Divine Spirit that is in me meets in You the Divine Spirit" This is the broadest formula and that, in fact, implements this recognition. To accompany the greeting there is the gesture, called Mudra, which consists in the union of the palms of the hands, at the height of the heart and bowing the head, as a sign of adoration and honorary celebration. The conjunction of the hands, then, symbolically represents the reunification of the entire cosmos, which, instead, represents the divine and masculine side of the human being, the left the earthly and feminine side. This preamble goes to introduce the artist Mauro Prandi and the works Namaste and Portale, which re-proposes a few months away in the Farini Concept Gallery, on the occasion of the XV International Collective Painting, Sculpture and Photography of the project Arte a Palazzo - Dinamiche del Contemporaneo . Two great works dealing with oriental mysticism and the western and experimental reinterpretation of an iconography linked to ancestral traditions and with Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. Prandi has decided to translate into painting those which are symbolic signs and gestures, to ensure that the user also begins a sort of path to reach something else, in concomitance with a journey towards a deeper, more intimate and subjective spiritual quest. This inner journey, the artist makes it even more peculiar to the construction of his two works that are not only characterized by a type of figuration that tends not to the tradition of the oldest Asian center, but also to an admirable geometrical and symbolic rendering it appeals to contemporary figuration, also with the creation of a source of light that fits into the work, aiming to indicate a sort of closed reflection area. Both in Namaste and in the Portal, the artist establishes the will to bring back in his painting the chosen emblems, like the hands and the gap that opens towards an infinite and ultramundane elsewhere. This is what contributes to the choice of a very particular color, able to make itself hypnotic and, at the same time, mystical. The general tendency sees Prandi's epiphany as a research aimed at making tangible the universality of history and ancient symbolisms that, however far from our iconographic sphere, can make themselves perceptible, acting on a level that is not already and not only interpretive, as intimately evocative.