Vatican Museums

Realised by Paladino in 2011 specifically for Benedict XVI’s sixtieth year of priesthood and included in the exhibition held to commemorate the event, Source demonstrates the innovative and multi-faceted research that the artist has carried out since the 1970s. Keen to experiment with all techniques, from 1979 he began to devote himself to engraving, followed by a move towards sculpture, and finally to installations and urban art in the 1990s. Source combines painting and sculpture: from the two-dimensionality of the small gilded panel, on which Paladino depicts a male face in a primitive style, the fiction comes alive: a fine, articulated branch that, in contrast with the surface from which it emerges, extends naturally to occupy the surrounding space.