Manfredi Beninati
05 Sep - 04 Oct 2008
MANFREDI BENINATI
"La Natura Morta"
Max Wigram Gallery is pleased to announce the first British solo exhibition of acclaimed Italian artist Manfredi Beninati.
Presented in our newly renovated two-floor space at 99 New Bond Street, La Natura Morta features drawings, paintings and sculptures made during a recent extended stay in Beninati’s hometown, Palermo. Created specifically for the London exhibition, they form an entirely new body of work inspired by the artistic tradition of still life, expressing feelings more closely associated with the genre’s Italian name, natura morta, which literally translated means ‘dead nature’.
In Beninati’s colourfully elaborate paintings, nature is a constant element: a force that penetrates interior spaces, opening up dream-like visions of sensuous floral sceneries and revealing an inner dimension where memory and loss, past and present, cohabit harmoniously in an ultimately uncanny space. Memory is a central theme in Beninati’s work. In his extremely detailed paintings and drawings he often makes use of old family pictures, creating complex compositions of a psychological dimension, where dislocated fragments are connected and re-elaborated by the artist’s own lyrical vision. Here, the natural element transfigures reality into fantasy visions of the artist’s dreams and obsessions. Beyond the glowing surface of his washed and veiled landscapes, popping with lights and colours, lie imaginary worlds filled with longing and nostalgia.
In the works on show in La Natura Morta, Beninati reflects upon the pictorial genre of still life, which has been a pivotal theme in his formation as an artist. He is deeply fascinated by still life’s power to describe the world in a most immediate way, reproducing intimate and everyday domestic objects, which are easily perceived by the viewer as ’familiar’, yet are nonetheless loaded with multiple symbolic meanings. The paintings and drawings have their iconographic reference in past masterpieces, which Beninati re-edits through his elaborate vernacular.
An essential source of inspiration are Vanitas paintings by Flemish masters of the 17th century, collections of objects which symbolically function as memento mori and are traditionally associated with material decay and the inevitability of death. These complex pictorial messages are reflected and re-elaborated by Beninati’s multi-layered and thinly detailed formal approach, ultimately exposing the lurking feeling at the core of his aesthetics. Other important artistic citations in this new body of work are Italian painters such as De Chirico, De Pisis and Morandi. As in the works of these masters, Beninati’s Nature Morte are compositions of objects that represent a visionary world which engages most immediately with the unconscious mind, beyond physical reality, exploring the mystery hidden in the familiar.
Manfredi Beninati (b. Palermo, Sicily, 1970) lives and works between Palermo, Rome and Los Angeles. This year he has participated to the Quadriennale di Roma and will be part of the Liverpool Biennial. In 2005 he was selected as one of four artists to represented his country at the 51st Venice Biennale where he received the audience award for the Italian pavilion. In 2006 he was given a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome as part of the Rome Prize.
"La Natura Morta"
Max Wigram Gallery is pleased to announce the first British solo exhibition of acclaimed Italian artist Manfredi Beninati.
Presented in our newly renovated two-floor space at 99 New Bond Street, La Natura Morta features drawings, paintings and sculptures made during a recent extended stay in Beninati’s hometown, Palermo. Created specifically for the London exhibition, they form an entirely new body of work inspired by the artistic tradition of still life, expressing feelings more closely associated with the genre’s Italian name, natura morta, which literally translated means ‘dead nature’.
In Beninati’s colourfully elaborate paintings, nature is a constant element: a force that penetrates interior spaces, opening up dream-like visions of sensuous floral sceneries and revealing an inner dimension where memory and loss, past and present, cohabit harmoniously in an ultimately uncanny space. Memory is a central theme in Beninati’s work. In his extremely detailed paintings and drawings he often makes use of old family pictures, creating complex compositions of a psychological dimension, where dislocated fragments are connected and re-elaborated by the artist’s own lyrical vision. Here, the natural element transfigures reality into fantasy visions of the artist’s dreams and obsessions. Beyond the glowing surface of his washed and veiled landscapes, popping with lights and colours, lie imaginary worlds filled with longing and nostalgia.
In the works on show in La Natura Morta, Beninati reflects upon the pictorial genre of still life, which has been a pivotal theme in his formation as an artist. He is deeply fascinated by still life’s power to describe the world in a most immediate way, reproducing intimate and everyday domestic objects, which are easily perceived by the viewer as ’familiar’, yet are nonetheless loaded with multiple symbolic meanings. The paintings and drawings have their iconographic reference in past masterpieces, which Beninati re-edits through his elaborate vernacular.
An essential source of inspiration are Vanitas paintings by Flemish masters of the 17th century, collections of objects which symbolically function as memento mori and are traditionally associated with material decay and the inevitability of death. These complex pictorial messages are reflected and re-elaborated by Beninati’s multi-layered and thinly detailed formal approach, ultimately exposing the lurking feeling at the core of his aesthetics. Other important artistic citations in this new body of work are Italian painters such as De Chirico, De Pisis and Morandi. As in the works of these masters, Beninati’s Nature Morte are compositions of objects that represent a visionary world which engages most immediately with the unconscious mind, beyond physical reality, exploring the mystery hidden in the familiar.
Manfredi Beninati (b. Palermo, Sicily, 1970) lives and works between Palermo, Rome and Los Angeles. This year he has participated to the Quadriennale di Roma and will be part of the Liverpool Biennial. In 2005 he was selected as one of four artists to represented his country at the 51st Venice Biennale where he received the audience award for the Italian pavilion. In 2006 he was given a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome as part of the Rome Prize.