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| Roberto BIXIO |
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A painter from Genoa. He paints to make dreams visible. He crosses over the ultimate limit the non-figurative art has achieved, leading back the abstract idea again to the shape, through decompositions and associations of images, both oneiric and visionary, liquid and polychrome. His works, often skimmed over by irony, are almost always pervaded by a marked symbolism, partially hinted to by the titles, sometimes cryptic, sometimes didactic. It is not by chance that some of his works are inspired by Baudelaire's poems. He privileges themes related to nature, historical myths, ancient landscapes, in synergy with his interests in the speleological and archaeological fields. He is the author of four books and many publications on underground architectures in Turkey, ancient Armenia, Malta and, of course, Liguria and Genoa. He has been appointed Honorary Inspector for Archaeology by Italian Ministry of Culture. At the same time, in an everlasting fight between enchantment and disappointment, he tries continuous digressions into the intriguing, sensual and controversial female universe. Among his inspiration sources, often openly quoted, there are Giotto, Rousseau, Matisse, Klee, Botticelli, but also, on the one side, the anonymous prehistoric artists of Lascaux, and on the other, the strip masters, like Manara. The result is a kind of pictorial syncretism, with vocation between "post-naïf" and pop-artistic, from which the symbolist references emerge. Suggestions from literature, poetry and theatre appear in many of his pictorial themes. Sometimes he consents to illustration, according to his taste for allegory and his inclination to tell stories by means of his compositions. He employs few techniques: water-colour, acrylic, oil, china ink, golden sheet and serigraphy. Instinctively he express himself by use of a broad chromatic gamut where may occur that even the greys are coloured. He prefers the square format, of small dimensions, but performs large sizes too, and projects for reproductions on large surfaces. He participates both to personal and to collective exhibitions, in Italy and abroad, near by artists like Borella, Del Pezzo, Donzelli, Leoni, Manara, Morellet, Musante, Nespolo, Tadini, Andy Warhol and others. In particular, he has been invited to "Arte Fiera" in Bologna, to "Saga" in Paris, to the International Fair of Contemporary Art in Marbella, to the show rooms of Villa Marignoli in Rome, and to personal itinerant exhibitions in Ankara and Izmir, organized by the Italian Institute of Culture in Turkey. He often utilizes atypical show rooms like car saloons, medieval cloisters, just to transatlantics. He has joined Kaleido, a "post-transavanguardia" movement that, in syntony with the ideas of many international artists (like Siciliano e.g.), aims at a renewal of abstract language perceived, by now, as the most conformist of expressive media, sometimes even too elitarian, in contemporary art panorama. He is invited to the initiatives by Mohammed Due, the Restricted Centre of Communication founded by Plinio Mesciulam. With the writer Laura Cametti, he has self-produced a volume in the sphere of the "Manifesto dell'Antilibro" signed by Dorfles, Persico, Pirella e Sanguineti. University of Nottingham orded him the portrait of the last Warden for the college Gallery, as well professor Paolo Forti, University of Bologna. On behalf of the Costa Crociere ship company, he has painted the 15 panels of the Way of the Cross for the chapels on board; he has fully decorated a few saloons, and painted ethnic posters. He works for publishing companies like G. Mondadori, De Agostini-Rizzoli, Unesco Club, Sfera Group, and firms like Ecologital, Emac, Erga, ANCL, and various other clients. He has illustrated fairy-tale books, the chemist's shops Calendar, drawings for television documentaries (Geo & geo); the philatelic postcard issued on occasion of the G8 Summit in Genoa; posters and book-covers for the Genoa Aquarium; canvas for the Ancient Tuscan Factory; the drawings of the book "Cappadocia", published by the Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato. On behalf of Genoa Municipality he gives a stage about the philosophy of creativity in illustration, addressed to secondary school pupils. On behalf of Imperia Building School he projected the course "introduction to environmental mimetic techniques by means of painting decoration", realizing a wall-painting of 500 square metres in Sanremo. He is member of International Jury for Euroflora 2006. His works are published on magazines and catalogues among which "Oil Paintings in Public Ownership" (The Public Catalogue Foundation - London), "Costa Atlantica artworks", "Cruising into Art", "Arte, Architettura & Stile", "Costa Concordia, architettura sospesa nel blu" (introduced at the Triennale of Milan) "Italian Kultur Gunleri", "Professione ed Arte", "Dictionary of the Ligurian Artists". They are permanently exposed on board of all the cruising ships of COSTA CROCIERE.
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