These portraits belong to the outsider art category, they are spontaneous artistic expressions.
Mario derives a great deal of pleasure from being, at the same time, a craftsman and an observer.
Abstraction plays an important part in his mode of expression.
It enables him to adjust his perception – where there was nothing at first there gradually emerge shapes for him to capture and work on.
There is no room for cheating here.
One goes right to the essence of things – to pure creativity.
It is Mario’s creative spirit that uses his hands as its tools and his body as its conductive wires which bring matter to the surface of the artwork.
This creativity often leads to the incomprehension one has to face from those who are looking for realism.
Like an autistic person in his bubble Mario has, for fifteen years, relentlessly repeated the same gestures to produce almost identical work.
He tries to avoid offset which could hinder him when playing with colour contrast and trying to create a rhythm. Colours are always chosen at random yet they become representative of the spirit of the different characters. Mario says “Someone like me needs art as an antidote or even as a therapy.
It is like encountering the absolute – looking at flowers turning their heads to the sun and at birds flying for hundreds of miles to create new life, without end”