Giovanni Manfredini
The work of the painter Giovanni Manfredini, born in Modena, Italy, in 1963, is characterized by a self-developed process in which a mixture of shell flour, resin, soot and the artist's own body are used. It defies traditional art historical classification. Rather, influences from various art movements, such as Arte Povera and performance art, are recognizable in Manfredini's work, and many of his works are reminiscent of the chiaroscuro effects and sfumato of paintings from past centuries. The works are caught between abstraction and figuration and often contain autobiographical, Christian, mythological and symbolic elements.
As a two-year-old, Manfredini suffered severe burns with subsequent skin transplants, which strongly influenced his work. After a trip to Turkey, Manfredini moved into a studio in 1988 and began his first series "Altari di solitudine". In 1989, he exhibited at the "Biennale die giovani dell Europa mediteranea" in Bologna. In the 1990s, he created series of works on the elaboration of surfaces with titles such as "Sopravvivere" (Survival) and "La linea della vita" (The line of life) as well as his first paintings "VIVI" (Live, live!), followed by a series of paintings and sculptures entitled "Pensieri muti" (Silent thoughts). In 1995, Manfredini used imprints of his own body in the work cycle "Tentativi di Esistenza" (Attempts at Existence), in which he made autobiographical reference to fire. From 2002, the first works entitled "Estasi" (Ecstasies) were created, in which the cosmic relationship between darkness, light and fate is examined. In 2009, he created a project based on drawings entitled "Pene corporali" (Corporal Punishments). To accompany the "55th Biennale" in Venice, Manfredii exhibited the sculpture "Stabat Mater Dolorosa" at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, an installation for which Ennio Morricone composed the music. Afterwards, a project entitled "Per aspera ad astra" (Through the rough to the stars), curated by Gabriel Friedman, will be shown in the Madonna dell'orto church alongside Tintoretto's "Last Judgement", where he will exhibit two large works from the series "Estasi" (Ecstasies) and "VIVI" ("Are you alive?", "You are alive", "Live!", "Alive" and "The living") on the cross.
Manfredini lives and works in Modena and Milan.
