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(Born Dec 18 1948)
One word frequently recurs in the titles of the paintings of Paladino: Silence. The artist, who
represents silence made up of shadows and mysterious magic, declares, “Art is not a superficial thing, nor a sociological thing, nor a poetic storm. Art is a slow process around a language of signs.” The Italian painter, sculptor, printmaker and draughtsman, Mimmo Paladino regards his work as nomadic art, based on repeated passages, and explains that by nomad, he means a crossing of the various territories of art - both in a geographic and temporal sense - with the greatest technical and creative freedom.
In the early 1970’s Paladino concentrated on drawing, developing much of the imagery that
later appeared n his paintings. During the late 1970s he produced mostly monochrome
paintings in blue, red or yellow, often incorporating found objects. In 1980 he was
associated by the critic Achille Bonito Oliva with the ‘Transavanguardia’ painters Sandro Chia,Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Nicola De Maria. He rapidly developed an allegoricalfigurative style, drawing on imagery from Christianity and Classical mythology, while also being influenced by ancient Egyptian, tribal and modern art. He created enigmatic archaic figures, as in an untitled Stone Sculpture depicting a male carrying a horn-shaped vessel, while such works as the paintings Flayed exemplify his preoccupation with the themes of death and sacrifice. Paladino’s technical versatility also extended to various forms of printmaking, including etching, linocut and aquatint.
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