Before our eyes, dramatic scenes of cosmic cataclysm unfold in windswept terrains. Imposing, sculptural figures dominate the foreground of Tonda’s paintings, vividly capturing the push and pull of an invisible force at work. Lorenzo Tonda draws his inspiration for the title of his exhibition at Gallery Poulsen, Tales from the Last Days from the renowned Apocalyptic fresco cycle created by Luca Signorelli between 1499 and 1502 in the Chapel of San Brizio at Orvieto Cathedral in Umbria, Italy. Like Signorelli, Tonda commits his attention to the bodily expressiveness of the human form. Tonda’s meticulously detailed works that depict events of perseverance, turmoil, upheaval, destruction and defeat, serve as a powerful reflection of contemporary humanitarian crises.
His paintings and sculptures tell a story, starting with an echoing of Signorelli’s “Resurrection of the Flesh” in which Tonda’s figures similarly emerge from the earth only to be reabsorbed by the ground at a later stage. Will these figures succumb to external forces, or will they adapt and triumph over these challenging environments? In addition to the influence of Renaissance masters, Tonda is also inspired by the sculptural figures of Gustav Vigeland at Vigelandsparken in Oslo. Both Tonda’s paintings and 3D sculptural works emphasize the protective bond experienced between mother, father and child as they highlight the resilience of these relationships and importance of humanity.
“In this series of works, I focus on the human figure and its passive interaction with the unsettling force of the wind," Tonda says. "The elements in each painting are few but prominent: bodies, trees, clothes, clouds and hair - all of which convey the obsessive presence of a fierce wind that animates the scenes and torments the figures. Everything is unified by a muddy, barren terrain that, in the first painting ‘gives birth’ to a group of figures.”