The urban environment is a daily source of inspiration for Mario Picardo. As he moves around the city, armed with his mobile phone, he never hesitates to film, photograph and collect traces of our society - from simple food packaging to discarded objects - all of which feed into a library of signs and shapes at the heart of the numerous drawings that fill entire sketchbooks. It is from this vast collection that Mario Picardo, himself steeped in the study of semiotics, American painting and 1990s popular culture, sets about painting.
Going beyond the mere reproduction of what he has seen and recorded in his sketchbooks, he devotes all his energy, within the enclosed and private space of his studio, to expressing the outward signs of the city. These can be seen displayed and intermingling on his large-format canvases, collages and so on.
In his works, flashy colours sit alongside understated black elements on re-covered surfaces, stretched over frames, paper or various other supports. This reveals the artist's desire to elevate craftsmanship to the status of art.
Having grown up alongside his father, a house painter, Mario Picardo inherited a fascination with building materials-which he largely preferred to those of the fine arts-and a certain taste for rigour. The time spent in his van, a veritable mobile studio, instilled in him a penchant for optimising and repurposing materials and spaces.
Gaya Goldcymer