After obtaining a high school diploma in classical studies and a law degree at university, Enrico Robusti (1957, Parma - Italy) concentrated himself in the study of 16th century painting technique, above all in connection with Van Dyck and Rubens. Enrico Robusti has been able to narrate with cold pleasure and unforgiving realism, a reality that blends the grotesque touch of a George Grozs or Otto Dix with the caustic ferocity of a new Giuseppe Scalarini, the biting social satire of a John Wonnacott with the visionary skill of Bosch, the confused madness and hilarity that can be traced in the paintings of Bruegel with the exasperation of detail present in the Domenica del Corriere strips drawn by Walter Molino, the caricatural vein of street portraiture with the sheer technical virtuosity of Mannerism, the excesses of Expressionist tradition with the gut laughter of popular jokes.
In his paintings Robusti talks to all of us, of our weaknesses and our hypocrisies, of our quirks and fears, of our ability to relate with the other and with ourselves. Robusti speaks to humanity as a whole, of its misery, of its penchant for paradox, of its inadequacy and of the dissimulation that is enacted in order to conceal it. And he does so - not only with the rhetorical artifice of paradox and alliteration, of excess and caricature - but also with that of metaphor and symbol seen against a backdrop of the seemingly most insignificant of details: Robusti is a symbolic painter who sets traps here and there!
Robusti is a knowledgeable painter, a scathing narrator with a dialectal vocation, a scourge of human frailties, an anthropologist of the rituals of modernity, a painter with a painfully desperate comical side.
After showing his work mainly in his home country Italy, in the recent year Enrico Robusti is spreading his wings with exhibitions in London, Geneva and Vienna and a debut in the spring of 2012 in Utrecht, The Netherlands at Morren Galleries.
EXHIBITIONS
1986 De Rerum Natura, Galleria Consigli – Parma, Italy
1991 Ritratti a cura di Federico Zeri, Galleria consigli – Parma, Italy
2004 Bar Italia, Galleria Annovi – Modena, Italy
2004 Participant at MiArt, Milan – Italy
2004 E.R., Galleria Pinxit – Torino, Italy
2005 Il Male,esercizi di pittura crudele a Cura di Vittorio Sgarbi, Palazzina di Stupinigi – Torino, Italy
2005 Il calcinculo che tutto move, Galleria Pinxit – Torino, Italy
2005 Il ritratto interiore a cura di Vittorio Sgarbi Museo Archeologico – Aosta, Italy
2005 Roma Robusta, Studio Merlini-Storti – Rome, Italy
2005 Apollo e Dioniso, Palazzo Municipale – Cortona, Italy
2005 L’inquietudine del volto a cura di Vittorio Sgarbi, Banca Popolare – Lodi, Italy
2006 Bum a cura di Edoardo Cimurri, Galleria Pittura Italiana – Milan, Italy
2006 L’ ironia della Vita, Istituto Italiano di Cultura – Vienna, Ostria
2006 Enrico Robusti, Galleria Davico – Torino, Italy
2007 Antologia della Figurazione Contemporanea, Galleria Figurae – Milan, Italy
2007 Participant Verona Arte – Italy
2007 Partcipant MiArt, Milan – Italy
2007 Cinquecentenario, Casato Antinori – Florence, Italy
2007 Mani in alto in nome della legge! A cura di Vittorio Sgarbi, Galleria del Teatro – Piacenza, Italy
2007 Arte Italiana 1968 – 2007, Palazzo Reale – Milan, Italy
2008 La Fiera delle Verità, Galleria Chiari – Rome, Italy
2008 La Fiera delle Verità, Moretti Gallery – London, UK
2008 Figurae, Arteutopia – Milan, Italy
2008 Figurae, Villa Genoese Zerbi Reggio – Calabria, Italy
2009 Telecitta, Galleria Chiari – Rome, Italy
2009 Anima dell’ Acqua , Ca’ d’ Oro, Biennale di Venezia – Venice, Italy
2009 Quarantesimo sbarco sulla Luna, Piazza del Popolo – Rome, Italy
2010 Colpo di Fulmine, Palazzo Litta – Milano, Italy
2010 Colpo di Fulmine, Broletto – Como, Italy
2010 Paralleli, Sabbioneta Biennale – Italy
2011 Biennale di Venezia, Tese delle vergini Arsenale – Venezia, Italy
2011 Umane Ossidazioni, Pow Gallery – Torino, Italy
2011 Enrico Robusti, Albemarle Gallery – London, UK
2011 Biennale di Torino, Sala Nervi – Torino, Italy
2012 Enrico Robusti, Tox ‘n Co Gallerie – Geneva, Switzeland
2012 Enrico Robusti, Morren Galleries – Utrecht, The Netherlands
