La Finestra
Collage and Acrylic on Wood
37" x 24" x 3"

La Finestra

Collage and Acrylic on Wood
37" x 24" x 3"

Miti Che Non Tramontano
Collage and Acrylic on Wood
37" x 24" x 3"

Miti Che Non Tramontano

Collage and Acrylic on Wood
37" x 24" x 3"

Francesco Mino

The Odyssey Within
December 15 - January 5, 2010

Reception: Thursday December 17, 2009 6-8 PM

Press Release

The spectacular, meticulous collages of Francesco Mino reflect the Italian artist and former textile designer’s optimism. Growing up in his hometown Biella’s fashion industry in the decades following World War II, Mino witnessed an era of unprecedented change, development and improvement in the quality of life, political and cultural activity of Italy. His collage and acrylic compositions – veritable cascades of cutout images, patterns and letters against backdrops of painted monochrome – bear the traces of that period’s hopefulness and ambition.

Many works, in fact, feature backgrounds of brick, turning these collages into representations of postered walls on the streets of modernizing Italy, public artworks where Mino first encountered the American dream imagery of Hollywood. He pastes Modern art, contemporary pop culture, magazine headlines and illustrations alongside vintage advertisements and movie posters. The effect evokes the stream-of-consciousness, cultural kaleidoscope exercises of Dadaism and Surrealism. Thankfully, organizing his collages according to color, shape and texture rather than thematically, Mino reaches a balance that is neither nostalgic nor pessimistic.

Artist Statement

I live in Biella, Italy where I work in a small, yet inspiring attic. There, I cut and paste, trying to tell stories, apparently ordinary; they are someone else’s stories, emotions that have delighted or caused sadness to who, in that moment, lived. My wooden boards are a puzzle of ideas and thoughts, hardly explicit, but always edged by the sensual pleasure of color. I like to imagine my works as ironic journeys, full of dreams and thoughts, imaginary references and quotes realized through the culture of living in the past, present and future.

Invitation to the exhibition | View the catalog page

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Artists in this exhibition