Reconstruction of the Big Apple I | 55” x 55” | Oil on canvas | 2007
From Babel to Basel WAYFINDING: Fernando Vignoli at Oxenberg Fine Art By John Coppola There’s no easy path into or out of one of Fernando Vignoli’s paintings. The Brazilian artist’s work is rife with passageways and labyrinths, doors and windows that are blocked by stone walls yet swathed in light, symbolizing the possibility of escape. Looking at his paintings, writes John Ensley Hooker, who contributed to a recent monograph about the artist, “is like walking through a labyrinth of walls painted by him. Either you end up in a dark corner without knowing where to go, or you discover a vibrant view of the artist’s soul.” The persistence in his work of a walled-off yet seemingly attainable landscape arguably reflects the artist’s strict structured upbringing from which his art has provided an escape. As a child, Vignoli attended a military high school under the watchful eye of his army captain father. He later studied architectural design and then visual communication at Belo Horizonte’s University School of Visual Arts before embarking on a career as a painter both in Brazil and the United States. Vignoli currently divides his time between Belo Horizonte in his native Brazil and South Hampton on Long Island, and has exhibited widely in both places (His work has also been shown in South Florida at the Art Palm Beach, Bridge and Red Dot art fairs, and the Armory Art Center). Harvey Oxenberg, photography by Anthony Nader