Stefano Bombardieri (Brescia, 1968) is the artist, part child and part shaman, who steals gigantic rhinoceroses from their habitat and, thanks to a system of material tie rods reminiscent of objective art, makes them float in the void.

Suspended between earth and sky, imprisoned in a touching and proud immobility, its protagonists wait for their destiny to be fulfilled, for better or for worse. Or at least to know what will become of them.

Many have wanted to interpret his works as a heartfelt appeal to safeguard endangered species, also due to the inclusion, in the cyclopean installation The Animals Count Down in Pietrasanta, of timers indicating the number of remaining specimens, positioned right on the belly of each maxi-sculpture.

The truth is that the environmentalist aspect is only a consequence. Because, in reality, Bombardieri's works talk about man. A bit like Aesop's fables, the artist uses the animal world to investigate the behavior of the human soul when the unexpected happens and that more or less satisfying but nevertheless certain life finds itself suspended. , stop, motionless.

Alongside the Rhinoceros whose title, The Weight of Suspended Time, is in itself the key to understanding, Stefano Bombardieri plays with sumo wrestlers, trucks, gorillas with human features and heavy whales dragged by tiny girls, a metaphor for the existential weight of fears and aspirations that, little by little, enslave us.

In this psychoanalytic zoo, the artist draws on memories of childhood games and the inspiration of the moment. The idea of ​​the rhinoceros, for example, comes from a scene in Fellini's film - E la Nave Goes - where a lovesick rhinoceros is loaded onto a ship bound for America.

For Stefano Bombardieri, a bit like it was for Beuys, art is a medicine, a balm to exorcise and cure the human soul from the effects of the lights and shadows of life. Lights and shadows which, translated into sculpture, manage to touch and heal the hearts of those who look at them.

Son of the sculptor Remo Bombardieri, Stefano grew up in his father's atelier where he learned all the secrets of the technique.

In addition to galleries, he has a predilection for public spaces, squares, gardens where his works blend with the city. He has exhibited enormous installations in Ferrara, Faenza, Bologna, Saint Tropez, Portofino, Milan and, of course, in his beloved Brescia.

In 2009 he invaded the splendid square of Pietrasanta with his animal sculptures in the solo show "The Animals count down". He participated in the 52nd and 54th Venice Biennale.

In 2021 he arrived in Russia, in a solo exhibition in the contemporary art museum of St. Petersburg.

Of his maxi sculptures, mainly in glass resin, he also creates small versions, adored by collectors all over the world.

Conteso, adored by collectors and galleries, is certainly one of the most promising and rising contemporary sculptors on the Italian and international scene.

Critics and experts recommend buying it now before the ever-increasing prices reach the Olympus, and the number of zeros, of the big names.