Pier Paolo Calzolari (b. 1943, Bologna, Italy) is recognized as one of the pioneering figures in the late 1960s Arte Povera movement and continues to be one of the most important contemporary Italian artists working today.

These new works continue Calzolari’s decades-long poetic fascination with the alchemical. While the artist continues to incorporate sculptural elements made of organic matter such as salt, wood, lead, feathers, and glass, it is his striking new use of raw black pigment powder and pastel that imbue these new paintings with an exuberance both radiant and sensorial. The luminous canvases include fields of intense blacks with varying surfaces and textures that call to mind nature in the form of a night sky.

The artist has said, “painting should be about getting lost finding oneself or finding oneself getting lost. But for me painting has always been, above all, a lover: I have a bond with it that comes from a fascination of the senses and, at the same time, the loss of the senses. Painting is the gesture that comes before the decision, the insecurity brought to economy.” Calzolari currently lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.