After the recent exhibitions held at the ABC-ARTE Gallery (Genoa), the Galerie Placido (Paris) and the acquisition this year of one of his works in the Presidential Collection of Public Works of South Africa; Bini returns to exhibit in South Africa, for the second time in three years.
In 2013, Paolo was selected for the Artist Residence Project Italy-South Africa, curated by Luigi Di Sarro Centre of Rome. Coinciding with the annual 13th Week of Italian Culture his solo exhibitionPaolo Bini. Brink of the Ocean was supported by SMAC Art Gallery and the Italian Consulate in South Africa.
For his new 2016 project, Bini has worked for month in the well known East Side Studio’s and has produced a series of works designed just for the spaces of the Everard Read Gallery Cape Town. Here in the historical Woodstock district (which is one of the hubs for artists and art galleries) Paolo has been fully immersed in it’s contemporary energy and creative realities interacting organically with other Cape Town based artists.
In an exhibition of varied sized artworks, all Al di là del quadro/ beyond the Painting artworks are created in his synonymous language of acrylic on paper tape. However there is the introduction to his South African audience of more sculptural forms as well with the inclusion of three-dimensional shapes. The artist has created several larger-format works, addressing the concepts of the ‘reflections of light and colour’ and ‘one’s immersion in the surface of an artwork’. It was from these original experiments with reflections that the title of the exhibition was conceived. For example, in Leggera apparizione/ Light appears and Volume introspective/ introspective Volume the fluorescent surfaces of these two artworks are so intense that each reflects the nuances of a ‘colour shadow’- an abstract image that extends beyond the confines of the physical painting. Expanding even further is the example Elios/ Sun- a polychrome circular and hollow sculptural form. Here the notion of shadows and abstract reflection creates two types of wall mark making- the shadow of the structure (gray) and the color tone reflected (yellow). The artist explains that Elios is thus ‘a sun with two shadows’.
The exhibition will be open to the public from 4th May 2016 until the 31st May at the Cape Town gallery space.
