Piero Pizzi Cannella

1955, Rocca di Papa (RM), Italy

A central figure of the Scuola di San Lorenzo, Piero Pizzi Cannella is one of the most poetic and recognisable voices in Italian contemporary art. After his conceptual beginnings in the 1970s, he developed an unmistakable language made of recurring symbols, monochrome backgrounds and evocative objects, in which painting becomes an intimate and universal narrative.
Maps, garments, thrones, cathedrals: every element in his paintings carries the weight of a private relic, an icon standing out against time. The pictorial matter, often dark and layered, vibrates with silent presences, suspended between fragility and strength. His works evoke a space of memory, both intimate and theatrical, where East meets West, the sacred meets the everyday.

Piero Pizzi Cannella

Cattedrali 2003
70x50 cm

In this work, Pizzi Cannella traces three dark, Gothic silhouettes, like motionless presences against an earthy backdrop. The "cathedrals" are not buildings but symbolic figures, emerging from the matter like apparitions. The work breathes with silence and time, with spirituality and with painting as ritual gesture. The drips, the chromatic burns and the traces of white define a suspended atmosphere, between shadow and sacred light.

Piero Pizzi Cannella

Pura seta a Firenze 2013
200x135 cm

A single garment floats in the dark. It is the essence of the feminine, of memory, of sensuality. Made with rich, layered impasto, the garment emerges from the canvas like an emotional relic, a keepsake of memory and desire. The deep, silent black background heightens the pictorial presence of the subject, which is not a body but the mark left by a body, the trace of its absence. The work is poignant and powerful, between eros and mystery.