Galleria Stefano Forni

THESE ARE OUR AVAILABLE ARTWORKS IN USA AT THE MOMENT.

EDITE GRINBERGA

Edite Grinberga’s paintings, with this strong chiaroscuro effect, throw a melancholic glance back at history. Nevertheless, artworks can sometimes have a lot of staying power, accumulating different layers of meaning in different time periods, especially when cultural change is as dramatic as it is today. Just as the industrial revolution transformed society in the 18th and 19th century and if nothing else, brought forward a bourgeoisie with their ideals of edification, so it is today shattered by the digital revolution, which now streamlines intellectual work on top of the last century’s systemization of physical labor. Traditional cultural media, like the book, the musical instrument and the painting are also seized by this revolution; access to them is now democratized, in which they also have been economically devalued, no longer functioning as bourgeois status symbols. The question will be raised of what role books, paintings and musical pieces will play in a culture shaped by the digital revolution. In this way, Edite Grinberga’s paintings act as visual memories of a future that has only now just begun.

White cup with apple, 2018 - oil on canvas - 100×140 cm

Bed with yellow and black belt, 2016 - oil on canvas - 70×100 cm

Lettres 1989, 2017- oil on canvas - 60×80 cm

LUCIANO VENTRONE

Luciano Ventrone was born in Rome in 1942, he attended Liceo Artistico in Rome. After graduation in 1946 he started studying Architecture. In 1968 he left the University and focused on painting.

Even though Luciano Ventrone is internationally recognized as one of the master realist painters of his generation, he believes that his works are really about optics: “Painting is not about the mere representation of an object, but its color and light,” he says. “The subject cannot be seen as it is but as an abstract element.” Ventrone studied at Rome’s Liceo Artistico and—in spite of experimenting with avant-garde methods—garnered attention for his academic realism and attention to anatomical detail; his life drawings would be published in a university textbook on human anatomy. Ventrone’s paintings still frequently feature nudes, as well as carefully arranged still lifes. For each of his works, Ventrone carefully stages his subject under bright studio lights, and photographs the arrangement for painting reference.

Luciano Ventrone’s paintings ‘invite a mood of pure contemplation’ from the viewer; they are works of masterful skill and supreme aesthetic beauty. Though he admits sharing a strong affinity for the work of Caravaggio, Ventrone does not consider himself a realist painter in the traditional sense. He paints real objects but, because of his utilisation of certain contemporary techniques as part of the artistic process, the objects depicted are transported into a metaphysical, hyper-real context. What we see in a Ventrone painting is not ‘real’ because it is not what we would see were we to look with the naked eye - We see more. Ventrone shows us things more fully and more clearly than they appear to us in reality; everything is in focus, everything can be scrutinised. He allows us to notice every blemish and admire every curve of flesh in a piece of fruit or on a naked female form. Set against monochromatic backgrounds of white, grey or black, the subject is lit from multiple angles, allowing for a full and objective appraisal of what we behold. Thus, what Ventrone shows us is, in his own words, a ‘Mondo Parallelo’ or ‘Parallel World’; a Universe that shares the same starting point but a different system of evolution to our own.

Contemporaneo, 2011 - oil on canvas - 60×60 cm

Scaramanzia, 2012 - oil on canvas - 70×100 cm

DANIELE PAPULI

Daniele Papuli was born in 1971 at Maglie, Puglia, Italy.
After graduating in Sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, he settled in Milan where he still works. His first approach to sculpture dates back to 1991 with his earliest stone, wood and plaster artefacts. In 1993, on the occasion of an international workshop in Berlin, he learned methods for manufacturing sheet paper. It was a crucial experience that brought him in 1995 to choose paper as the most suitable material for his research and his own language. He then experiments with the production of handmade paper and from 1997 makes his first sculptures with different types of paper material.
In this period he meets the publisher Vanni Scheiwiller, who entrusts him with the extraordinary production of handmade sheets of paper for the graphic underlay of the art book in 300 copies: Trittico, tre poesie di Wislawa Szymborska, tre collage di Alina Kalczynska.
His continuous investigation into matter and his experimentation on new materials similar to paper and proposed for their structural and tactile potential lead him to continuous interconnections from sculpture to design, to installations and sets for fairs and international exhibitions. The exhibited objects, mostly limited editions and single pieces, dialogue with the whole experience of contemporary design.
For Flux Laboratory of Geneva, a foundation for art, dance and experimental disciplines, he produces, in his solo exhibitions of 2011, Le Gèant de Papier, projections de la matière, four installations that interact with the dance performances created for this particular purpose.
His works are in private and public collections in Italy and abroad, as well as in specific publications of PaperArt.

Centrica 2B, 2017 - struttura lamellare con cartoncino Invercote Bianco gr. 260 - 110×18 cm

Cartangolo 10M, 2017 - volume lamellare cartoncino Formosa Giallo, Camoscio, Grigio e Nero gr. 140 - 80×100x21 cm

Intondo bianco 3CV, 2016 - volume lamellare con cartoncino Sirio White gr. 350 - 106×20 cm

Turso 7RN, 2016 - struttura lamellare di cartoncino bianco con segno di stampa rosso ed inserti in cartoncino Formosa Nero gr. 140 - 114×21x20 cm

Intondo rosa, 2015 - volume lamellare con cartoncino bianco e segno di stampa rosso - 47×17 cm

GIORGIO TENTOLINI

Giorgio Tentolini, born in Casalmaggiore (Cremona) in 1978, studied Graphic Arts at the Art Institute “Toschi” in Parma, and graduated in Design and Communication in “Università del Progetto” in Reggio Emilia. After internships with artists like Marco Nereo Rotelli, he began a personal research with photographic installations, obtaining significant art prizes. Each of his works stems from a specic research on Time as memory and identity, in a careful and slow reconstruction that takes place with the study of light and etching of layers of different materials as fabric, paper, PVC. Tulle and masking tape are the current medium of his research for the meditative levity that they put into the image, a metaphor of places and memories, dreams and visions. A pictorial work which crosses the frontier of reality of sculpture. Tentolini lives and works in Casalmaggiore, Reggio Emilia and Milan.

Molly, 2017 - 10 hand-cut metal nets - 80×80 cm

Petra, 2016 - 10 hand-cut metal nets - 80×80 cm

Tess, 2017 - 10 hand-cut metal nets - 100×100 cm

GIORGIO BEVIGNANI

Italian-born Giorgio Bevignani currently lives and works in the countryside near Bologna, where he molds and forms diverse materials into distinctive conglomerations, round-like forms, that aggregate into larger constructions, relating the smaller elements to the larger form which are arranged and mounted together to create a larger, cohesive work. His creativity, which is considerable, emerges in the elegant combination of technical skill and conceptual knowledge. His profound study of history, contemporary science, mythology, philosophy and mathematics greatly influences his work. Using special patinas, phosphorus tints and colors, his idiosyncrasy of composition and form, both so playful and magical, combined and merged with a certain charm, create something new to the world.

Bevignani’s work has a real presence, his connection to nature and culture, his organic plasticity, his use of positive and negative spaces, filled with awareness of form, create a body of work that seems to float, that go beyond our understanding of gravity, time, space, light and balance.

The larger spiritual role played by the sculptures in all their complexity give it a presence finally so human in both its goals and intentions.

Silenzio nudo (Solo 17) - 2018, Honeycomb, silicone, pigments - 150×200 cm

Silenzio nudo (Solo 27) - 2018, Honeycomb, silicone, pigments - 150×100 cm

Silenzio nudo - 2018, Honeycomb, silicone, pigments - 106×100 cm

Silenzio nudo Gold - 2018 - silicone, pigments - 150×100 cm

Silenzio nudo (Solo 24) - 2018, Honeycomb, silicone, pigments - 123×85 cm

Silenzio nudo (Solo 26) - 2018, Honeycomb, silicone, pigments - 123×85 cm

Al-Gher, 2018, - Silicone, pigments - 50×50x20 cm

Al-Gher, 2018, - Silicone, pigments - 50×50x20 cm