Critics / Press

Italians

It seems to me that there are two factors that have influenced the life and work of Lorenzo Chinnici, a Sicilian painter that has made the service to the people his vocation. One such factor is a significative meeting with Renato Guttuso in 1953. Even though a child at that time, Chinnici already had a clear idea about his artistic aspirations and was eager to learn from the well-known master. The other factor is long co-living with a disease, which has been damaging Chinnici particularly heavily and which is capable of undermining the sense that is, per antonomasia, a sense of painting: the eyesight. From the former, Chinnici received an imprinting, which has maintained its frank rustic character albeit changing over time in light of new encounters, new experiences of life and form, new mental acquisitions and new sensitivities, developed as a result. Chinnici has avoided any scholarly approach, even though knowledge and references to this or that artist are rather evident. All this with a view to keep utmost coherence between his mode of expression and the main object of his representations, the world of Sicilian common people, the primary veracity of which he grasps perfectly, as an equal, avoiding to mystify it under the aura of the idealization of the sociopolitical matrix (and this represents a major difference with Guttuso) or to trivialize it in search of a more folkloristic picturesqueness. The second factor has emphasized a predisposition of Chinnici, which was already inherent in his way of interpreting the world he encounters (a good example, in this sense, is the Fishermen cycle in the spirit of Michelangelo). The disease has immersed him in reluctancy and difficulty of living, which frees him from unjustified optimism or ancient romantic legacy, which viewed the condition of the commons as in itself the closest to the pure and the good. Nevertheless, Chinnici’s artwork is also far from lacking the pleasure of consoling serenity, when a balanced relationship between a man and nature is re-established. And if the sight does not always assist, it is the memory and the inner vision that compensate for it to confirm the fact that the eye is the most mental of all the senses.

Vittorio Sgarbi

Open Your Art

Open Your Art invites you to immerse in the evocative bright and coarse language of maestro painter Lorenzo Chinnici and the ethereal, feminine work of French artist, Christine Bleny.
This exhibition involves great dynamics. Here you will see the intense, authentic universe filled with insular imaginary of one of the most significant Sicilian artists, in contrast to the fragile, mysterious feminine nature of Christine Bleny.
Two interpretations, different in technical styles and emotion, united by a thin common thread: the suffering.
The works of Chinnici represent a coarse and indignant emotion which is subdued by the delicate and often concealed suffering of the works of the French artist.
At Open Your Art, the artists will exhibit the paintings of maestro Chinnici titled Evasion, that was a witness of his meeting with Christine Bleny during The Synergy of Sons exhibition held in London in 2015.
In the painting, one can see the evidence of a heated argument between the two artists in which the French painter indignantly threw a glass of wine on the canvas in protest to the Sicilian artist's painting style, creating a red stain on the work.
A year later, Lorenzo Chinnici and Christine Bleny met at the opening show of Fire on the Water exhibition and the initial conflict, caused by the difference of artistic languages and the hot temper of both, gave birth to a dialogue that grew into a strong friendship and desire of discussion.
The two artists have sealed their agreement by putting their signatures on the painting.
Giovanni Carfì Urso, curator of the exhibition, has created the title Fire on the Water to reflect the impact that two powerful elements have, when they find a balance and a dialog for confrontation.
The exhibition of Milan opens a new season of Fire on the Water project, which came to life on the shores of Lake Como in the summer of 2016: a series of exhibitions that during the year of 2017 will take place in such towns as Positano, Venice and Taormina.
The works of the maestro Chinnici will also be presented at prestigious international exhibitions in New York and Monte Carlo.
Open Your Art is also an opportunity to showcase the contrast between art and design, taking place in a showroom of doors which is the archetype of architecture and which has always been a refined and exclusive object of design.
The inauguration ceremony will be performed by the art critic Antonio Lombardo, who will introduce the artists and will guide the visitors to the understanding of the exhibited artworks. During the evening a monograph of the artist Lorenzo Chinnici will be presented under the editorship of a famous Italian art critic Vittorio Sgarbi.

Let yourself be driven by your imagination.

E.Solodkina

Spoleto Art meet New York

The proportions and balance of his paintings bring out the best of every scenic detail, which characterises the work of Lorenzo Chinnici and shows the figurative tradition in the middle of an interesting trail, which reproduces and enhances the features and the most important aspects, with an elaboration that is attentive and focused. The aesthetic vision of the whole appears in harmonious composure utilising a chromatic system of tonal consistency. The depictions seem to follow a clear and linear order, which makes it simple in its structural form, but at the same time infuses an essence of deep intensity. It is the voice of a painting, combining past and present that recovers from the existential experience and personnel memories, a vast corollary of images and figures. The carefully chosen colour palette, burning and thick, reminiscent of the vibrant and enveloping warmth of Sicily, with its special and unique life energy.

Elena Gollini

The Artist

No need to the artist to touch something real to believe in it,
his imagination is powerful enough to put it there,
he knows it can be created.

Giovanni Carfí Urso

Warrior

Be brave in your travels through your imagination
Those who bring light to the shadows illuminate the mystery of creation

Giovanni Carfí Urso