The book FIORI (flowers) by the artist Paolo Gonzato presents an “anthology” (a word that etymologically comes from the Greek for flower & collection) of the artists’ flower drawings. This anthology started in 2021, while the artist was traveling and was drawn from live flowers as well as internet sourced images. Developing organically FIORI fits portraits of flowers, done in pastel on A5 paper sheets.

These flowers are the result of the formal language of Gonzato, who works through the minimization of the drawn line, a renunciation of complexity and the search for a primitive, primordial sign. The archetype of the flower runs throughout the story of art, from the mysterious Minoan fresco, The Prince of the Lilies, through the Memento Mori of the seventeenth-century to the Calla Lily as photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe. An archaic fascination with flowers and their reproductive organs - the sexes - of certain botanical species whose innate sensuality has kept them forever current. Pure or morbid and excessive, these are memories of first fruits and excesses but also one’s own ineluctable putrescence.

FIORI BY PAOLO GONZATO

ISBN 978-1-941372-24-1

BRASS STAPLES

44 PAGES

POCKETBOOK 14,8 x 21 cm

LIMITED EDITION

Published in collaboration with APALAZZOGALLERY

NOVEMBER 2022