A number of exhibitions organised in Italy, in Milan (on the premises of the Blanchaert Gallery and of the Babele Bookshop Gallery) and in Turin (in the Arteincornice Gallery), focus on one of the most expressive artists of contemporary Italian art.


The Sicilian artist was born in Palermo in 1949 and has been living in Milan since 1968. From here, his art has reached various international centres, such as New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berne and Lugano; his works are now displayed in Italian and foreign museums, and he has been shown attention by the most authoritative critics, including Franco Solmi, Raffaele De Grada, Marco Valsecchi, Carlo Franza, Leonardo Sciascia and Walter Schonenberger.

He has also received approval by renowned masters of Italian and non-Italian art, such as Kodra, Lam, Cagli, Guttuso, Brindisi and Guidi. As a matter of fact, Lorenzo Maria Bottari started making a name for himself in 1980, when Renato Guttuso, an artist with a powerfully realistic background and an unquestionable leader in Italian art, presented the exhibition called “La Cattedrale di Palermo” (The Palermo Cathedral) in the famous Schettini Gallery, in Milan.

After that, a constant stream of successful events followed for this young man, who was able to renew Italian art without neglecting image: in this we are referring to those figures that seemed to entirely stem from the artist’s background, from that Mediterranean nature which was to remain a constant feature of his artistic production, of his paintings, of his colourful works on paper and of his whole graphic approach.

The Turin exhibition is entitled “Viaggio fra gli dei” (A Journey among the gods) and includes a whole range of works on hand-made paper, produced in Franco Conti’s famous paper-mill in Acireale; the paintings are accomplished with mixed techniques and are exemplary of the very vast production of this artist. What does one read into his paintings? Well, we have the theme of love, mythology as a whole, including Apollo (one of the most worshipped gods in the Greek pantheon), Dionysus, Bacchus, Orpheus, Demeter and other inhabitants of the Olympus; as well as all the Orphic mysteries, stars, constellations and celestial worlds, tributes to dancing, including a piece in Nurejev’s honour, agaves and cathedrals and the Etna volcano, taking on the colours of power, passion and liveliness.
Just as poetic, and also charged with sensuality, mystery and incomparable romance, is the god of the winds. The artist has an absolutely personal way of reading into things and of experiencing objects and figures through dreamy eyes; this is due to the gentleness and creativity with which Bottari treasures memories, fairy tales, myth and present-day stories.

Everything becomes part of this imaginative tour and is then poured out as it would be by a constantly active volcano. In his paintings, all dreams get a chance of materialising and offering fascinating enlightenment. His painting has now found a breeding-ground and blossoms as in springtime under the warm rays of the sun. Translated by interpres sas