Critics / Press

The Synergy of Sons

Lorenzo Chinnici and David Kent: two artists, two nations, two parallel worlds, meet again after forty years in Milan and London and create the project "The Synergy of Sons."

"The Synergy of Sons" is the title of the project born from the passion of two sons of art that, after a random meeting that occurred in June of this year in Brick Lane, the heart of London art, have collaborated their effort into creating an art project that starts from the experience and the chance meeting of their parents: two artists, two parallel worlds, two nations Italy and England, Lorenzo Chinnici and David Kent.
The project aims at the construction of two cultural events in Milan (Six Inch, September 29 to October 5) and London (Menier Gallery, November 2 to 7) in which will exhibit the works of the Italian master Lorenzo Chinnici with the English surrealist/pop artist David Kent.

It was a usual wet afternoon in London, in June of this year, when the son of Lorenzo Chinnici across the many picturesque streets of the British capital, was on vacation for a few days in London. It was during his stay in something seemingly extraordinary happened:
He decided to stop off at one of the many inviting local galleries in Brick Lane, driven by the desire to show his friends a painting, exhibited on the walls of a room, that he was particularly impressed by.
Suddenly, just as the son of Italian artist insisted on deep cobalt blue and the elegance of the lines intersected, a man in his forties, suddenly interjected into the conversation, trying to interpret in turn the beauty of the painting.
The man was not slow to come forward with his views, his name was William, and was the son of the renowned English artist David Kent.
After a few moments the ice broke between the two men, and the son of Chinnici, in particular, felt an intense empathy and decided to reveal to William that his father, Lorenzo Chinnici, was a famous artist.
What happened at this point was a once in life time feeling for William, who froze and stared in disbelief at Chinnici's son, as his father talked all the time of a master artist he met 40 years ago in London and also at the same venue, surely this was too much of a coincidence it could not be the same artist? The chances of meeting was a million to one shot, was this fate?
Lorenzo Chinnici that night phoned his friend of 40 years, David Kent who was stammered in astonishment and emotional amazement. Forty year ago, since they last spoke.
A young Lorenzo Chinnici exposed one of his first works in a group exhibition alongside those produced by David Kent. On that occasion, the two did not lack appreciation and courtesies that, quite naturally, that culminated in friendship, in spite of themselves, they had no chance to grow.
The son of the two artists, united by the emotion of their meeting, decided to give a deeper meaning to that point and thought of developing a project with the objective to meet again after forty years the two fathers, along with their art, and a symbol of their friendship and the union of two great nations, Italy and England.

The project consists of the playing of famous sax player Florencio Cruz, An Argentinian musician who fell in love with this story and the artistic style of the two Masters, and will accompany them as a testimonial.
Lorenzo Chinnici is now a painter visually impaired: hit by maculopathy, he lost his sight in one eye while the other had visibility reduced by 40%, vice destined to degenerate from year to year. Nonetheless, his energy and his strength still allow him to achieve great masterpieces. Similarly, albeit mild, David Kent, has glaucoma, he continues to create great masterpieces. The artists have chosen by agreement, to donate to the RNIB The Royal National Institute of the Blind and in addition, the Menier Gallery, London the gallery that will host the artistic event, and will also donate the proceeds of the cost of the premises to the charity "Paintings in the Hospital".

E.Cantaro

Lorenzo Chinnici

Some heartfelt figurative presences of Lorenzo Chinnici are situated on colorful landscapes marked with robust paces that well complement the solemnity of certain attitudes.

Giuseppe Nasillo

The real landscape of Chinnici

Chinnici’s painting, homogeneous in its polychromatic drawing, pleases for several reasons. First of all, his painting is clean, geometrically contained within well-defined boundaries that expresses itself in an uncommon mastery of drawing. Secondly, it is not only the drawing itself that gives prominence to the subject but also the choice and combination of colors, not only used as a filler but also as the content in order to express the fullness of things. Third, his paintings bestow a quiet and soothing feeling that make one feel closer to those places that become part of ones aspirations as ideal moments of rest and relaxation.
Maybe there's a message in this definition of the nature “chinniciana”, a message or an invitation: tolove nature more and to feel it as an important element of human life, to respect it and not just to perceive itas mountains of cement and long ribbons of asphalt, cold in winter and hot in summer. Nature expressed by Chinnici reminds me of pastoral elements, green corners looked after by manfor his civic wellbeing, glimpses of marine life kept in order by man with little effort.
It does not seem to me entirely accurate to define Chinnici’s painting as a concrete transposition of reality as a result of a brief if accurate reading of the present. In fact in some of his marine depictions the position of his boats, viewed from any perspective contain a veil of fantasy, an almost dreamlike vision of the images which, in some cases, are purposefully held firm in a precise but non linear outline, almost transfixed in the veiled glow of a pinch of restrained unreality.
Let us look for example at his marine views with their boats and his landscapes with their house’s. Here Chinnici, rather than merely emphasize his obvious deep love for nature, also attempts to communicate with it. Attempts to establish a sensitive relationship, an exchange of mutual cooperation, as if to say “ nature I'll give you life, and you man help me to be remain neat and clean, without degrading or killing me”. Perhaps there is also this message in the naturalistic paintings of Chinnici, a kind of color poetry that sings the simplicity of country life and of sea life, to contemplate an ideal of bliss and serenity of the soul, content with what nature provides and that human civilization has not yet spoiled and contaminated.
Neither does it escape consideration that wherever one finds space to consider the framework of a Chinnici painting one becomes pensive and thoughtful, almost religiously respectful of the natural environment in which it is located and from which it draws inspiration, this is exemplified in those paintings depicting old men sitting alone by the marina.
But this is not all there is to Chinnici. His paintings are equally at home in modern surroundings away from the clichés of traditional classicism and can fill a decorative role in any situation.

Salvino Greco

Chinnici Figures

In each figure there is almost always an air of suffering, of sadness, of melancholy. There’s a climate of drama and at times also of tragedy that communicates to the heart sensations of trouble gathered in corners of loneliness exactly like those of certain fishermen and unsmiling matrons. Perhaps in those persons torn by the author from reality, there are memories and visions of a tormented childhood and an insecure adolescence, already witness and heir to the many ruins of war. There are figures who offer one, without recourse to rhetoric other than images, a message, sometimes a reprimand or admonition, to ensure that the end of one war does not become merely the prelude to the next as unfortunately occurs only too frequently. The most recurrent themes are those of suffering and labour. In the picture showing a fisherman mending nets there is also the figure of a seaman who appears to be doing nothing other than gazing out to sea. But who can say that seagazing and thinking is a sign of laziness? This fisherman leaves us to guess the anguish of his thoughts and his unease even though his back is turned to us. He contemplates the waves, the clouds, the horizon and sees that it’s not serene. And so Lorenzo Chinnici, through his characters reveals himself as an artist who manages to give colour to thoughts, and very often they are grey thoughts that are dying, suffocated by boredom, by apathy or by resignation. That resignation which was not pleasing to Guttuso and which in his characters became rebellion.

Nino Ferraù

Chinnici

It is important to mention that many qualities that belong to Chinnici’s masterpieces, are also inside the Artist. He is humble but not shy. He is not a careerist and the other artists do not make him nervous and jealous. He does not envy the fellow who, even with less merit, is higher than him in the official rankings. Chinnici knows that the success does not make the real cleverness of a man. Although he is a self-made man, he is a man of school. He was on the shelves, now he is on the chair, but he obviously knows that the best and the most indelible lessons do not belong to a regular course of study, but to life experiences. In the world of modern Arts, He gives more importance to affections than judgements. With these assumptions, which reflect a maturity and an inner balance achieved, it revealed both in the man and in the artist. Lorenzo Chinnici fits with his art in the overview of the new generations, with that sort of authority that comes from the qualitative energy of the art itself and not from the economic and political centers of power that appear so polluted of bias and injustice.

Nino Ferraù