2009-01-20

Art at PoggioVerrano: Armando Tanzini, the connection between Maremma and Africa

A few years ago during one of my stays in Kenya, Africa, I met a very special artist: Armando Tanzini .

At the time my winery Poggio Verrano was under construction and I found Armando’s art was what I was looking for: a touch of the Etruscans from Maremma mixed together with the emotions of Africa, Kenya where human life began.
We show six pieces by Armando; the last one is a painting titled “Etruscan girl” which you can see in progress in the video clip.

Armando Tanzini dedicated all his soul, hearth and art to Africa “I love Africa, I love it for its endless quality but also for its defects”.
In his works you can find the extraordinary strength and all the emotional part of the continent where everything began.
He was born in Livorno (Maremma, Tuscany); he spent part of his life studying art first in Florence, then at the Academy of Art in Rome and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris; at the end he settled down in Malindi, Kenya.
His works deal with ancestral Africa and describe a world made of powerful colours, shapes and fields.
“There is an Etruscan part in me and I am confused when I think where I come from and where I am going, but I am sure that what brought me here is their art; I mixed this Etruscan art rooted inside me together with the art I discovered here in Africa, they overlap, they coincide”
These stories, that describe lands very far from each other, enclosed in a unique opera that has many symbolic meanings, both narratives and graphics.
In his works, that deal often with different materials, we can experience the African continent in all its extraordinary beauty.

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