BRUNO CATALANO

In Bruno Catalano's approach, art is the experience of a technique and a material. But art is also a particular way of looking at humanity, an acuity that is cultivated and shared in the creation of works. His Voyageurs series, which has become emblematic in just a few years, illustrates all the intensity at play here. In the great diversity of the models the artist represented, he was drawn to an attitude, a few details that concealed an intense humanity. He turned these into bronze figures. They represent men, women and children moving forward, baggage in hand, driven by determinations that the public is left free to imagine. In the end, it doesn't matter where they come from, or where they're going. Bruno Catalano's sculpture freezes time around these individual, anonymous trajectories, leaving room for introspection. And the silhouettes open wide, physically split, torn like paper down the middle. The torso floats above the legs as if by a miracle. Only the loaded suitcase provides the link between the thinking head and the walking feet. The sculptor's gesture echoes universal emotions, suggesting that absence, lack and separation are constitutive elements of any identity. And it doesn't take long realize that Bruno Catalano's works are permeated, if not innervated, by the landscapes by the landscapes that host them. In his works, figuration is enhanced by a metaphorical, even dreamlike power. For they speak to feelings specific to each individual, and also manage to awaken a secret emotion, unanimous and inscribed in our flesh. Bruno Catalano tells us how life itself shapes faces and bodies, and how human flows, groupings and movements end up building and animating cities. His sculptures are, of course, shapes of wax and bronze, but they are also the expression of an art that is above all democratic. An art that makes each figure a monument to an intimate humanity. Bruno Catalano sees heroes where ordinary men and women stand. Bruno Catalano was born in 1960 and now lives in Marseille.