Renato Montanaro

Of Italian origin, Renato MONTANARO was born and lives in Mulhouse. A former Beaux Arts de Mulhouse student, in 1986 he embarked on courses in Basel (Switzerland), working initially only on sculpture before devoting himself to painting. Nonetheless, sculpture remains his preferred means of expression.

Finding his place in figuration libre, he borrows the handling of sacred figures – the portrait and the nude – from traditional painting. A subtle and successful blend of past and modernity, real and ideal, profane and sacred, which he brings together in audacious harmony. While humour and parody are omnipresent in his works, they in no way detract from the rigour and the mastery of his technique.

Renato Montanaro is a seeker and an inventor. He is renowned for the originality of his sculptures and the audacity of his pictorial vocabulary. He works in sequences, approaching a topic with passion, handling it with imagination whilst looking for innovative and seductive sculptural formulae.

The interest he applies to shape and colour, from which he draws renewed effects every time, makes his painting elegant and distinguished, his sculpture delicate and generous.