Alessandro Pessoli

The drawings, paintings and sculptures of Italian artist Alessandro Pessoli are known for their rich detail, dreamlike narrative and cultural reference. Interweaving architectural forms, looming faces, and figures, Pessoli draws on shifting meaning in historical stories, symbology, cinema and theatre to create his evocative compositions. The visual tension in his work often arises from intentional juxtapositions of opposing color, texture and form—bright tones are layered next to neutral colors and soft fabric ribbons hang from bronze structures. Revisiting certain motifs throughout his work, including sexual symbols, Pessoli’s imagined world is populated by a series of epic characters, whose representations earnestly explore the heroic, tragic and macabre.

Alessandro Pessoli has been showing consistently since the 1990s, including solo exhibitions at SF Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome, The Drawing Center, New York, greengrassi, London, and Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Group shows include Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. In 2009 Pessoli exhibited at the Italian Pavillion at the 53rd Venice Biennale.