Exhibition Details

Cardi Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by Italian artist Davide Balliano. The exhibition will open to the public from January 19 to March 26, 2022 in Corso di Porta Nuova 38.
Through an important corpus of new and unpublished artworks produced in 2021, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to discover the artist’s visual language and to deepen his investigation regarding formal problems, in balance between the severity of geometry and the warmth and weight of human experience. The systematic study of movement - understood as the commanding motion of nature, the inescapable rhythm of history - leads Balliano to produce the series Untitled, artworks in black and white on linen canvases.
In these oeuvres Balliano ceases to work on wooden boards and begins to use linen canvas, a light material that allows the texture of the pictorial material to emerge as a primary element, meanwhile giving the artist the chance to work more freely than with the limits imposed from the wooden support.
The intense interaction of black and white is a fundamental element of Balliano’s aesthetic, which does not reject color, but rather is constantly contemplating it. At a first glance, his artworks appear precise, well-ordered and methodical, but on a closer examination, the application of black comes to life with scratches and abrasions that transform the austere surface into a highly material work, with sculptural results, highlighting how the unceasing encroachment between painting and sculpture is a fundamental element in his research.
About David Balliano
Davide Balliano (Turin, IT 1983) is an artist whose research operates on the thin line of demarcation between painting and sculpture. Utilizing an austere, minimal language of abstract geometries in strong dialogue with architecture, his work investigates existential themes such as the identity of man in the age of technology and his relationship with the sublime. Through a practice that is self-described as monastic, austere and concrete, Balliano’s meticulous paintings appear, upon first glance, clean and precise. However, closer inspection reveals scrapes and scratches that uncover the organic wooden surface underneath the layers of paint, as a decaying fa ade of abandoned modernistic intentions. In addition to painting, Davide Balliano is also known for his sculptural work, which translates the visual vocabulary found in his paintings into solid objects, often in stainless steel or ceramic. Originally trained in photography, Balliano shifted to painting and sculpture in 2006 while relocating to New York City, where he currently resides and works. Recent solo exhibition include : Tina Kim Gallery, New York (2021, 2019, 2017), Museo Novecento, Firenze (2019) Dirimart Gallery, Istanbul (2019), Marca Museum, Catanzaro (2018), 39 Great Jones, New York (2018), Luce Gallery, Torino (2017 e 2015), Timothy Taylor Gallery, Londra (2015), Room East, New York (2014), Rolando Anselmi Galerie, Berlino (2014 e 2012), Galerie Michael Rein, Parigi (2013), Location One, New York (2011), Lo spazio degli artisti, New York (2009). His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Magazzino Italian Art, ColdspingNY (2020), Tina Kim Gallery, New York (2019), David Zwirner Gallery, New York (2015), Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (2014 e 2010), Museo Madre, Napoli (2012), The Watermill Center, New York (2011 e 2009), MoMA PS1, New York (2010), Espace d’Art Contemporain de Castello, Castellon, Spagna (2010).