Artist

Paolo Gonzato

Birthplace

Busto Arsizio ( Varese )

Living in

Milan

Education

Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milano

Medium

Sculpture

Painting

Collage

Installation

Materials

Leftovers, Marble, Wrapping paper, Glass, Nail varnish, Ceramics, Ash, Iron, Champagne ........

Watch. Watch. Watch

Demolish. Demolish. Demolish

Rebuild. Rebuild. Rebuild

Does the best recognition for an artist come from his peers? Paolo Gonzato not only exhibits at the Apalazzo Gallery in Brescia, participates in a residency on the paradisiacal island of Pantelleria off the coast of Sicily and joins a project launched by the Tate Modern across Europe; he also dines at the table of the painter Julian Schnabel, while the rapper Kanye West has included his works in his art collection. Yet, to create, the Milanese prefers solitude and dreams of isolating himself on a mountain top. The former student of the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera explores through different means of expression (collages, ceramics, installations...) the art of a heterogeneous and learned pastiche, where a deep knowledge of the history of painting, techniques and colours mixes with the simplicity of geometric forms and the abolition of the hierarchy of materials. In his universe, marble rubs shoulders with remains; glass with paper; iron with nail varnish; ashes with champagne; a snakeskin with a golden can; a fresco with a vase; a mask with a lamp. Inspired by urban peripheries and their constantly changing landscapes, Paolo Gonzato experiments with the obsolescence imposed by the modern world, but also with the fundamental movement of the living, caught in a perpetual to-and-fro between destruction and reconstruction, between chaos and harmony. Shapes and materials crumble. By assembling them, the artist seeks to transfigure their fragility, to play with their certain deterioration and perhaps thus to delay their disappearance. In Death will come and it will have your eyes, a poem used for a recent performance, Cesare Pavese formulates the ultimate secret contained in everything: "on that day we too will know that you are life and that you are nothingness". 

Text Sonia Pavlik