Feb. 17 – Mar. 26, 2011
Turin, Italy

Mostly renowned as a informal-abstractist painter, Emilio Scanavino (1922-1986) considered his first steps in ceramic sculpture of the utmost importance for his artistic development.

He started working with clay in the early Fifties, in Tullio Mazzotti’s studio in Albissola Marina. Fascinated with the possibilities that a third dimension offered him, he experimented with clay, then with bronze, both materials that permanently entered his artistic repertoire.

Ceramics, sculpture and painting are the three pillars of Scanavino’s art, different aspects of his constant effort to express his meanings through symbols and signs. Like his famous knot, that became his distinctive element. As the artist himself wrote: “I dig a hole in the clay and an image is born”.

This exhibition focuses on Scanavino’s ceramics, featuring 20 one-of-a-kind works than supply an interesting point of view on this particular aspect of his art.

Just like his paintings, his ceramics freely report the artist’s scrutiny of nature and life. Taking pictures of what attracted his attention, he absorbed details of the world that offered the raw material for his works, that – he felt – could not help but reflect the tensions and doubts that any “making” involves.

Emilio Scanavino – La Vocazione Plastica
Galleria Terre d’Arte
Via Maria Vittoria, 20/a, Turin
Ph. 0039 011 19503453
Email: info@terredarte.net