Renzo Schirolli Biography
Schirolli Renzo. Mantua, 1935-2000. Painter, printmaker, installationist. In Bologna he attended the State Institute of Art first and then the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1955 he received recognition at the Premio di Capi. In 1959 he presented his first solo exhibition, at the Galleria La Gonzaghesca in Mantua. Many other exhibitions took place in the following decades, including the 1981 anthology at the Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporanea in Suzzara, the solo exhibition in the San Sebastiano Gallery in Mantua in 1996 and the large anthology in the Palazzo della Ragione in Mantua in 1999. In his work, the references to two artists who were also his teachers in his Bolognese times are essential: Virgilio Guidi and, above all, Vasco Bendini. His artistic reflection focuses on the theme of space addressed, depending on the period, in different declinations: from the initial multi-material paintings, among which the "black paintings" are included, to the compositions of the Sixties with almost dematerialized, deconstructed figures, up to subsequent results close to Optical Art. The first installations made with painted wood date back to the end of the 1960s, with which the artist reflects on the full-empty relationship; then, they gradually become cloaked in colour, taking on an almost totem-like value. In the last phase of his production, he moves from firmly and clearly structured compositions to paintings made with soft colors and expanded conformations, as in the cycles of Tensions and Light Spaces.
