About Mario Lampazzi

Mario was born on 29 October 1954, son of Giuliano di Roma and of the countryside. Until the age of twenty-two, he led an isolated life devoted full time to pastoralism. A fleeting visit to the town from time to time and always lived with a sense of oppression and fear towards sociality.

What are the roots of so much discomfort? Certainly the experience at the college of Nocera Inferiore where Mario at the age of ten is suffocated by social, physical and moral violence for two long years: “I had to grow up to defend myself”.

At the beginning of the 80s he started drawing erotic comics and animal subjects, mainly goats that he realized during the daily activity of shepherd. The works shown here are related to the decade at the turn of the ’80s and’ 90s during which Mario began writing poetry and creating wooden sculptures. After an initial approach with a pencil and some pastel and stimulated by the first appreciations he receives for his creations, he moves on to oil painting on canvas.

If we were to give it a “conventional” artistic position, we could say that the sueprime creations tend to Realism, consequently Expressionism and Surrealism wrap themselves and mix together to finish in their paintings. The canvases are made with a very personalized color spreading technique, outside of the academic techniques. Another peculiarity is the extremely fast execution that allowed the artist to capture the sensation of the moment: as if to photograph his emotions. Some of his paintings were painted during village parties where Mario was at the same time an integral and isolated part of social life: sitting on the step of a door he took part in the party but isolated himself from everyone by thinking, painting.

In his works there is a decisive sense of social unease and detachment from individuals, the legacy of his solitary youth spent in the countryside.

The same campaign that has the merit of having left his soul intact, preserving it whole and authentic. “I am a creature” wrote Giuseppe Ungaretti, one of Mario Lampazzi’s favorite poets …