A Tribute to Scanavino

Emilio Scanavino (Genoa, 1922 – Milan, 1986) was one of the leading figures in postwar Italian abstract art, as well as one of the most original figures of the Informal movement, having received numerous awards and participated in international events such as the Venice Biennale and the Kunsthalle in Darmstadt. Forty years after his death, Palazzo Stella traces the characteristics of his visual practice, which focused on the expressiveness of the gesture, where reality is not evoked through essential forms, interweaving lines, and chromatic contrasts. His painting does not describe but suggests, leaving the viewer free to construct their own interpretation.
Among the most recognizable elements of Scanavino’s work is a mark in the form of a knot, a net, and a labyrinth—motifs that recur insistently and become a sort of distinctive signature of the artist. Behind their apparent simplicity lies a reflection on the human condition and on relationships between individuals: bonds that are formed, overlap, and at times seem impossible to untangle. Scanavino’s mark thus becomes the absolute protagonist of the pictorial surface. It is through this mark that the artist addresses themes such as relationships, conflict, loneliness, and the difficulty of communication. Abstraction, therefore, does not represent an escape from reality, but rather a different way of reaching its deepest dimension.
Color also plays a fundamental role. Scanavino often constructs his works through strong contrasts, alternating intense hues with darker backgrounds and making particularly effective use of the relationship between black and white. These contrasts help create a sense of suspended atmosphere, in which light and darkness, solids and voids, order and disorder seem to be in constant tension.
What emerges is a body of work permeated by a constant tension, capable of evoking unease and mystery without ever sacrificing interpretive freedom, because Scanavino does not close the circle of meaning—he leaves it open. The result is a painting of the threshold, in which the texture of the marks acts as a source of friction: deprived of interpretive anchors, the gaze is forced to confront itself.