Mimmo Paladino

Born in 1948 in Paduli, Italy. Lives and works in Milan, Rome and Paduli.
Between 1964 and 1968 he attends the art school in Benevento. During his initial phase, he experiments with different techniques, from collage to photography, before dedicating himself to painting. In the early 1970s he concentrates on drawing, developing much of the imagery that later appears in his paintings. His work is well received and in 1976, he has his first solo exhibition at D‘Arte Duemila, Bologna, and Nuovi Strumenti, Brescia. He moves to Milan in 1977, and during the late 1970s he produces mostly monochrome paintings, often incorporating found objects. The art critic Achille Bonito Oliva associates his work with the group Transavanguardia, which also includes artists Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Nicola De Maria. His initial conceptual research is later developed into a language that combines different cultural, mythical and iconographic references – such as fragments of figures, heads, or hands – Egyptian, Etruscan or early Christian art. Since 1983 he has been associated with painted images of recovered objects and shapes sculpted in wood and bronze, and since 1985 he has produced three-dimensional works with series of totemic figures arching in limestone. He continues experimenting with materials and techniques, realising installations, sculptures, engravings and paintings on different metals and materials. Since 1990 he is also a stage designer and has created stage installations for The Bride of Messina by JCF Schiller in Gibellina – where he built for the first time the Mountain of Salt, which is proposed again as an installation in Naples (1995-96), and again for the Lucio Dalla tour and that of Francesco De Gregori in 2010. In 2001 he creates for the City of Rome the great mosaic for the new installation by Richard Meier at Ara Pacis. Since 1999 he is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of London. He has numerous personal exhibitions in Italy and abroad, and is invited to participate in Venice Biennale in 1980 and Documenta in Kassel in 1987. Among his latest exhibitions, Palazzo Reale in Milano (2011) which traces the last forty years of career.