Ron Giii & Mimmo Paladino

The Atomic Theatre

At Paul Petro Contemporary Art
January 6-28, 2006

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Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present a two-person exhibition, The Atomic Theatre, featuring oil pastels from 1984 (and an oil pastel from 1986) by Toronto-based artist Ron Giii and a suite of etchings from 1982 (and an oil pastel from 1986) by Mimmo Paladino.

Accompanying this exhibition is a re-printed text by Ron Giii first published to accompany his exhibition The Atomic Theatre and The Dictator's Opera at the 49th Parallel, New York, in 1986. This is one of the most significant texts on drawing by an artist that we have encountered.

Ron Gillespie was born in 1934 at New Westminster, BC. His earliest training in art took place in 1962-64 at H.S.C. Prince of Wales College, Nairobi, East Africa. He graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1975 and established a signifant performance art practice during the 1970's. By the early 1980s he had moved into drawing while retaining a strongly performative element in the compositions. Philosophy, geometry and the anti- modern figure prominently in the work with influences including Artaud, Darwin, Hegel and Spinoza.

His drawing has continued to this day, marked by an exhibition history that includes shows at the 49th Parallel, NY, Cold City Gallery, Toronto, the Evelyn Aimis Gallery, Toronto and many group exhibitions including "Heavy Mental", curated by Philip Monk at The Power Plant, Toronto. His work is in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada amongst many others. This is Ron's fifth exhibition with Paul Petro Contemporary Art.

Mimmo Paladino was born in 1948 at Paduli, Italy. He attended the Liceo Artistico di Benevento from 1964 to 1968. In the early 1970s he concentrated on drawing, developing much of the imagery that later appeared in his paintings. He had his first solo exhibitions in 1976 at the galleries D'Arte Duemila, Bologna, and Nuovi Strumenti, Brescia. He moved to Milan in 1977, and during the late 1970s he produced mostly monochrome paintings in blue, red or yellow, often incorporating found objects. In 1980 he was associated by the critic Achille Bonito Oliva with the 'Transavanguardia' painters Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Nicola De Maria and his work was shown at Sperone Westwater in New York. He rapidly developed an allegorical figurative style, drawing on imagery from Christianity and Classical mythology, while also being influenced by ancient Egyptian, tribal and modern art. He created enigmatic archaic figures exemplifying his preoccupation with the themes of death and sacrifice. Paladino's technical versatility also extended to various forms of printmaking (from 1980), including etching, linocut and aquatint.

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