About Maurizio Diana
Maurizio Diana was born in Rome, Diana works in Anguillara Sabazia (Rome) and Paris. He started his artistic activities in the sixties, following the Roman School of neofigurative painting, and in '67 he organised his first personal exhibition. In 1969 he worked with an avant-garde group (CAP comité d'action plasticien) experimenting and applying collective painting on political themes through the production of "affiches" (posters), destined for public exhibition and street debates.
The originals of these posters are conserved in the “Musée de la Publicité" of Paris. In the seventies he started to transfer his experience to Rome, collaborating with the gallery "Il Babbuino" in Rome, at the same time exhibiting in many collective exhibitions in Paris, including the "Salon de la Jeune Peinture" and "Figuration Critique". 1979, in company with the artists Dégo and Di Bartolo, sharing similar backgrounds but holding diverse creative ideas, he formed the "Non Gruppo". Apart from exhibitions, the group worked on a poetic "Manifesto".
During the eighties he developed his concepts of the ideological divarication between context and human presence, leading to his exhibition "I Luoghi della Cultura" ("The Places of Culture"), held in Rome in 1987. In this installation, painted images were connected with places through projected slides of the same places and with variation of the intensity of illumination. From 1997 onwards he has collaborated with the musician Massimo Bartoletti on themes in the same poetics. In 1997 the book "Maurizio Diana Pittore" ('Maurizio Diana the Painter") was published by De Luca. In 1999 the director Luciano Emmer conceived a short film on the creation of his installation, "L'ultima cena?" (The last supper?). In 2003 he was invited to the Biennale of Alexandria, Egypt, where he presented his installation, "L'Apollo del Tevere?" ("The Apollo of the Tiber?").
In 2004 he was invited to exhibit at the May Salon in Rome. In 2006, with the cycle "Le Chevalier et la Dame", ("The Knight and the Lady), he recomposed the unity of the painted image through the stratification of experiences, people and places, blended in painted collages: images printed on paper, where the human figure remains light and transparent. His works are exhibited in many private collections and part of his graphic art is conserved in the National Library of Paris in the collection of prints from the twentieth century. Meanwhile work continues on the illuminated figuration through installations that use the technique of rear projection. In 2008 he participated in the Salon des Independants at the Grand Palais in Paris, confirming its presence in 2009. In 2010 participates in an international group show in Paris at the Galerie Mouvances. In 2011 he was invited to Hangzhou in China for the "Following the trail of Marco Polo" organized by Italian Artists Association and Hangzhou Cultural Brand Promotion Organization. In 2012 released his monograph "Une figuration illuminée" presented by Gérard Xuriguera.
From 2015 works in the artistic ceramics manufactory "Ceramiche San Giorgio" by Giovanni Poggi in Albissola Marina, where they worked the greatest Italian and foreign artists of the twentieth century, including Lucio Fontana, Wifredo Lam, Asper Jorn, Giuseppe Mignego, Aligi Sassu, etc.
Some of his works are held in public and private collections, such as the National Library of France (contemporary graphics), at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Hangzhou (China), the Museum de la Publcité (Paris ), the Bilotti Museum of Contemporary art (Rende, Italy), the Palace of the Knights of Malta (Venice), the Collection Paolo Marzotto (Vicenza, Italy), the Vatican Collection (Rome), and so on.
In 2016 he exhibited in a collective exhibition at the "Galerie Bohner" in Mannheim; participates in the exhibition "Periscope on art in Italy 2016" to the Ducal Castle of Corigliano Calabro; he participates, with the Gallery "Unique" in Turin at ST-ART Exhibition of contemporary art of Strasbourg and the Contemporary Art Fair of Luxembourg; he participates in the exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Poggi for the 70 years of activities dedicated to ceramics, to the gallery "Alba Docilia" Albissola; finally he partecipates in the “Salon d'Automne International” in Sfax (Tunisie).
In 2017 he received the International Award Galileo Galilei (Pisa)