CROMIE
PIERO DORAZIO: graphic works
GUASTALLA CENTRO ARTE
Via Roma, 45 – 57126 LIVORNO – Tel. 0586 808518
info@guastallacentroarte.com
www.guastallacentroarte.it
INSTAGRAM/FACEBOOK
24 April – 24 June 2026
MAY OPENING HOURS: Tue–Sat 10.00–13.00 / 16.00–19.30
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The Guastalla Centro Arte gallery is delighted to present the exhibition entitled “CROMIE PIERO DORAZIO opera grafica”.
Piero Dorazio was born in Rome in 1927 and died in Perugia in 2005; he was a leading figure in Italian abstract art and one of the foremost representatives of European abstract art.
As the title suggests, the exhibition explores the aspect that, alongside abstract art, is most decisive in Piero Dorazio’s stylistic development: his focus on colour and chromatic variations.
Around 21 works will be on display, including etchings and silkscreen prints—some of large format—from various periods, many of which have also been published in the catalogue raisonné “Piero Dorazio - L’opera incisa (1962-1993)”, edited by Gabriele Simongini.
For Dorazio, printmaking is not a secondary field to painting, but a parallel and complementary space in which he experiments with new ways of constructing the image, and colour becomes an autonomous language, capable of translating the dynamics of vision into sign and light.
The artist’s approach to printmaking began initially as experimentation, but soon evolved into a conscious exploration.
As he himself states:
“Now, in graphic art – whether in lithography or engraving – you end up with a mirror image, a reflection of what you’re creating, something unexpected and unpredictable, so to speak. This is perhaps the beginning of my interest in printmaking, an interest I cannot explain, except through the aspiration artists have to see something that lies just beyond the appearances of what they create; it is something very difficult to explain”*
Particularly significant is the discovery of the chromatic possibilities of etching, which leads the artist towards an ever-greater compositional essentiality and an exploration of light destined to influence his painting of the 1980s as well. Even the medium, the paper itself, becomes an active part of the process, contributing to the construction of the image through luminous vibrations and chromatic rhythms.
The works are characterised by the use of lines, geometries and colours that are calibrated through a careful study and division of space. Dorazio’s abstract art, in fact, stands out for its immediate and direct interpretation: the colour and the geometric movement of the forms coincide with what the viewer perceives.
Throughout his career, Dorazio has explored a wide range of fields (artists’ books, illustration, printmaking and theatre set design), whilst always keeping his exploration of colour at the forefront. The exhibition, running from 24 April to 24 June, aims to explore precisely this aspect, paying tribute to the artist’s experimentation in the field of graphic art: a body of work based on colour, rhythm and movement, in which light and colour guide the viewer on a journey into Dorazio’s abstract world.
*(P. Dorazio, ‘Romero & Co. in Rome’, in "L’arte a stampa", Milan, no. 3, September–October 1978, p. 17.)