Alain Signori, figurative artist of the minimum
Alain Signori is a painter and sculptor of scrap metal. He lives and works in Ardèche (south of France). His motto is “Freedom”: that means working a lot, according to his own choice, to be able to say what he wants.
His style is resolutely figurative but with the minimum of matter to express the maximum of intensity.
Alain Signori, minimalist figurative between softness and power
Revelation in front of Bacon's power and Bonnard's softness
After a commercial studies, he works in the family business of sanitary materials-heating-plumbing equipment, in the heart of the flea market of Montreuil. He started painting alone and began to paint “night and day”.
Two exhibitions marked the young Alain : Francis Bacon in Paris and Pierre Bonnard in England.
These two great painters had very different worlds, but he found in Alain Signori an echo of his creative gesture : the power of one and the softness of the other.
Alain Signori's inner call and artistic boost
At the age of 30, the call of creation led him to abandon his job. The technique of oil painting on wood discovered with the painter Pierre Laffilé in Corsica inspired him and he decided to adopt it.
His beginnings in painting led him to galleries and salons in France and then to Berlin just after the fall of the Wall. It was in Berlin that he met people who made him take off. Thus, the collector Horst Hollstein, neighbor of the painter Christian Schad, buys all of his exhibited works, in one hour ! Horst Holstein followed him until the end of his life. German, Swiss and French collectors allowed him to meet success.
Meeting with scrap metal
At the age of 38, on the banks of the Charente, Alain Signori met scrap metal. Since then he has broadened his creative skills :
In painting, his work is very thoughtful with many drawings beforehand. His figurative work around the head or the human profile is minimalist. We can find his taste for the abstract and his admiration for Joan Miro : like him he tries to be synthetic, to say the maximum with the minimum, the minimum in the maximum!
With his large format assemblies from scrap metal, he plays with the material and realizes a very instinctive work in the workshop.
For his small assemblies with iron or paper cuttings, he works in the quiet of his home. He composes imaginary scenes of life, very far from 2022-23…
Alain Signori expresses the maximum in the minimum
A recognized artist of talent, he is followed by great collectors, museums and important exhibitions :
- Halle Saint Pierre has exhibited him three times, in 2005, 2014 and 2017.
- In 2010 he was presented at the Museum of Turku in Finland
- 2011: he realized the exhibition Métauxmorphoses on 1000 m2 at the submarine base of Bordeaux: he presented 140 paintings in relief. This event took him a year to prepare.
- In 2013, the Visionary Museum in Zurich dedicated an exhibition to him.
The artist took advantage of the period of confinement linked to the Covid to work intensely. In 2023, he will present his creations in several exhibitions in France and Switzerland :
- From February to April in Vichy : large assemblages, and paper collages metaphorical circus
- In March in Zurich, Susi Brunner Gallery : small assemblages, paper collages, small sculptures
- From May to November at the château du Pin (Fabras in Ardèche): paper collages in the château, outdoor paintings
- In June in a wine storehouse in Vaucluse : paper collages
- July collective exhibition of 4 artists in the desecrated church of the village of Montpezat: oil pastel on zinc with landscapes of sea and mountain imbued with spirituality
And from March 25 to April 1, 2023, in Paris with Artistes Actuels at Espace Cinko !
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