GIORGIO MIGLIORI was born in Catania in 1947, in a suburban neighborhood, full of craft workshops of sculptors and marble, wood and clay shepers, stimuletions that from an early age led him to develop an early passion for art, creativity and human and manual activities. In 1966 he obtained the diploma of Master of Art, pictorial section, and then enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania, section scenography. From '76 to '79 he taught art education in Varese, continuing to cultivate his interest in painting, particularly favoring landscapes and typical figures of the Sicilian rural environment. For a period of his life, in fact, Migliori lives in the countryside, where contact with unspoiled nature and the activities of rural life deeply influence him, not only in the choice of subjects and colors in his subsequent pictorial production, but also in his way of approaching life as art. Rural life, linked to the immutable rhythms of nature and animals, based on collaboration between individuals, exemplifies a system of values ​​that are largely lost, based on simplicity, sacrifice, devotion and a sense of duty, on the love and respect towards others and towards creation of which man is an integral part and not an enemy and exploiter, as today appears in his race for selfishness and superficiality.

Much of the pictorial production of Migliori actually depicts scenes of family and peasant life, rural landscapes, houses immersed in nature, farmhouses, plowed fields, reproduced with a pictorial style that comes close to post-impressionism, in which the painter, through the chromatic accentuation and the decisive and material trait, tend to represent not only the optical sensations perceived admiring the creation, but the strong emotions they gave rise to, transfiguring them in a poetic and lyrical sense. In the representations of Migliori, life is dominated by the cyclical time that is reborn in the perennial succession of the seasons, marked by the work and fatigue of man, still in symbiosis with nature and its unchanging rhythms. The artifacts of man, the farmhouses, the sheepfolds, the rural churches, the dry-stone walls, are immersed in nature in a marvelous symphony of colors, bright and mellow, where the fields, the grass, the foliage of the trees moved by the wind or parched by the sun, they are outlined with strong, sometimes rough, sometimes dense brush or spatula strokes, in which the colors, alive and warm, juxtaposed with extreme mastery, transmit to us the strong pathos evoked by the earth that for centuries it has cradled us and nourished us with its fruits. Of great importance is the pictorial cycle based on the study of the history of Sicilian pre-industrial peasant civilization, linked to the wheat production cycle, whose decline began in the 1950s, depicted in all its phases, from sowing, to harvesting, to harvesting up to to grinding in water mills, structures now often abandoned and disused as well as those agricultural villages where the peasant population met during the months of work creating a self-sufficient microcosm, and that Migliori through his work wants to bring to the attention of society for to stimulate a desirable architectural recovery, as symbols of our roots and of our ancient culture without which, probably, we would end up losing even the last glimmer of our identity.

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To the landscape themes, Migliori also approaches the social themes with great emotion, in this case through the use of a mystical symbolism and a marked expressionism, almost "Fauvist" in the use of "wild" and violent colors, emphasizing the malaise derived from our so-called "evolved" and industrialized society, that is the absolute lack of humanity and love for others, which decrees the exclusion and marginalization of the weakest social groups, victims of indifference when not of social hatred, now lost in a system of values ​​based on selfishness and the mere search for material wealth.

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In his production, Miglior uses the most varied depiction techniques: oil, acrylic, gouache, charcoal, sanguine, pastel, china; as well as the supports, often worked with archaic techniques to improve the yield and duration of the painting: tablet, chipboard, jute or linen, wood, cardboard, old terracotta tiles. In some cases, the painting of Migliori surpasses in the technique of pointillism, that is the decomposition of colors into small points made up of pure and complementary colors, which together rather than mixed accentuate the division and the visual perception of the colors.

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The great artistic qualities of the best are not limited to painting, as he also excels in the mosaic and in the so-called "poor art", ie in the reuse of materials and tools in disuse (wood, shards, pieces of cloth, plastic, etc.), that, having completed the task to which it belongs destined for, are brought back to life in the artistic composition. Finally, his activity as set designer has great importance, which for decades, starting from the debut with the theatrical work "La Stazione", by and with Sergio Rubini, has led him to collaborate with great success with the most important Catania theater companies.

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Since the 1970s, Migliori's works have been shown in countless exhibitions throughout Italy, winning prizes and awards. Among the many, we remember: the exhibitions at the "Il Cavalletto" gallery in Milan, at the Renault Auto Show in Gallarate (Varese) and at the Cardano Auditorium at the Campo di Varese (1978), the 1st prize at the Estemporanea Cibali Catania (1981), the 3rd prize, expressionism section, at the First National Review of Contemporary Painting "Premio Limone d'Oro" in Bagheria (1983), the 3rd Trophy of impromptu painting, within the IV International Chess Festival " City of Catania "and the 17th edition of the" Maggio Artistico Catanese "(1991). In the same years between Sicily and Lombardy he organized various personal exhibitions. Also important is the exhibition at the "Festa dell'Unità" in Catania in 1991. In 1982, together with other Sicilian painters, he founded the ASCIA, Cultural Association of Sicilian Art Initiatives, with which he will be present on the national territory until the dissolution, in 1984. Among the most important events of the ASCIA, the I National Exhibition of Painting at the Hotel Nettuno in Catania, the I Extemporaneous National Painting at the "International Village La Plaja" in Catania, the VIII Centenary of St. Francis of Assisi in City of Bugnato (La Spezia), the Art Exhibition and Poetry Symposium in Sarzana (La Spezia), the XVIII Marguttiana at the Cultural Historical Center “C. Finelli ”of Carrara, the Third Collective of Art at the“ Fontanarossa ”Military Airport of Catania, the Contemporary Art Exhibition at the Palazzo della Borsa in Catania. The personal anthological exhibition "Twenty years of activity" inaugurated in 1993 at the premises of the artistic-cultural association "Il Ridotto" in Catania represents the last of the period: the painful theft that occurred in this circumstance, which deprives it of almost all his production leaving him with only thirty pieces, pushes him in fact to devote himself mainly to his second passion: the scenography. After a debut with the theatrical work "La Stazione", by and with Sergio Rubini, Margherita Bui and Ennio Fantastichini, he designs and realizes sets at the company "Quarta Parete" of Costantino Carrozza until 2008. To date, he collaborates with various Catania companies.

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Resuming full pictorial activity, from 2009 to today he has participated in many exhibitions and exhibitions, among which we recall: the International Exhibition "AEM" organized by the Italia Arte association in Milan (2011), the V, VI and VII edition of the Cultural Review "Omnia Arte Festival" at the Norman Castle of Acicastello (2012, 2013, 2014), the Collective of Contemporary Art "Arte e Danza al Massimo" at the Teatro Massimo Bellini of Catania (2013), the Review of Contemporary Art "Christmas, Nature and Art" at the Botanical Garden of Catania (2013, 2014), the Review "Quaderni d'Arte ai Minoriti" at the Palazzo dei Minoriti in Catania (2014), the Pictorial Exhibition at the Gallery of Art "Spazio Mostre" of Turin (2014), the Competition for the 300th anniversary of the Treasury of Turin during which it won the third prize for the work "Sognando la Tesoreria" (2015), the Collective "Mettiamoci in Exhibition ”at Piazza dell'Ar te of Turin (2015), the collective "Il Sacro nel Contemporaneo" at the Church of S. Nicolò l'Arena in Catania (2015), the "1st Cenacle of Art" at the Katanè Palace Hotel in Catania (2015), the personal exhibition at the Turin Treasury (2016), the collective "Cromie d'Arte Sacra" at the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Carmine in Catania (2016), the Personal "La Grande Bellezza" at Villa Idria in Viagrande (CT), on the theme of female immigrant (2017), and the two important solo shows held at the Municipal Library "Don Milani" of Turin (2015, 2018). In 2015 he was awarded the career prize "Aquila di Federico II". Since 2007 he has been working as an educator at the Sicilian Rehabilitation Center in Catania, where he teaches young people with serious physical and mental disabilities the art of painting and mosaic.

 

E. C.