|
ALESSANDRO TOFANELLI was born in Viareggio, Italy in 1959. In 1977 he graduated from the Arts’ Institute in Lucca and then moved to Milan, where he attended the Brera Art Academy. Whilst in Milan, Tofanelli collaborated as an illustrator for several magazines published by Rizzoli and Mondadori. In 1975 he won First Prize for his work ‘La Resistenza’ which was exhibited at the Modern Art Gallery in Lucca. In 1984 Tofanelli went on to win the much coveted ‘Giotto d’Oro’ prize and in 1987 he won the ‘Best Painter under 35 Years of Age’. Since 1977 Tofanelli has exhibited his work in a number of prestigious galleries throughout Italy and abroad. He has always combined his painting with his work as a professional photographer and a television videodocumentarist. When asked about his painting, Tofanelli states that he wants to investigate the relationship between time and memory, and to properly do this he has chosen landscape – his favourite subject. Landscape, to him, is a privileged point of observation to contemplate the flow of time as well as to place memories of forgotten places and people whom he wishes to remember. Although he paints landscapes, Tofanelli is no conventional genre painter. The perspectives are tenderly distorted, so that depictions of grass and trees and horizons become subtle evocations of memory and passing time.
|
