mario
picardo

Mario Picardo,a former student of semiology,photographs,films and collects traces of our society to feed a library of signs and forms at the heart of his many drawings. Educated by American painting and the popular culture of the 90s, he uses this vast survey as a basis for his paintings.

Growing up alongside his father, a house painter, Mario Picardo inherited an attraction for building materials like polyurethane, largely preferred to those of the Beaux-Arts.

The urban landscape is a daily inspiration source for Mario Picardo. Whenever he’s moving in town, he draws his phone to shoot, film and collect hints of our society. Be it a simple food wrap or abandoned object, everything comes together to form a library of clues and shapes fueling the many concepts that will later fill whole sketchbooks.

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This is from this well of references that Mario Picardo, himself passionate about semiology, American painting and the 90s’ popular culture, draws the inspiration to paint.

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However, his work couldn’t be narrowed to a mere reproduction of what he’s seen and collected in his notebooks : in the serenity of his studio, the painter dedicates all his energy to express the shapes and signs of the city on large canvas, patchworks etc.

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In his creations, flashy colors meet with black, sober elements on various supports such as re- coated elements, stretched on frames, paper, fulfilling the artist’s purpose to raise handicraft to the state of art.

Growing up alongside his father, a house painter, Mario Picardo inherited an attraction for building materials, widely preferred over those of the fine arts, and a certain taste for thoroughness.The times he spent in his fathers’ truck, used as a traveling workshop, gave him a taste for optimisation and the reappropriation of spaces and materials.