Alessandro Pessoli

Alessandro Pessoli is known for his evocative drawings, paintings, and sculptures that often depict expressive, seemingly melancholy figures within indeterminate spaces and dreamlike narratives. His work is rich in historical references to art, cinema and theatre but also in details drawn from everyday life, popular culture and chance encounters. For Pessoli, history is not a fixed entity but a shifting space, the meaning of which is particular to each different moment in time, and each individual. He is interested in using history as a prism through which to understand the world around him, but also as a means of exploring the subconscious. In Pessoli’s hands, historical characters or historic events often undergo a process of metamorphosis and reimaging that imbues them with an uncanny sense of being connected to the present – as though the past has been revisited and represented in a series of contemporary visions. Pessoli’s work often involves oppositions: saturated tones surround figures depicted in neutral colours, for example, or characters display conflicting emotional states, such as humour and anguish.

Alessandro Pessoli (b. 1963, Cervia, Italy) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibition include The Neighbors, MAN, Nuoro (2016); Alessandro Pessoli - Project Room, Villa Paloma, NMNM, Monaco (2015-2016) and New Work: Alessandro Pessoli at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2012).