A mixed media painting by Italian artist Mauro Fornari. This layered abstract features a cream hued background with black, robin’s egg blue, and burnt orange accents. Signed ‘Mauro Fornari MMXXIII’ on the bottom right. Presented in a floating black wood frame. Italy, 2023.

Meet Mauro Fornari, an Italian artist whose passion for painting knows no bounds. Born in 1949, Fornari's journey into the realm of art began at the prestigious Gazzola Art Institute in Piacenza, where he honed his craft before delving deeper into the world of fine arts at the esteemed Fine Arts Institute in Parma.

He later spent his formative years at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, where Fornari's love affair with painting truly blossomed. He trained as a restorationist of frescoes. Inspired by the rich tapestry of the frescoes in Piacenza, a small town nestled in Italy's picturesque Emilia Romagna region, he found himself captivated by the works of luminaries such as Luciano Ricchetti, Luigi Arrigoni, and Ernesto Giacobbi. Their influence permeated his artistic soul, shaping his vision and guiding his hand as he embarked on his own creative journey. 

By the early 1970s, Fornari's approach to art had evolved into a fervent exploration fueled by passion and a voracious appetite for expression. No longer content with mere contemplation, he sought to infuse his paintings with the very essence of human emotion, transforming them into conduits for poetry, feeling, and introspection.

Today, Fornari stands as a master of his craft, a veritable architect of the soul. His canvas serves as his domain, his brush an instrument for carving out the contours of the human experience. With each stroke, he ventures into the vast expanse of the interior landscape, navigating its twists and turns, its highs and lows, and transmuting its essence into a symphony of color and form.

Fornari's paintings speak a language all their own — a lyrical and evocative dialect that resonates with the deepest recesses of the human spirit. Through his art, he invites us to join him on a journey of self-discovery and to lose ourselves in the beauty of the world around us.

On any given day, you will still find Mauro, now in his 70’s, working in his studio, a converted cabinetmaker’s warehouse with tango music dancing through the air as he approaches the canvas with the same fervor he discovered decades ago amid the frescoes of Piacenza.