Mario Dionisi Biography
Mario Dionisi is an Italian artist born in L'Aquila in 1939. He lived and worked in Switzerland and Italy, in the town of Susegana, in the province of Treviso. His artistic training has developed over the years in different areas of art, particularly in modern painting and sculpture. Dionisi is also known as a restorer of ancient paintings and an antiquarian. In 1954, he was an apprentice decorator in the Bottega di Romoletto in Rome, an experience that introduced him to the use of color and inspired him to become a painter. In 1959 he moved to Florence to study the restoration of ancient paintings. Subsequently, he began working as a restorer of ancient paintings. During the same years, he met the Architect Pruneti, a modern art enthusiast and painter. He collaborated with Pruneti in his private studio, where he began to create his first abstract-informal works.
Later, he met the Swiss gallery owner Mittelbergher at Pruneti's studio. Mittelbergher supported and promoted Dionisi's artistic career. In 1962, Dionisi moved to Switzerland to attend a school of modern painting and sculpture in Zurich. Thanks to the partnership with Mittelbergher, Dionisi has exhibited his works throughout Europe.
After Mittelbergher's death, Dionisi returned to Italy and settled in Veneto, where he currently lives and works. From 1986 to 2008, he ran an art and antiques gallery in Cortina d'Ampezzo in collaboration with his sons Walter and Maxi. There, he organized solo exhibitions of painting and sculpture.
Dionisi experiments with abstract, figurative, conceptual pictorial subjects, social themes, searches for meanings and metaphors, especially using acrylic and sand on a wood and canvas base. His sculptures are characterized by semi-flat material forms, scratches, cuts and elements in relief, which create "surface sculptures" using materials such as wood, sand and pigments. In other works, he uses wrought and forged iron spheres or discs.
