Il bello ideale, 2005

The point of central intersection between the two orthogonal elements that make up the steel framework is occupied by a chair, set down on a plexiglas sheet. At the eye level of the hypothetical seated figure, a sheet of drawing paper is held by red elastic wires that square the diagonals of the metal framework.
If the Thonet chair alludes to the author (recalled in absentia by way of a chair that is identical to the one in use at his studio), the red diagonals refer to his first painting (Disegno geometrico, 1960, GPO-0001), that is, to the conceptual paradigm that from the beginning has delimited the horizon of his visual field. A horizon that has forever in Paolini’s poetics been overlooked by Beauty, an essential destination, albeit with the awareness that it cannot be attained. Inscribed within the classical tradition that the artist belongs to, the “Ideal Beauty”, mentioned in the title, is the absolute dimension that connotes the work of art: its intimate truth and its profound enigma, which the author always seeks to hold in the trajectory of his own gaze.