Morandi Rocks

Giorgio Morandi holds a special place in the heart of every painter. His small, modest-looking paintings of everyday cups and bottles open up worlds of the imagination. He made painting after painting of the same cups, pitchers, boxes and bottles for decades. But each painting is a world unto itself, a miracle of the imagination. One sees cities, towns, families huddled together, parades. You see pretty much anything your imagination is up for. Morandi’s use of shape and color are masterful.

I have long wanted to create a project that pays homage to Morandi. This project is a consists of a set of sculptures- based on the shapes in Morandi’s paintings. They are inspired by rocking-horse toys. Viewers can play with them, rock them and in this way, physically interact with Morandi’s paintings and see them brought to life. You can rearrange the objects to reconfigure the composition of the painting.

One of the interesting elements of this project is that it relies on the objects having rounded bottom edges. These are found in many of Morandi’s generally cylindrical subjects. Getting these bottom edges rounded fully is one of the challenges that students in beginning drawing classes often face. The tendency is to make the edges fairly flat. The project highlights this quirk in a humorous and accessible way.

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