"Non è qualcosa che si sa, è qualcosa che si vive" Painting

Lorenzo Mignani was born in Bologna on May 28th 1962. I start to get interested in art around the age of 13, initially fascinated by Kandinsky's works on canvas, my first works are abstract on paper in small and medium format. Gradually my interests are extended to the historical avant-gardes of the first half of the twentieth century and, at the age of 16, I begin to paint acrylics on canvas. In the meantime, the attendance of the studies of various painters of national importance, in particular of Elvio Marchionni in Spello, makes me mature towards more complete and mature works. At the age of 18 I started to take part in group exhibitions in Bologna and at the age of 21 I got my first solo show in Ferrara. My works of that period are abstract that gradually soften with respect to the rigid initial geometrism and receive various appreciations. Start a collaboration with the Forni gallery in Bologna that will last 10 years. In this period I participate in over 20 group exhibitions in Florence, Bologna, Verona, Vicenza and Rome. In the same period I start to get interested in oriental philosophies, in particular Zen, understood as philosophy and "modus pensandi" and this is increasingly perceived in my works both as themes and as a way of realization, today the paintings mainly come from meditations and attempts at answers to the Koans (questions without a "rational" answer that require the intervention of the intuitive mind and freedom from conditioning). In 1985 I began an intense study of art history both academic and personal in depth, which still continues above all in the Romanesque and Late Gothic iconography of the German and Flemish area with some monographs published on Bosh, van Eick, Durer and Brueghel Old. In the meantime my works are delineated in two main strands: oneiric figurative, usually watercolors and mixed techniques on paper and works on canvas of an informal nature. The works on canvas of recent times are part of a series started at the end of 2016 and are a spiritual search for ethical and human values ​​with deep introspection. They are the result of in-depth research into color theories starting from medieval symbology through Turner, Goethe, the latest great works by Monet, Kandinsky and American abstract expressionism mediated by material elements.