MARIO SAPONARO
Mario Saponaro is a painter whose psychologically charged narratives unfold through a visual language, merging the surreal, the symbolic, and the deeply personal. Drawing on art historical lineages that range from the allegorical intensity of Hieronymus Bosch and the existentialism of Francis Bacon to the cinematic spaces of Neo-Surrealists and contemporary narrative painters like Dana Schutz, Saponaro situates his figures in liminal worlds where the ordinary and the uncanny coexist.
His work revisits the painterly storytelling traditions of the Renaissance and early modern allegory, yet reinterprets them through a modern lens; flattened perspective, heightened color, and theatrical composition reveal both humor and despair. Themes of time, failure, and self-confrontation recur throughout his imagery, often populated by ambiguous, mannequin-like figures trapped in cycles of motion and paralysis.
Saponaro earned his BFA in Studio Art from Stetson University in 2023, along with a minor in Music Performance as a pianist. He is currently pursuing his MFA at New York University, where his ongoing practice continues to explore the tension between expression and silence.
His paintings, rich with allusions to art history’s long dialogue with the human condition, ultimately form a contemporary mythology of selfhood and struggle: the artist as both narrator and character, walking through life while attempting to paint his way out of it.
His paintings, rich with allusions to art history’s long dialogue with the human condition, ultimately form a contemporary mythology of selfhood and struggle: the artist as both narrator and character, walking through life while attempting to paint his way out of it.
