SANDRO  BARDELLI.  

Artistic Career.

Sandro Bardelli paints his first oil painting at the age of thirteen when, during a technical and ornate drawing course, he is given the opportunity to experiment with the technique of oil painting.

However, in the years '68 / '71 the first real formative moment in the field of art took place during the attendance of a three-year course in drawing and painting. Later, in an alternation of periods that sees him engaged in various sectors of the working world and attending evening courses for the achievement of the relevant diploma, he is forced, by fulfilling his military service, to interrupt everything. Then in the 1970s, he began to devote himself with greater commitment to the study of the landscape, especially in the Varese area and in the nearby Canton of Ticino, places that can rightly be considered the ideal training ground for his training and the development of his landscape themes. related to color. He also began to devote himself to the study of the figure, first approaching 19th century Italian and then following, through Impressionism and Fauvism, his personal artistic discourse that led him to an expressionist type of painting, characterized by a strong chromatic impact.

At this point, his painting is composed of very personal and dynamic notes all the more accentuated by the use of a decisive and incisive material brushstroke that we find in a subsequent period, from 1989 to 1994, during which he resumes more assiduously to work on the figure which is interpreted both in oil and graphic works with an absolutely personal technique. At the same time he developed the study of fresco and egg tempera as well as muralism with the execution of acrylic murals. All this alternated with the activity of a tour guide that allows him to visit and approach places and cultures that are so different and far from his usual stage of work.

In fact, in the countries of his travels he will return to paint and create some of the most significant works (Greece, Spain, French Polynesia, Senegal, Brittany, Kenya, Tunisia, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives Islands) to be combined with his "classics" made on mountains and valleys in the nearby Canton of Ticino, the Canton of Grisons and Insubria, as well as in Tuscany and Venice. After a period of stagnation, in 1989 he resumed research on the figure, also devoting himself to the study of oriental masks created independently. His first approach to informal / abstract themes dates from the same period. Starting from 2003 he develops instead the research on graphics where the figurative is interpreted in a very personal way giving an absolute identity characteristic to his works of that period and of the following years. In this regard, we listen to the words of the artist: "... The subjects of these works spring from my compositional imagination through the use of Indian ink and natural colors, diluted with water, obtained from minerals found in the garden of the house, from the ashes, as well as made from vegetables, berries, fruits, tea, coffee and more, spread on different paper supports, such as tissue paper, cardboard, letraset, cloth paper and above all on hand-worked rice paper that I brought from my numerous trips to Asia.

All this arises from a spontaneous creative expression, which leaves room for the freedom of imagination. These works are born from the unconscious, since with a few exceptions, I never start with a precise idea of ​​what the final result should be. The subjects, on the other hand, materialize and materialize in the moment of drawing up the color on the paper, during the evolution of the creative operation. The gesture of the hand is aimed at recreating lines, shapes and colors to achieve compositional harmony, while I contain the color or expand it, following what the mind and the eye demand in the manifestation of my creative vein. ... "

In this way, new, interesting and innovative results are achieved, disconnected from the figurative realism. The pure line alternates with surfaces with delicate colors to create unpredictable solutions that are transmitted to us in a balance of shapes and colors. 2011. And from here opens a boundless stage on which works of refined balance appear, which speak to the observer of elegant chromatic alchemy, of traits that yearn for the perfection of the sign and the suggestion of the lines. A light, imperceptible and implied invitation to let oneself be led by the thread of emotion, by the succession of dreams that lodge in each of us, which take us by the hand and lead us with strength, tenacity, tenderness and sweet impetuosity to find answers that are often not vivid of words but lavish with emotional disturbances and amazements. “A new journey”. A new encounter with a different subject. New modes of expression. The pleasure and desire for a new manual ability. The need and requirement to "physically" work the refractory material. To shape it. Build it. Model it. The genesis of new works. “A new journey”. Year 2015. “The multi-material works”. A new material for the rediscovered oil works. The oil color on new backgrounds. The rigid support always the protagonist. The brushwork is always lively and intense. The palette becomes the expression of new colors. A return to "his" places. But not only. The works rise to become more and more voices, more and more interpretation of his "new" feeling. Year 2018. Nothing can and should not be ignored. For him, everything must become a precious piece to enrich the composite mosaic of his personal and artistic life. The water. The earth. The nature. Poetry. The current reality. The society. The time of life. Its fast running and its remaining motionless in the powerlessness of not having the courage to change. The Near and Far East. The traditions. The costumes. The beauty. Year 2019. After a period of partial inactivity, during which he dedicated himself to the creation of some sculptures on the study of the dynamic components of the human body, made with the use of material mixtures of various kinds, here is a new project on femininity. in fact in 2019 the return to the representation of the woman's body already investigated in the past in different moments distant from each other. Thus, during the second half of 2019, numerous pencil and ink drawings spring from the artist's hand, on various paper supports, dedicated to the female body interpreted in different moments of pose from life, from the most classic to the most unusual poses, more intimate and more daring. This array of drawings becomes the genesis of the Project “The Purple Color: Eroticism”, a series of about 30 nudes that represent its fundamental nucleus. And the "purple color", used in its infinite shades, becomes the protagonist to highlight the subtle eroticism that emanates from the female body. The female body that he interprets in its harmonious plastic component, full of erotic suggestions that emanate from the “live” poses assumed by the model and captured in moments of solitude, abandonment and rest. The result is a rich series of oil works made on material backgrounds, spread on large panels, in medium density, works that reflect his predisposition and his artistic interest for the representation of the plastic and physical harmony of the woman's body. ".

(Patrizia Galparoli, 2018)

Sandro Bardelli and the "rice paper".

The "rice paper" for him is a "discovery" that comes from the many trips that have often led him to the Far East as a tour guide. In 1988, he returned from a trip to Thailand with a large roll of rice paper. His new journey begins. “Her” rice paper will be of Thai or Laotian origin. Rice paper, in principle, is the ideal support for the female nude. The ink drawing transports the lines of a woman's body onto the paper. The figure becomes precious. The safe stretch makes the human body alive and plastic. Very few lines, never repeated, never resumed, never corrected. The new creativity bursts "inside". The need to "work" with new content is gaining ground. A new pictorial dimension for his works. New subjects, new shapes, new colors, new emotions. A new language. The narration of his creativity. Rice paper, a fascinating support, not easy to handle. Gives him extraordinary results. New softness, refined elegance. The shapes and lines intertwine, chase each other. A new voice, new emotions. The rice paper is a precious gift of nature and man's ingenious dexterity. The rough and lively surface, never the same as itself. It absorbs and holds the color in its folds, in its softness. An always different result, full of transparency and "movement". The sheet "devours" the drafting of the color, it speaks to it. He asks for other shadows, other shades, other "signs". He conceives and externalizes the chromatic words that are inside him. You can't cheat on rice paper. Difficult to go back, impossible to cancel. Creativity in its pure state as it flows from the mind and soul of the artist. The rice paper is permeated with color. Paraphrase the language of the heart and mind in the language of emotions. The abstract of him is the "new" creativity of him. His emotions, his heart and his intelligence. They take on new life and materialize on this unusual support that bewitches him. No forced research, no experimentation at all costs. There is no experimentation for him. There is only creativity. The state of mind that he "lives" in that "moment", in the moment of "painting" becomes an incentive to tell about himself. An instinctive creativity that cannot be imprisoned "inside". In man, in his soul, in his mind. It must express itself with the language of shapes, lines, signs. Above all about color ".

To read his abstract works on rice paper, one must know how to read the sign of his hand that flows freely on the paper. The free interpretation of his works is sent back to the observer, the reader. Freedom to get excited, to imagine, to interpret. The title he gave to the work in front of us and the color tell us about his "freedom of him", his "creative moment". More alive, avoid them than ever on this very current journey. However… the journey is not yet fully accomplished. It never will be because the creativity of the mind lives. It is generated and regenerated. It feeds on feelings, sensations, joy. Of pain, anger and passions. Always and in any case "travel" and "rice paper" speak through color. Oil colors are temporarily abandoned. They will not be forgotten… never. Now his creativity asks him to express himself with new techniques. The chromatic tools change instinctively. They land in nature. Natural colors, vegetable colors. Colors that he creates in his atelier, in the countryside. He draws them from his garden. From his garden. From his plants. From the wood burned in the house stove that becomes ash. The ash will give extraordinary shades of gray. Waters obtained from the maceration of edible vegetables. Extraordinary blue-green of the artichoke boiling water. Juice of small fruits from the garden. Berry juice. Raspberries, blueberries, elderberries. A red and a purple given by the pressing of phitolacca berries.

And one more shrub to cut. He is invading the lawn. He discovers, in the soul of the small trunk, a warm, enveloping yellow. He removes the bark. He crumbles the wood, puts it to macerate. A new, unique, hard to find shade of yellow. Otherwise it could not have been obtained. The stones found in the garden, shattered. Made dust and with the dust opens the way to new colors. New expressive possibilities. The stones brought by numerous trips to Australia. Sandstones with warm and enveloping colors. Gift of the Australian Red Desert.

When crushed, they turn into powder with incredible shades. Tiny and precious crystals ready to transform into new colors. The oxides, the inks. They will mix with the new powders and new colors. The new frontier of his creativity. Rice paper, vegetable and natural colors. Simple gestures of everyday reality. The dexterity of transformation. The new subjects lead us back to nature, to the essence of life, to our dreams ... A journey into his "me". A journey into nature. A journey into his soul. Elements that cannot be ignored and from which everyone's life cannot go away.

(p.g., March 2018)

SEE ALL ARTWORKS BY SANDRO BARDELLI

Sandro BARDELLI, Critical notes

Among the various critics who, at various times, have spoken and written about him, some in particular they were able to better grasp the artistic / expressive content of his work.

Sandro BARDELLI: "The spell of a disruptive color in the landscape and in the figure". A strong coloristic confirmation is the dominant note in Sandro Bardelli's painting; the artist has always expressed himself through a bright color, full of vitality, sudden in his direct expressionistic lineage. Bardelli has moved, since the beginning, in complete freedom, distilling known or unknown forms, in a visual immediacy that has become an unmistakable stylistic trademark. In the history of the artist, the incidence of the chromatic drive, vehement but aware, is fundamental. We go back to the Eighties, when the landscapes of distant lands or even just the visions of Lombard places are reshaped in an intense sensorial emotion; the pictorial subjectivity creates "tonings" of color towards the ranges of reds, blues, greens, while white tells of a magical light, ready to escape, to be chased between houses, in the streets, on the horizon of the sea. You can feel the Mediterranean heat of the Cyclades Islands in the luminous atmosphere, remote in the shining whiteness of the whitewashed walls, while the reflections around them change unpredictably from orange to purple. The paintings on Polynesia, a lost paradise, where you can breathe the innocence of images amid the fragrance of flowers, are from those years. The landscape theme has never abandoned Bardelli's imagination in a very personal relationship with reality, beyond any possible recognizability of the place. Because only the color is a spy of the turmoil of the soul, when amazement and wonder vibrate in the moment of perception. The same disruptive chromatic visionary nature of the landscape reappears, uncontaminated, in the figure, in a particularly feminine way. The obsession with color becomes almost visceral in the provocation of the plastically structured body in the lighting of tones. The shape, compact in space, materializes without chiaroscuro in the daring chromatic sensuality; occupies the whole canvas, in a vigorous gesture-image relationship. Now the Varese artist pursues a synthesis between form and color without sacrificing anything to the emotional drive. His figures, female and male, appear even more distant from reality, enigmatically concluded in an alien spatiality, almost hypnotized by an obsessive chromatic story. The drafts, on canvas or on wood, often involve a basic technique close to the fresco, on which the layering of the brushstrokes offers very suggestive damping and reliefs.

(Fabrizia Buzio Negri / from "Varese Mese, pag. 55" - February 1994)

“… The freedom of color characterizes the works of Sandro Bardelli: the“ toning ”in shades of red and blue moves the surface in an intense vitality, removing any possible visual“ mannerism ”. It is the moment of dazzling sensory emotions, in the strong light of day, ready to escape so as not to be imprisoned on the canvas or paper. Landscape is color, for Bardelli, amidst the amazement and wonder of unusual color ranges ... "

(Fabrizia Buzio Negri - 1992)

"... Bardelli relies almost exclusively on color, on the articulated and vibrant language of tonal variations, combinations and contrasts, in sometimes unprecedented visions and in any case always well constructed through a rhythmic phrasing, which reaches, in certain accents, clear lyrical notes . In the oil works, the rhythm is on, almost as if to follow a mysterious rule of its own set in the vastness of the chromatic ranges, in the variegated intertwining of themes. The artist's skills are thus revealed with greater emphasis in modulating timbres and tones, in a symbolic allusiveness that accords the magic, the whiteness, the spontaneous beauty of the forms with the movement of light and color, which penetrate the fabric. objective reverberating the moods and emotions of the soul. On the other hand, an absolute linearity of stroke distinguishes Bardelli's drawings in general and graphic works, mostly dedicated to the study of the figure. Here it is the sign itself that organizes the rhythm in a clearer way, in the invention, certainly more studied, of forms. The immediacy then dissolves in meditation, to interpret the motifs of the interior without the basic support of color, to look beyond (obviously inside) the subject, in a fusion of intuition and rationality achieved with measure. In any case, Bardelli demonstrates expressive ductility, subjective and objective interpretation skills, confidence in solving technical and formal problems; qualities that he knows how to assert under the pressure of a love for art that has followed him for years, everywhere, discovering the things he tells us with his images of him ... "

(Gioacchino Li Causi - 1985)

"... Landscapes as signals in space, undoubtedly those of Sandro Bardelli, under the banner of the striking gravity of color: moments of grace that establish the value of a particular work and that could hardly be found in other moments or places. In the fermenting turgor of the material and in the swagger of the cut, the spirit, intensely attentive, captures the idea of ​​reality, the richness of light, the brilliance of tones. So his brushstroke, freely broad in its development, appears to us of considerable importance in the essential concatenation of forms… ".

(Antonio Oberti - 1984)

"... The nude as a symbol of the eternal feminine ... ... It seems that the artist loves the ancient adage of the Greeks who emphasized undressed humanity to be closer to the Gods ... Sandro Bardelli thus focuses on his own style to translate the "Beautiful ideal". Pleasant and lively, his female nude detaches itself from the usual academic experience to rise to a brilliant search for feminine sensibility ... giving the female nudes a smiling pictorial quality ... "

(Antonino De Bono - 1980)

"... Sandro Bardelli has traveled extensively and studied environments, peoples, situations, customs ... and scenes of life, the result is an encounter with reality ... captured in a bright chromatic dimension, sated with energetic scents, lines and strength, timbres and intimate suggestions ... "

(Antonino De Bono - 1978)

“… .Even the trees subtly enucleated in blood-red seem to secrete a secret sap known by Derain and Vlaminck, arrhythmically expressed in a sequence of tones and hues. The mountain streams saturated with blue skies, the fabulous boulders in the plant, the chromatic contrasts between soaring groves and houses that are enhanced in the rural quiet full of light, all combine to create the illusionistic element of the composition and to express the stimulating power of the pictorial medium as a gestural explosion of a moment of ecstasy. …. This calm and restless range of color becomes, in still life, an apology for the silent life that unfolds in an orchestrated and measured exasperation of the object tensions rendered with extravagant and dynamic. ... But the exciting point of arrival is the ringing nude in the oil, measured and calibrated in the drawing. "Girl meditating", "Nude in the study", "The model", etc. caught in an articulation of fiery suggestions, they shine in the chromatic invention of the complexion and carry their own mysterious presence subtly touched by eros. In the drawing, Sandro Bardelli pursues the play of solids and voids - as if he were sculpting - fervently reaching out to the soft chiaroscuro effects barely touched by a functional curved line that shapes the eternal feminine captured with irrepressible vitality. Sandro Bardelli is a painter who perfectly knows the alchemical affinity of color, the dazzling purity of the immaculate mountain landscapes and uncontaminated by the civilization of consumption; but above all he centers in himself the tempting passion of the material as if he were to compose ancient and wonderful stained glass windows ... "

(Antonino De Bono - 1977)

Sandro BARDELLI, a traveling artist

It really seems that Sandro Bardelli's art draws its lifeblood from perhaps the richest and most contradictory moment, subsequent to Impressionism, that span of years which, in the richness and experimentation of paths and alternatives, will mark contemporary artistic events. It is Post-Impressionism: forge, reservoir and matrix of many creative expressions of our day; from Seurat, to Cézanne, from Van Gogh to Gauguin and Maurice Denis, up to the road to Derain, Sérusier and Matisse. Difficult to define, and even more to summarize, the crucible following the Impressionist season sees the pursuit of a goal: reflection and experience on the very foundations of vision. As if to say that, having abandoned the one and only research on the instantaneous impression of light, the artist focuses on the substance, on the "flesh" of the landscape, of things, of figures. Also for Sandro Bardelli, as well as for "historical colleagues of previous generations", travel is a favored and privileged experience to seek and discover the roots that nourish the creative experience: color and light. And if in the Greece of Paraportiani and Mykonos he finds the golden yellows of the Orthodox rite, in Brittany, Bardelli contemplates rocky, rugged landscapes overlooking the sea, stormy and on which the weather changes with a breath of wind. The blinding light and the colors of Tunisia's spices counterbalance the buildings in Hammamet. "The mysterious and magical atmosphere of the Medina absorbs me and here are the first works that spring almost as if by magic in the space of a few hours. I realize that my doubts were unfounded and that the charm of the environment overcomes the intention to work mainly on the human figure and on the costumes that in any case stimulate me enormously ". So writes the author in his 1989 travel notes. The trip to Senegal will follow, but there are already many roads traveled: Tuscany, Venice, Andalusia, Tunisia, Polynesia, Greece, Bali. The landscape theme has never abandoned Bardelli's imagination in a personal relationship with reality, beyond any possible recognizability of the place. Always constant in him the search not only and not so much for atmospheric-coloristic values, but for coloristic rendering, trying to see the forms in terms of mass and to give a firm structure to the form, a modern way to monumentality. The same monumentality is found in the nude figures: the attraction for the volume sometimes reaches the tuning fork, a progressive attenuation of the physiognomy is functional to the compositional balance and renewed solidity. What interests Bardelli are the twists and complexities of the poses, the relationship between the body and space, between the shaded areas and the edges bathed in light. “Drawing and color are by no means separate, since you paint, you draw”, claimed Cézanne. And again: “When the color is at the highest degree of richness, the shape is at its fullness”. Bardelli has always expressed itself through a bright color, full of vitality. Unexpected and vital poses are also found in the brush-tailed works, where the black trail is thinned, interrupted and shattered. The artist returns to feed her color, to resume the outline of the naked figure lying on tissue, letraset or wrapping paper. Still on these papers - but also on sheets of rice paper and on cardboard - the constellations and planets of Sandro Bardelli were formed. The artist's stellar cosmos is born from an insistent research on simple, geometric handwriting, reread at a distance to glimpse, only at a later time, a title, an image and perhaps a story. The compositions of figures are jazz improvisations; the rough and porous papers that drink the natural colors of blueberry juice, coffee and various berries, are transformed into theatrical backdrops and scenographies; the clouds of primeval stars and galaxies branch into the watery color, guided by the painter. This is Sandro Bardelli's final frontier, a goal made of truer colors than life, splinters of wood and fragments of exotic stones, planets and satellites that are formed by the color on a white background. Here the work is stripped of its descriptive and objective characteristics, becoming an equation of lines and surfaces; the color becomes spatial, concrete, free from the criteria of verisimilitude, to finally become saturated. Everything is achieved and carried out thanks to a long process of simplification of real forms and an increasingly massive use of signs and colors, sometimes chosen for their symbolic potential. Sandro Bardelli seems to want to paint the indipingibile, in a leap towards automatic writing, non-figurative painting. Instead, it tells of the most ancient and natural of the celestial vaults, the dream of the circular shapes of the moon, the race of Mercury in front of the sun, the explosion of a star. The lyrical and abstract, musical and poetic nature becomes pure communication. And so art ends up referring, once again, to the spirit, to the conceptual gesture made by the artist.

Clara Castaldo, Art Historian, 2012

Presentation text of the Exhibition Project "THE JOURNEY and ART, works by Sandro BARDELLI, oils, rice paper and ceramic panels" including 6 personal exhibitions presented in 4 museums in the Province of Varese (Museo Innocente Salvini / Gemonio - MIDeC

Sandro BARDELLI: "INTROSPECTIVE SUGGESTIONS", abstract colors on rice paper

"What a splendid thing is the watercolor to express the atmosphere and distance, so that the characters are surrounded by air and seem to be able to breathe it." (Vincent van Gogh Letter 163, about 18 December 1881) Sandro Bardelli: a multifaceted artist who easily passes from purely figurative works, such as landscapes or portraits of female nudes, to abstract works. The acquired and consolidated technical and instrumental skills have allowed him to experiment in the course of his artistic career various expressive styles, ranging from the simple use of pencil and ink, to oil painting, watercolor, egg tempera, up to to the fresco and the mural, always with equal skill. The municipal administration has joined with pleasure the exhibition project conceived by Anna Visconti, Director of the Salvini Museum and by Patrizia Galparoli "THE TRAVEL AND ART" which will see in the summer 2012, the succession of more exhibitions by Sandro Bardelli in different museums and exhibition spaces of our territory. with the project "THE TRIP AND ART" we want to retrace and deepen some of the main stages of Sandro Bardelli's creative journey, providing the attentive visitor with the opportunity to admire some of the most significant places in the Lombard Prealps, often little known and valued . At Palazzo Perabò, headquarters of the MIDeC - International Ceramic Design Museum, around thirty abstract watercolors on rice paper are exhibited together with some ceramic panels whose common thread is evident from the title of the exhibition, "Introspective suggestions", or when art becomes the most intimate and profound expression of the human soul. A section of the exhibition will be present at the “Antonia Pozzi” Municipal Library of Villa Frua and includes a series of ink watercolors on the theme of the cosmos. The exhibition consists of a list of sheets of indisputable sign value, of immediacy of expression and originality, but it is only a small part of drawings chosen from a large collection of sheets that crowd the artist's house-atelier, where Sandro and Patrizia warmly welcomed me to discuss the details of the exhibition. On the walls and on the easels, however, the oil paintings were beautifully displayed. The first impression one gets when looking at the works of Sandro Bardelli is that while in his oil paintings, the artist expresses himself with an explosion of color, through lively and decisive brushstrokes, in the abstract style watercolors, while maintaining the use of color, the tones are softer and less full-bodied, but always with the intention of offering a vision of strong pathos and emotional suggestion, which goes far beyond mere appearance.

Those who are lucky enough to frequent the artists' ateliers are well aware that each one has his own particular gesture in mixing colors, in spreading them on the sheet, in holding the brush with his fingers. So also Sandro Bardelli wanted to personalize his expertise in the use of watercolor, not stopping at the pure conventional technique, but experiencing it as a unique challenge. Starting with the support, paper, this played an important role in connoting his watercolors: not simple cotton paper, but artisanal rice paper collected during his many trips to Asian countries. So from a neutral and binding support, the rice paper sheet becomes an active element, synergistically involved in the creative process. This paper with its strongly corrugated surface gives a material sense to the work as if to create an everted connotation to the painting, so that the frayed and not well trimmed edge becomes an expressive element. Another important aspect is the color, Sandro Bardelli is not satisfied with using the inks that are normally found on the market, he creates the pigments himself. He obtains some green-blue colors with the boiling water of the vegetables, shades of yellow ocher are given by ground stones that he collects himself in the garden, even the ash is one of the elements he prefers to create point-like backgrounds that bring to mind cosmic rain. Berries, bark, minerals, everything that catches his attention can help create a new and unique chromatic range for his watercolors. In watercolor, spontaneity is everything. The artist learns to improvise through experience. The intimacy with the medium stems from the way it encourages improvisation and seems to record the artist's fleeting thoughts on paper. In watercolor, spontaneity is everything. The artist learns to improvise through experience. The intimacy with the medium stems from the way it encourages improvisation and seems to record the artist's fleeting thoughts on paper. Sandro Bardelli has transformed his instant gesture into a creative sign, his works are never premeditated, they are not born from a project, but always arise from the very action of painting that is not expressed only in the gestures of the brush that runs on the sheet, but it also wants to be an action in a psychological and existential sense. He draws on his imagination and his unconscious, letting his picture be born and reveal itself in the very moment in which he spreads the color on the paper. It is the artist himself who describes his watercolors in this way:

“On the rice paper lines that run after each other, intersect and run parallel for short stretches and then move away in different ways to create unidentifiable constellations "

or again

"A succession of lines that cross and intersect to give life to a shape that in the evolution of creative moment, they involuntarily compose the background that gives rise to an image mythological: Pegasus' horse "

In order to better appreciate Sandro Bardelli's abstract watercolors, one must go beyond the normal parameters of reading a painting, one must look at each single color, with the time necessary for the perception to be translated into psychological sensation, which can make already known sensations resonate, or it can give birth to new ones. The author himself confesses that each of his works can be looked at starting from any point and explored according to paths at will. It is an approach that opens up totally new and unprecedented figurative worlds to us, where, to use an expression of Paul Klee, "art does not represent the visible, but makes visible what is not always visible". In fact, art, in all its manifestations, is the highest human expression of creativity and imagination, and is one of the few moments that allow man to externalize his interiority.

Dr. Arch. Maria Grazia Spirito

MIDeC Curator, Cerro di Laveno Mombello (Va), 2012

Presentation text of the exhibition "INTROSPECTIVE SUGGESTIONS: abstract colors on rice paper and ceramic panels" held at the MIDeC, International Museum of Ceramic Design in Cerro di Laveno Mombello (Va) and the exhibition "ABSTRACTIONS and UNIVERSE: fragments" held at the Library Municipal “A. Pozzi ”of Laveno Mombello (Va).

Both exhibitions were part of the Exhibition Project "THE TRIP and ART, Works by Sandro BARDELLI oils, rice paper and ceramic panels", held from 13 May to 30 September 2012 Cerro di Laveno, February 2012

The journalist Felice Magnani met Sandro Bardelli in Casalzuigno, in the heart of the green Valcuvia, in his atelier, “Il Rude”, which has become a center of music, art and culture; the insubric artist, globetrotter by profession, proposes his interpretative vision of art.

Felice Magnani from “La PREALPINA” - “Letters to the Director” Sunday 20 June 2010

After traveling for a long time through the Far East, Nepal, Thailand, Polynesia, China, the United States, Tunisia, he returned to breathe the air of home, constantly searching for that interpretative and compositional harmony. which has always characterized his life as a man and as an artist Sandro Bardelli, after his first pictorial experiences dating back to the 1950s / 1960s, begins his artistic wanderings in the insubric region first and in the global one immediately after. In love with his homeland, the one that first made him discover the meaning of an inner search that leads to harmony, as an expression of simplicity and essentiality of living. In his life there are cultural accompanying journeys, those that strengthen communicative eloquence, personal knowledge, confrontation with different and fascinating cultures, as well as the discovery of color in its particular and universal expression, linked to ethnic and character variables. of people, to the spirit that changes from sky to sky, from air to air, from color to color, as if the world always had different eyes to stimulate the most unconscious part of our existence. Some corners of the planet become cradles of curiosity, where the shy character of the Lombard artist meets harmony of places in which to give free rein to the magical dimension of color. Sandro Bardelli loves Greece, in particular Mikonos and Santorini, where the sparse and white houses like seagulls, the sea silences, the alleys where the windows touch each other like parted lips suggest in him compositions with dazzling colors. Colors of the sea, the sun, clean air, colors linked to clarity and its essentiality, where life and customs are intertwined.

Bardelli lets himself be carried away by the colors that are gradually more and more alive, the impression and expression of interior vocations linked to cultural visions learned in a path of personal study. In his global journey, he also visits French Polynesia, Brittany and Andalusia, among others, opening a passage of pure instinctual and expressive passion especially in the French Polynesian enchantment, where materialism is recomposed, where every form is color, vibration , silence, inspiration, religiosity, harmony and where man finds the strength to love what is truly worth being loved. Passing through the history of impressionism, Bardelli explores plots and conceptualities, but only to confirm his desire for liberation from protocols that prevent man from being himself. And this is how he begins a very personal artistic path, less conditioned by history and events and where freedom gradually becomes artistic and cultural emancipation. Bardelli develops his expressive freedom through color, figurative art and slowly discovers that space can be reduced and amplified according to the artist's interpretative strength. He develops on rice paper a happy combination of lines, spaces and formal and informal chromatic intuitions, which lead to rethink art in a new dimension, more universal and particular at the same time, where everything takes shape according to the strength of the observer. Today's Bardelli is a new artist, who proposes himself and in turn proposes new ways of knowledge, color is no longer the "end", but the starting point for a reinterpretation of man. His art leaves in those who observe it a subtle desire for contemplation and research. Sandro Bardelli found in the valleys of his youth new impulses on which to build his freedom, his vocation to be part of a harmony in which everything takes shape and smiles. Simplicity and essentiality are thus recomposed in a renewed ethical commitment, which refers to the critical sense, to legality as an expression of human and artistic truth, to the genuineness of interpersonal relationships, to an intimate desire for peace and cultural re-appropriation. It is on the wave of this renewed commitment that the artist reaffirms the concept that is dear to him: "You cannot catalog art, art is what it is, because its strength passes through the filter of emotions, of atmospheres, of inner predispositions, it is something that escapes the stereotype of the moment, because universality is its character ".

Sandro Bardelli

Personal Exhibitions:

2021

"Biennale MODIGLIANI OPERA Vision" - VENICE, MONUMENTAL COMPLEX of PIETÀ, exhibition of his 7 works dedicated to the female nude, from 1st September to 25th October

2020

He was selected by the Amedeo Modigliani Foundation, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the great artist's death, to participate in the Online Event "Tributo Amedeo Modigliani" held from 16 to 31 December 2020 in which he exhibited the work "VIOLA n.17 - ERICA lying on her side and arms behind her neck ", 2019, oil on panel 62.5 x 90 cm (part of the project" Il Colore VIOLA (Eroticism ").

2018

Sandro BARDELLI - 'The feeling of reality, the contemplation of beauty' - CIVICO MUSEO PARISI VALLE - Maccagno with Pino and Veddasca (VA-Italy) - from 14 April to 10 June 2018

2015

Sandro BARDELLI, 'PATHS, A Ritroso, 2015 - 1970' - Oils, rice papers, mixed techniques, drawings - VILLA POMINI, Castellanza (VA-Italy) - from 19 September to 18 October 2015

2012

Sandro Bardelli: Project 'Travel and Art': from 13 May to 30 September 2012 - Five personal exhibitions developed in the Varese area and hosted at * 13 May / 24 June: 'SCORCI d' INSUBRIA '(oils) - Museum I. SALVINI in Cocquio Trevisago (VA-Italy)

* 19 May / 17 June: 'INTROSPECTIVE SUGGESTIONS' (abstract colors on rice paper and ceramic panels) - MIDeC International Museum of Ceramic Design in Cerro di Laveno M.llo (VA -Italy)

* 19 May / 17 June: 'ABSTRACTIONS and UNIVERSE: fragments' - Municipal Library' A. POZZI 'in Laveno M.llo (VA-Italy)

* 8 July / 19 August: 'BRETON ATMOSPHERES and MEDITERRANEAN SOLARITIES' (oils) - I. SALVINI Museum in Cocquio Trevisago (VA-Italy)

* 1/30 September: 'COSMIC IMPRESSIONS, rice papers' - Document Center of the Cadorna Line in Cassano Valcuvia (VA - Italy)

* 2/30 September: 'CHARM and TROPICAL MAGIC' (oils) - I. SALVINI Museum in Cocquio Trevisago (VA-Italy) from 30 July to 23 August 2010

2010

"INTROSPECTIONS and ...": Sandro BARDELLI - Works on Rice Paper, CASA PAOLO - Brezzo di Bedero (Va) from 30 July to 23 August

2010

"L A N D of E M O T I O N": Sandro BARDELLI: Oil works ... for an art story from around the world

 LAND of EMOTION Travel Agency and Tour Operator - Varese from 17 July to 30 September

2008

COLOR NOTES "- Perceptions, Sensations, Emotions -" The Après Cards "at" Il RUDERE ", casa atelier / CASALZUIGNO (Va) - 2 December 2008/31 January

2006

"THE PLACE, THE COLOR, THE MUSIC" - at "Il Rude", house-atelier Casalzuigno (Va) - from 1 July to 30 September

2000

'LATITUDES OF THE WORLD: places, emotions, shapes and colors' at the "Circolo della Stampa" - PALAZZO SERBELLONI / Milan (Italy) - from 3 to 23 December

1999 - “ANTOLOGICA - 1973/1993” in Varano Borghi - Multipurpose Room

1991 - "CHROMATISMS" - VILLA CICOGNA in Bisuschio (Va)

1989 - "LATITUDINI" - VILLA CICOGNA in Bisuschio (Va)

1987 - "JOURNEY INTO COLOR" - VILLA CICOGNA in Bisuschio (Va)

1986 - "IL POMEGRANO" - Santorini (Greece)

1995 - "ITINERARIES" in the prestigious rooms of VILLA CICOGNA in Bisuschio (Va)

1980 - "IL SUBBIO" Modern Art Gallery - Rho (Mi)

1978 - "ASTREA" Art Gallery - Seregno (Mi)

1975 - “KURSAAL MARGHERITA” Gallery - Varazze

1973 - “SPADA ARTE” Gallery - Varese

1972 - Town Hall of Laveno Mombello (Va)

1970 - INA Gallery - Legnano (Mi)

Dedicated Catalogs:

- 2018 - Monograph 'SANDRO BARDELLI, the feeling of reality, the contemplation of beauty' - 126 pages, April 2018 - Graphics ESSEZETA Varese (Italy)

- 2015 - Monograph 'Sandro BARDELLI, Paths, A Ritroso 2015-1970' - 44 pages - September 2015 - ESSEZETA Graphics, Varese (Italy)

- 2012 - Monograph 'THE JOURNEY and ART', Works by Sandro Bardelli - 278 pages - May 2012 - "Artisan Consortium L.V.G. "/ Azzate (VA)

- 2008 - Monograph 'The PERENNIAL BECOMING of the COSMOS', abstract works - 120 pages - July 2008 - Ediz. MARWAN Mesenzana (VA-Italy) -ISBN 989-88-87932-21-8 works by him are found in private collections in Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Greece, Austria, Tunisia, French Polynesia.

Public ArtWorks:

1990 - Poster for the 1st National Convention of General Medicine and University Teaching - Varese 1992

1992 - 'REDENTORE', bronze - h. 240 cm, located in the Chapel on Monte Monarco - Induno Olona (VAItaly)

1993 - 'THE DANCE OF SEASONS' fresco 350 x 185 cm - Middle Schools - Pombia (NO-Italy)

1995 - 'NO MORE WAR', acrylic wall painting, 600 x 220 cm - Cadorago (CO-Italy)

1996 - 'THE DELIVERY OF KNOWLEDGE', bronze bas-relief, 220 x 165 cm, Multipurpose Center of Induno Olona (VA-Italy)

1996 - 'THE DAY AND THE NIGHT', acrylic on portal - Valloria (IM-Italy)

1999 - 'DANCE IN SPACE', acrylic wall painting, 150 x 300 cm - Cadorago (CO-Italy)

2000 - Participation with 2 works (oil and mixed media) in the 'FREEDOM' PROJECT TO BE FREE from smoking, alcohol, drugs' wanted and created by the ITPA Nuccia Casula Institute of Varese - Italy)

2002/2003 - 'SAN MARTINO and ANGELO', intervention in egg tempera and acrylic on the apsidal basin and tympanum of the former Lazzaretto di Cadorago (CO-Italy)

2005 - 'BATHERS AT THE RIVER', acrylic wall painting, 250 x 300 cm - Pogno (NO-Italy)

2005 - 'REBUS', acrylic wall painting, 800 x 180 cm - Marentino (TO-Italy)

2007 - "Macchi Foundation" Circolo Hospital in Varese, Opera 'NEW YORK, perspective', 2007, oil on panel, Author's donation, 190 x

2007 - Civic Museum PARISI VALLE "of MACCAGNO with PINO and VEDDASCA: Acquisition of an abstract work on rice paper donated by the Author on the occasion of the Collective Exhibition" ACQUISITIONS 2007 "

2007 - 'LA SALAMANDRA' - Restoration and glass mosaic of the fountain located in Via Libertà (adjacent to the Town Hall) in Casalzuigno (VA-Italy)

2007 - 'BAL do SABER'– acrylic wall painting, 310 x 310 cm - Bagnasco (CN-Italy)

2012 - Documentary Center “Linea Cadorna Frontiera Nord” in Cassano Valcuvia (Va), Opera “MARTIRI di SAN MARTINO”, 2012, oil on panel, approx. 200 x 95 cm.

2018 - Civic Museum PARISI VALLE "of MACCAGNO with PINO and VEDDASCA: Donation of the oil work" ECO, 2016 75 x 75 cm oil on panel "donated by the Author on the occasion of his personal exhibition in 2018

He has exhibited in numerous collective exhibitions, including:

1968 - Cedro d'Oro / Gallarate (VA) - Extemporaneous Painting Award / Gavirate (VA)

1969 - 1st edition Painting Exhibition / Gorla Minore (Va) - The Silver Balance / Varese (VA) Hobby Exhibition / Induno Olona (VA)

1970 - Santhià old and new - Reported

1971 - The Silver Balance / Varese (VA) - Santhià old and new

1972 - Il Morazzone / Morazzone (VA) -Santhià old and new

1973 - How the Indunesi paint / Induno Olona (Va)

1975 - Collective of Painting and Sculpture, Palazzo Volta / Olgiate Comasco (Co)

1976 - Collective Bardelli / Padovani - Reduced Auditorium / Cardano al Campo (Va)

Collective Bardelli / Padovani, IL GIRASOLE Cultural Center / Arsago Seprio (Va)

Collective Bardelli / Padovani / Kunst, Villa ex Durini / Gorla Minore (Va)

Participation in the 11th propaganda exhibition in London by the Galleria Sala d’Arte 14 / Piacenza

1979 - Participation in the 1st Permanent Exhibition of the Pinacoteca Internaz. of Ancient and Modern Art of the Italian Academy of Arts and Work - Salsomaggiore Terme (Parma) from 1982 to 2003 - All the collective exhibitions of the Circolo degli Artisti of Varese

1982

Collective organized by the Friends of San Fermo / Varese Cultural Group

Collective of the Artists of the Province of Varese for the elderly by the Pro Morazzone association with the patronage of the Municipal Administration / Morazzone (Va)

1983

Collective Circolo Artisti Varese sponsored by the A.Y. and Varese Cultural Association, Lombardy Region, c / o Vecchio Porticciolo / Luino (Va)

Collective exhibition "A village to discover" by the Friends of San Fermo / Varese Cultural Group

Collective Circle Artists, c / o Gallery 3 / Varese (Va)

1984 - Collective organized by the Friends of San Fermo / Varese Cultural Group

1985 - Collective exhibition organized by the Friends of San Fermo / Varese Cultural Group

Collective Circle Artists '77, c / o Villa Bianchi / Caronno Varesino (Va) - Collective c / o Spada Arte, Varese

1986 - Collective exhibition organized by the Friends of San Fermo / Varese Cultural Group

1988 - Collective organized by the Cultural Group Friends of San Fermo / Varese - Collective, Baptistery of Varese (VA)

1989 - Collective organized by the Cultural Group Friends of San Fermo / Varese - Spazio Tenda / P.za M. Grappa, Pro C. Gulliver, Varese

1990 - Collective organized by the Cultural Group Friends of San Fermo / Varese - Galleria Verga, Circle of Artists / Varese - Tenda Space / P.za G. Italia, Pro C. Gulliver - Varese

1991 - Collective organized by the Cultural Group Friends of San Fermo / Varese - Galleria Verga, Circolo degli Artisti / Varese - Tenda Space / P.za G. Italia, Pro C. Gulliver - Varese - Collective exhibition at Villa Hussy / Luino (Va) / Pro Cent - Social exhibition Circolo Artisti Varese c / o APT building / Varese - 1st Rass. Biennale Artists Varesini, c / o Elementary School "Aldo Moro" / Arsago Seprio (Va)

1992 - "ACCROCHAGE", c / o the Painter's Workshop / Arcumeggia (Va) - "INTERPRETARE ARCUMEGGIA"

A.P.T./ Varese building

1993 - “ACCROCHAGE”, c / o Hotel Villa Carlotta / Belgirate (VB) - 2nd Rass. Biennale Artists Varesini, c / o Elementary School "Aldo Moro" / Arsago Seprio (Va)

1994/1995 - Coll. on the theme "STILL LIFE" - 10 dec. 1994/19 February '95, c / o Galleria Poma / Morcote (Canton Ticino - CH)

1995 - 3rd Rass. Biennale Artists Varesini, c / o Elementary School "Aldo Moro" / Arsago Seprio (Va)

1997 - Two Art Associations of the Province of Varese, Civic Gallery of Modern Art / Gallarate (Va)

2000 - En Plein Air 2000, artists at work / Varano Borghi (Va)

2005 - Collective Exhibition, Multipurpose Room Riccardo Bauer / Pogno (No)

Collective Exhibition, Portico of the carriages Casa Zuccalà / Marentino (To)

2007 - "ACQUISITIONS 2007", February 17 / March 18, CIVICO MUSEO PARISI / VALLE Maccagno (Va)

2007 - "WOMAN'S BODY", May / July / SANGALLERIA (Arcumeggia - Va)

2011 - "ACTIVELY al LANDSCAPE", February 2011 / Exhibition Space FRERA / Tradate (Va) Sandro BARDELLI

Press review:

His artworks are reproduced in the following catalogs / volumes:

- S.I.M.G. Italian Society of General Medicine - Section di Varese - Reproduction of the artwork on the cover - 1992

- IN THE SIGN OF TAVERNARI - the sacredness of living - pages 37 and 78 - Year 1993 - P.L.V. (Daverio - Va)

- VARESE calls BUSTO - pages 24 and 54 - Year 1993 - Typography Manfredi (Varese)

- 3rd Biennial Review of ARTISTS VARESINI - 1995

- IN THE FOOTSTEPS of MASOLINO - pp. 54 and 55 - Year 1995 - P.L.V. (Daverio - Va)

- "... And he called the light 'Day' and the darkness 'Night'. So it was evening, then it was morning… ”GENESIS - p. 19 and 52 - Year1995 - Business Press Center s.a.s. (Ispra - Va)

- TWO ART ASSOCIATIONS of the PROVINCE of VARESE - Year 1997

- VARESE - A journey of art - p. 76 - Year 1997 - Graphics Varese s.a.s. - Induno Olona (va)

- VALLORIA and its painted doors

-Homage to INNOCENTE SALVINI - On the road to the mill, among his people - pag. 32 - Year 1998 - Artisan Consortium L.V.G (Azzate - Va)

- AN IDEA for A FRESCO in ARCUMEGGIA - pag. 22 - Year 1999 - Artisan Consortium L.V.G (Azzate - Va)

- FREEDOM to BE FREE - from smoking, alcohol, drugs - Year 2000

- EN PLEIN AIR 2000 - artists at work, VARANO BORGHI - Year 2000

- A WORK OF ART to SUPPORT A WORK of SOLIDARITY - Year 2000 - Graphics Varese Editions

- INSUBRIA LAND OF ART - page 32 - Year 2000 - Artisan Consortium L.V.G (Azzate - Va)

- ART and PUBLISHING, in the memory of a missing friend - pag. 32 - Year 2001 - La Tipografica Varese Spa (Varese)

- HUMAN LANDSCAPE and NATURE - pag. 18 - Year 2002 - Artisan Consortium L.V.G (Azzate - Va)

- 2007 ACQUISITIONS - pp. 24 and 26 - Year 2007 - NICOLINI Editore (Gavirate - Va)

- WOMAN'S BODY - Year 2007 - Type-offset - MARWAN (Mesenzana - Va)

- "... THE PERENNIAL BECOMING of the COSMOS" - Monograph "Abstract Works - Year 2008 - Ed. MARWAN (Mesenzana - Va)

-  ART NOW Promoter of creativity - n. 3 - May / June 2021

Among the Awards:

1978 - Prize “Filippo De Pisis”, ALBA Publishing House / Ferrara

1978 - Appointment of Academic of Italy (Italian Academy of Arts and Work), Salsomaggiore Terme

1984 - PROVINCIAL BODY Cup for VARESE TOURISM, 7th Edition "Primavera Varesina"

1984 - "MONTECITORIO PRIZE" and "BERLINGUER PRIZE"

It appears in numerous bibliographical volumes including:

National Encyclopedia of Italian Artists - Bugatti / Kroese - 1976

"ARTE" magazine - Bugatti Editore - 1976

Comanducci Yearbook n. 5

International Catalog of Modern Art 1977-78 - Ed. A.M.P. - Milan

Archive for Italian Art of the Twentieth Century / Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Florence

The New Artistic Ribalta - Ed.Studio - Arte E.S.A.

Dictionary E.S.A. "The 60s and 70s of Italian Art - Vol. 8 - piacenza

Vademecum dell’Arte 1979 - ed. The pillar - Florence

Art criticism "TODAY" (International Contemporary Art Magazine) - Ed. Accademia d’Italia Arti e Lavoro -

Salsomaggiore Terme (Parma) - 1979

Encyclopedia "Italian Art for the World" - Ed. Celit - XII Volume - 1985

Archive of the Bandera Museum - Busto Arsizio

They wrote about him:

Saverio Bagnato - Elio Bertozzi - Fabrizia Buzio Negri - Vittore Castiglioni - Antonino De Bono - Marino Fioramonti - Gioacchino Li Causi - Giorgio Minazzi - Mario Monteverdi - Antonio Oberti - Biagio Pantaleo

Lamberto Ruffini - Angelo Sala - Franco Tardonato - Lara Tripod - Renato Valerio - Felice Magnani - Clara Castaldo - Maria Grazia Spirito - Mario Chiodetti

Numerous reviews and reports on local and national newspapers / magazines and daily and weekly television networks

The Corriere della Sera - La Prealpina - Avvenire - The Day - The Republic - The Province of Varese - The Corriere del Ticino - The Press - The Corriere di Chieri - The Corriere di Novara - L'Eco del Varesotto - Lombardy Today - The Eco del Verbano - Torino Sette

Monthly Magazine:

Varese Month - Travel People - Weekends and Free Time - Bell 'Italia

Online newspapers and art sites

Varese News - Varese Art (www.artevarese.com) - Author's Walls (www.muridautore.it) - www.valloria.it

- www.paesidipinti.it

Broadcasters who have dedicated television services to him

Rai 3 - Rete 55 - The 6 TV