Artworks – Rinaldo Invernizzi

2025

Mi prendo cura
(I care)

Rinaldo Invernizzi transforms the hospital room into a silent sanctuary through a revolutionary perspective that places the observer in the position of the patient – positioned in the bed itself, with feet covered by sheets and the triangular support handle suspended above like an icon. This powerful point of view evokes Mantegna’s ‘Dead Christ’, transporting that sacred suffering into our present reality.

At the centre of this exhibition stands the Most Sacred Heart of Christ, made in Murano glass, flaming red and crowned with fire. This powerful symbol connects to a rich tradition of devotion and is also the emblem of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, who have served Clinica Luganese Moncucco, a hospital institution founded in 1900 in Ticino, that for 125 years has embodied a tradition where physical and spiritual care merge into a single mission of healing.

In his mixed-media works on paper and black and white photography, created specifically for Moncucco, the artist depicts the caregiver’s hands with mystical tenderness, recalling Mary Magdalene anointing Christ’s feet – elevating care to a sacramental act. The recurring triangle of the support handle subtly recalls the Trinity, suggesting that strength comes from Above. Through these works, Invernizzi shows us that suffering has redemptive power, transforming the hospital into a temple of Presence where fragility becomes a path to redemption.

2024

PORTE E ARCO NELLA CAPPELLA PORTINARI A MILANO. Un “CREDO” in 40 miniature
(DOORS AND ARCHES IN THE PORTINARI CHAPEL IN MILAN. A “CREDO” in 40 Miniatures)

Rinaldo Invernizzi’s picture cycle on paper, ‘Doors and Arches in the Portinari Chapel in Milan. A “Credo” in 40 Miniatures’, presents an artistic and spiritual exploration that creates a visual dialogue with the rich artistic heritage of the Portinari Chapel – a masterpiece of early Lombard Renaissance as part of the Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan.

The artist created this spiritual exploration, transforming doors and arches from the chapel into symbolic thresholds representing passage between worlds. The series comprises 40 miniatures, deliberately echoing the biblical significance of this number associated with periods of trial and transformation throughout scripture. Through his distinctive style of dark, textured brushstrokes and vibrant gestural lines, Invernizzi explores how these architectural elements simultaneously ground us in earthly reality while projecting us toward divine mystery. Doors become metaphors for the passage from life to eternal life, while arches represent celestial perfection and sacred boundaries between different states of consciousness.

This paper series complements the artist’s 2024 canvas paintings exhibition at the Cappella Portinari, providing viewers with a more intimate exploration of the spiritual themes and establishing a creative dialogue that transcends the centuries.

2024

Omaggio alla Cappella Portinari. Rinaldo Invernizzi – Tra storia dell’arte e spiritualità
(Homage to the Portinari Chapel. Rinaldo lnvernizzi: between Art History and Spirituality)

Rinaldo Invernizzi presents a powerful cycle of paintings inspired by the Portinari Chapel, part of the Basilica of Sant’ Eustorgio in Milan, which combines architecture, sculpture, and painting from the early Lombard Renaissance.

Rinaldo Invernizzi created a picture cycle, conceived as a tribute to the frescoes by Vincenzo Foppa, painted between 1462 and 1468 and dedicated to the stories of the miracles of St Peter Martyr. The cycle also includes two works inspired by the famous dome of the Portinari Chapel, which has enchanted visitors of all ages and backgrounds for centuries with its iridescent colours, offering a glimpse into paradise.

The miracles performed by the Saint inspired this cultured and meditated homage by Invernizzi, who addresses the iconography and architecture of the Lombard Renaissance and the spiritual values they convey. The exhibition represents a unique opportunity to engage with the Portinari Chapel and to perceive the holy themes in a universal perspective, involving current events, from deception to idolatry, from faith to martyrdom, from compassion to care.

2024

Omaggio a Paolo Pagani (Homage to Paolo Pagani)

Rinaldo Invernizzi returns to Castello Valsolda fifteen years after his first exhibition in the church of San Martino where, beneath the stunning vault frescoed by the painter Paolo Pagani, he presented the show titled ‘Sacra Rappresentazione’ (Sacred Representation). This time he is a guest in no less than the home of the famous painter from Castello, who was born there on 22 September 1655, and which is nowadays a museum named after him. This is why his first two paintings in the exhibition are intended as a homage to Paolo Pagani, with the façade elevation of his home, characterized by the presence of the busts of Caesar Emperors, as befits a noble residence, the only one of its kind in the area.

2023

Vanitas con libri (Vanitas with Books)

With ‘Vanitas con libri’ (Vanitas with Books), Rinaldo Invernizzi has created a new, site-specific cycle of paintings for the Libreria Sansoviniana, the historical reading room of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, responding to the rich ceiling- and wall decoration painted by some of the greatest artists of sixteenth-century Venice such as Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.

Central to Invernizzi’s work in this cycle is the book’s iconographic value, as represented in the library’s famous wall paintings of the Philosophers, depicting imaginary portraits of great men from Antiquity, handling large and heavy books. Painted in chromatic tones, from oranges to reds that implode in purple – the splendour of the dawns and sunsets – Invernizzi uses the genre of vanitas to reflect on the transience of earthly pursuits and the eternal value of faith.

The title of the exhibition ‘La mia prima patria sono stati i libri’ (My first homeland were books), was chosen by the artist himself, citing Marguerite Yourcenar, the French author, who describes in her famous Memoirs of Hadrian, a novel from 1951, the confrontation of oneself through books via the voice of her most famous literary alter ego, the Roman Emperor Hadrian

2022

Smeraldo. Antracite. Cobalto. (Emerald. Anthracite. Cobalt.)

Rinaldo Invernizzi’s cycle of paintings ‘Smeraldo. Antracite. Cobalto.’ (Emerald. Anthracite. Cobalt.), shown in the splendid setting of Palazzo Martinengo, parallel to the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia 2022, is an ode to the artist’s beloved city on the lagoon. By extracting the luminous quality of the emerald-green of the lagoon, the anthracite-grey of the night and the cobalt-blue of the clouds, the artist focuses on the subjective nature of these three distinct colours. He approaches the chromatic matter as a complex, autonomous entity which he returns to us in a new emotional form. The resulting compositions are obtained by ‘dragging’ the colour, in an approach to painting driven by the rotation of the gesture, producing clotting and thickness, and then ‘racing’ with lines and trails.

As an expression of the alternating play between the clouds and the water, from the first light of day to the dramatic reddening of the evening sky, emphasising a unique feature of the lagoon – the leaden lustre of its storms – in tones which have more the persistence of gemstones than the elusive shimmer of the sea, these paintings appear as images that seek in some sense to orchestrate the indecipherable hierarchy between the sky and the sea.

2021

Le stagioni e rovi (Seasons and Thorns)

In ‘Le stagioni e rovi’ (Seasons and Thorns), Rinaldo Invernizzi celebrates the cycle of the seasons through variations on the theme of landscape. ‘Du paysage’ (On Landscape) introduces his paintings to the musicality of time, accompanying the 2021 music festival ‘Dans les Jardins de William Christie’ (In the Gardens of William Christie), organised by the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants.

Lush green, deep blue, intense yellow and fiery red evoke distinctive images of spring, summer and autumn. Conspicuously absent is winter, replaced with a series of paintings characterised by thorns, following those of autumn. By applying the paint with thick, energetic brush strokes, the artist uses paint not only for colour but also for its expressive quality as a substance.

The monumental vegetation, mysterious and playful at once, reveals and hides, suggesting other presences: a flower, an insect, a shimmering light, a hidden egg. A landscape, that even in its thorny expression, is alive; a fertile ground for constant renewal and growth. A landscape of ‘hope.