Artist Profile

Donatella
Izzo

Donatella Izzo (1979) , lives and works in Milan.

She attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and immediately her interest focused on photography although worked with pictorial interventions.

Right out of the Academy she is the winner of numerous prizes just for painting starting with the first Salon 1° group exhibition at the Museo della Permanente in Milan, the Morlotti Prize in 2007, the Parati Prize in 2009, as well as being a finalist in numerous other Prizes of the period. His technique is striking for the balance and permanence of painting and photography perfectly coexisting. It was in 2007 that he had his First solo exhibition at Obraz Gallery in Milan curated by Mimmo Di Marzio. Over the years, the artist abandons the direct pictorial intervention on the print and refines the technique with an equally original methodology in which painting, cuts, abrasions, collage are incorporated into the final photographic shot: the “No-Portrait” project was born in 2017. The end result is a reproducible photograph capable of including the charm and nuances of different techniques. At the same time, the artist works on a purer photography in technique with the project “The Dreamers” with which he faces international experiences with exhibitions in London (2011), Madrid (2014) Barcelona (2014) Rzeszòw (Poland) (2014) as well as in numerous exhibitions in Italy from 2011 to the present. In 2020 “The Dreamers” is chosen and funded by Fondazione Cariplo for a solo exhibition of the artist at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan.
The artist’s poetics embraces an iconographic universe resulting from the combination of photography and elements with a strong metaphorical value. The nascent image is never purely descriptive but wants to “tell,” through the juxtaposition of opposites, real and
surreal, natural and artificial, sacred and profane, rational and sensory, a deep inner world, capable of guiding the viewer to different levels of understanding, both sensory and intellectual, inextricably linked to the personal emotions experienced by the viewer’s inner self. A narrative that has become fully recognizable and has enabled the artist to exhibit in numerous Italian and international exhibitions, including London, Madrid, Barcelona, New York, Rzeszów.

Solo Exhibition

The Dreamers – Dreamers in the Time of Abandonment
curated by M. Galbiati
Milan – Vento & Associati – Fabbrica del Vapore – 2020 With the Contribution of Fondazione Cariplo and Comune di Milano
Family Tree – The Dark Roots of Identity
Curated by F. Mutti
Pietrasanta – LABottega Gallery – 2017
The Dreamers
Rzeszòw (PL)- Galeria Fotografi Miasta – 2014 The Dreamers
Barcelona – Akashi Gallery – 2014
The Dreamers
Madrid – Espacio 8 – 2014
The Dreamers
Milan – Galleria De Magistris – 2013 Donatella Izzo & Arash Radpour
London – Beauchamp Club – 2011 Transfigurations
curated by M. Di Marzio
Milan – Obraz Gallery – 2007
Sete
Prato – Galleria Lato – 2007

Group Exhibition (Selected)

ART PRIZE.
Museo Della Permanente 2023 Milan
ETERNALITY PRE-RAPHAELITE Von Buren Contemporary 2022 Rome
FOUR STORIES: THE HUMAN VOICE
MIA ART FAIR MILAN 2022
Tallulah Art Studio
NEW WORLD ORDER EXHIBITION
Venice Factory
Venice
CLUSTER
MIA ART FAIR MILAN 2021
Tallulah Art Studio
PLAYTILES- THE INSTANT
curated by P. Madau and R. Farinotti
Issoropia Home Gallery 2021
I AM
WOPART – Collateral Event 2019
Lugano – Tallulah Art Studio
Arcus Pride art
Milan – Clifford Change, 2019
The room where I like to be alone
curated by A. D’Amico
Domossola – Palazzo Silva – 2019
Other Identity
curated by F. Arena
Genoa – First Floor of Palazzo Grillo – 2019 No Face
curated by A.Tricoli
Lana (Bz)) – Kunsthalle Euro Center – 2018 Urban Hub Collective
Milan – Fabbrica del Vapore – 2015
CUBE
Gallery 33
Pietrasanta – 2015
White Cube 33
curated by T. Tommei and F.Mutti
Arezzo – Gallery 33 – 2015
COL-LECTIVE
Barcelona – EspaiB – 2014
PRIME – Not place but vision
Milan – Tallulah Studio Art – 2014
NEW CONTEMPORARY
Milan – Galleria San Carlo – 2014
Digital Show Art Now
New York – Angel Orensanz Foundation – 2013
Basi Prize for Contemporary Art Grosseto – 2012
AAF Milan
with Galleria San Carlo New Contemporary Milan – 2011
Rebirth for Paul
Milan – Museo della Permanente – 2008

We have all been children
Edited by P. Addis and J.Ceresoli
Bari – Fortino di Sant’Antonio – 2008
The State of Art
Milan – Obraz Gallery- 2008
Figurative breaks
curated by Uros Gorgone and L. Di Falco
Rome – b>gallery, 2007
Ionization
Milan – Galleria Obraz- 2007
“Untitled”
Milan – Galleria Obraz- 2007
Parati Prize for Painting
The exhibition of the finalists
Vittuone (Mi) – 2007
Morlotti Prize for Painting
The exhibition of the finalists
Imbersago (Lecco) – 2007
Marco Grassi and Donatella Izzo
Lecce – Riva Contemporary Art – 2007
City of Novara National Prize
exhibition of finalists
Novara – Museo Civico del Broletto – 2006
Take Five
curated by Cecilia Antolini, Chiara Canali, Stefano Castelli, Luca Doninelli, Alessandro Trabucco Milan – Galleria Obraz Milan – 2006

Awards & Nominations.

“Art Prize 2023”
“Premio Parati per la Pittura” – 2009
“XI° National Painting and Sculpture Prize City of Novara” – 2007 “Luigina Manfretti Prize for Painting” – 2006
“Brera Materializations Award” – 2006
“Regional Prize for Engraving – Museum of Modern Art” Gallarate – 1996 “Art Gallery Prize” – 2013
“Celeste Prize” – 2012
“Basi Prize” – 2012
“Morlotti Prize” – 2007
“Celeste Prize” – 2006

Projects

IMPERMANENCE – New Projects on the Image FONDAZIONE FOTOGRAFIA MODENA
a project of Elena Bernardi
ART FOR THE SOCIAL
“Illuminare” a project by Donatella Izzo

Public Collection

Fondazione Fabbrica del Vapore – Milan
Municipality of Novara;
Municipal Museum of Modern Art and Photography Senigallia;

Projects

NO PORTRAITS

“In a reality forcibly based on appearances and the concept of collective perfection goes Donatella Izzo’s works elude those linguistic conventions that and traditional interpretive mechanisms that can revolve around the idea of the portrait and the very perception of the concept of identity.
The artist makes us part of a personal perception of identity-individual and collective-that is now fragmented and deprived of a sense of belonging to the more transcedental side. Izzo’s portraits do not correspond to a copy from life, far from it they go in search of what is hidden behind the appearance of the subject expressing universal feelings almost always related to the perennial and never resolved conflict between being and appearing, between soul and body, between the superificie and the very essence of being.
His shots are an exemplary transposition of the torment and conflict that characterizes the human state.
Far from reassuring, the subjects reflexively accompany us into a dimension of estrangement in which the very idea of imperfection loses its negative value to take on higher values imbued with spiritual meanings.
The focus of the project is shifted to new codes of reading that crumble the classic concept of the portrait understood as a “copy” in favor of an “anti-portrait,” that is, an introspective analysis of the subject depicted, almost always female, a universe from which Izzo draws and to which she pays particular attention. Women suspended in a sacred instant, almost uninterpretable, but still alive because aesthetically remodeledat

Artwork