Giovanni Manfredini

The work painter Giovanni Manfredini, born in Modena, Italy, in 1963, is characterized by a technique he developed himself, in which he uses a mixture of shell powder, resin, soot, and his own body. It defies traditional classification within art history. Rather, influences from various art movements, such as Arte Povera and performance art, are work in Manfredini’s work ; at the same time, many of his works evoke the painting of past centuries through their chiaroscuro effects and sfumato. The works straddle the line between abstraction and figuration and often contain autobiographical, Christian, mythological, and symbolic elements.

At the age of two, Manfredini suffered severe burns, followed by skin grafts, which had work impact on 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 dei giovani della Europa mediterranea” in Bologna. In the 1990s, he created series of works focusing on the treatment of surfaces, with titles such as “Sopravvivere” (Survival) and “La linea della vita” (The Line of Life), as well as his first paintings, “VIVI” (If You Live, Live!), followed by a series of paintings and sculptures titled “Pensieri muti” (Silent Thoughts). In 1995, Manfredini used impressions of his own body in the series “Tentativi di Esistenza” (Attempts at Existence), in which he made autobiographical references to fire. Beginning in 2002, he created his first works titled “Estasi” (Ecstasies), which explore the cosmic relationship between darkness, light, and fate. In 2009, he created a project based on drawings titled “Pene corporali” (Physical Punishments). As a companion event to the “55th Venice Biennale,” Manfredini exhibited the sculpture “Stabat Mater Dolorosa” at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, an installation for which Ennio Morricone composed the music. Subsequently, a project titled “Per aspera ad astra” (Through Hardship to the Stars), curated by Gabriel Friedman, was shown in the Church of Madonna dell’Orto next to Tintoretto’s “Last Judgment,” where he exhibited two large works from the series “Estasi” (Ecstasies) and “VIVI” (“Are You Alive?”, “You Live,” “Live!,” “Alive,” and “The Living”) on the cross.

Manfredini lives and works in Modena and Milan.