Giuseppe Penone

A sculptor and draftsman, Penone gained recognition in the 1960s as part of the Italian Arte Povera movement, which favored the use of nonartistic, everyday gestures and materials. Most of his work is devoted to an investigation of the relationship between man and nature. This drawing belongs to a group of works entitled Gesti vegetali (Vegetal gestures), in which Penone fuses human forms with plants. In the drawings, fluid lines explore poses and gestures of the body that evoke the act of growing. In the related sculptures, the lines are cast in bronze, in a process that the artist has compared to fossilization, and plants fill the hollows, merging the human figure with nature.