EZIO BARNI. Timeless space

Ezio Barni, a painter from Monza born in the 1920s, after enlisting as a volunteer for the war, devoted himself to an artistic career first out of passion, then out of true vocation. An artist marked by a fresh and personal creative vein, influenced by humanist readings and the Lombard landscape, he created his own painting that was at first more realistic and then increasingly transfigured, dispersed and hidden. A sign that gradually becomes less and less random, a sign that succinctly sums it all up. Ezio Barni's love for art and for all forms of culture in general emerges strongly in his works on display in Rome, at the Sacripante Art Gallery, which has dedicated an exhibition to him that has just ended.

Sacripante Art Gallery (Roma)

Ezio Barni. Spazio senza tempo (Timeless Space) is the solo exhibition dedicated to the Monza artist's poetic and aesthetic journey at the Sacripante Gallery in Rome, curated by Maria Elena Brugora, which ended a few days ago to make way for the new exhibition at the Rome contemporary art venue dedicated to Maria Donata Papadia.

Ezio Barni was a leading figure in the art world and cultural life of his home town throughout the 20th century. The exhibition aims to celebrate his paintings in which realism and abstraction, dynamism and formal rigour are harmoniously combined, works in which his mastery in the use of colour emerges, which allowed Barni to create a personal, original and immediately recognisable style.

At the centre of his artistic research are the themes of women, still life and the landscape of his region, portrayed first with realism and then increasingly with a transfigured and abstract style and brush stroke. An evolution that can be retraced through the exhibition itinerary of the Rome exhibition.

Each of Barni's works constitutes a story in itself, a dialogue that arises from the antithesis balanced between the tension towards perfection, order, harmony and an expressive freedom that leaves room for the frenzy of imagination. These are paintings made of life and emotion, the life led by the artist himself imbued with invention and dreamlike absurdity. The result of these innovative combinations creates a harmonious chaos, in which the dream and narrative dimensions reveal an aesthetic procedure in which the subjects are both naturalised and idealised. Abstraction and realism are thus united in a geometric rigour of essential forms, creating a fantastic atmosphere, created with recognisable and original colour combinations (exhibition organisers).

The distinctiveness of the spatial construction, the strength of the sign, the dynamism of light and colour, and the variety of painting techniques used, bring Ezio Barni's stories to life, triggering emotions in the viewer at first glance, immersing the viewer of his works in his world of dreams and fantasies, recounting what life offers of beauty to the world.

Photos made by Carlotta Ceccarini