https://www.gabrielemaquignaz.com/

Gabriele Maquignaz is an artist whose work reflects a deep connection with the environment in which he grew up, particularly Monte Cervino, where his studio is still located. His artistic creations, which include painting, sculpture, design, ceramics, and jewellery, have gained recognition both in Italy and abroad and have been exhibited in several prestigious venues, such as the MIIT Museum in Turin and the historic Villa Gualino. His paintings and sculptures are strongly influenced by the early 20th-century avant-garde movement Arte Povera and the imagery of Africa and Oceania. Furthermore, the Maestro features intense, contrasting colour tones and inspiration from the American artistic scene of the second half of the twentieth century, with distinct similarities to the creative style of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Maquignaz’s works focus on immediate sensory impact and the pursuit of solutions that express variety and dramatic potency. In addition, the artist explores formal synthesis in more conceptual pieces, creating an ethereal and rarefied atmosphere. Interesting to note is his mixed technique used to represent faces in two-dimensional artworks. The artist creates palimpsests, where masks are combined with elements of Greek-Roman classicism, ghostly figures, and references to modern art. The presence of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is one of the recurring themes.
Among the most distinctive pieces of Maquignaz’s artistic project are those related to the Porte dell’Aldilà (Gates to the Beyond) and the Big Bang series, in which he employs two different yet correlated expressive languages. These artworks focus on the concept of opening to a world “beyond” phenomenal reality. In order to unlock the gateway to the viewers, he employs a very unusual tool, namely the rifle. Hence, this is not a symbol of death and destruction but an instrument used for the purpose of recreating life and beauty, transposing the power of the gunshot onto the canvas. A violent gesture thus becomes a creative act, while the perforated canvases turn into passageways to reach the eternity of the universe.