BIOGRAPHY
Joe Fnord is the artistic alter ego of Paolo Calbi
Paolo Calbi was born on 21.6.1978 in Turin, he did his secondary studies in the aviation sector, then changed direction and turned into studies in communication and design
For several years, he worked as a foreign salesman and trainer for a company linked to HP, travelling the length and breadth of the third stone from the sun, before changing activity and becoming personal assistant to the photographer Monty Shadow, whom he assisted and with whom he collaborated on the creation of the calendar for Mercedes Benz with Mimmo Rotella, events for Hollywood stars and charity initiatives for important realities in
the world of luxury.
Returning to Italy, in the awareness of an inwardly persistent creative urge, he founded Minardi Company, creating fashion accessories such as belts, bags and the like for various brands around the globe until he felt the need to evolve his creations into a strictly artistic product, in an awareness that saw the transformation of his pictorial passion, always cultivated at an amateur level, into an overbearing expressive need.
The first production ‘in the new awareness’ were the first timid expressive exercises ‘of pictorial commentary on iconic brands and objects’ of today’s society that can be traced back to Dadaism and Pop Art, and then the production of some geometric subjects, with distinct and uniform areas of colour clearly separated from each other by blacklines and geometric figures with very thick contours, clean colours separated from each other that blend through
poly-directional draining, not observing the rules of gravity, or rather of a single direction of gravity; these works, in the creative gesture, represent a metaphor for London, the city in which Paolo, Fnord in the artistic gesture, has lived intensely for years, a multi-faceted place with distant and distinct faces, which at times contaminate each other without a precise rule.
The current production: “the tread series” inspired by a historical Italian company, Pirelli, is a metaphor for the scars of life that become like a cyclic, repetitive, identical tattoo, but gradually more faded, worn, evanescent, that has marked and marks the places we have passed through, that we are passing through and that we will pass through in the future, jeopardising even the immediate future, until we metaphorically change ‘our covers’ or the way we move forward or otherwise decide to stop and enjoy that experience and emotional fulfilment, which some call wisdom.
Joe Fnord is the Paolo Calbi of today, a man satiated and satisfied with his present and past work and entrepreneurial activity, who has decided to experiment as an artist in front of a wider audience than the one before whom he has previously represented the pictorial product created as a hobby, Joe Fnord is a man who wants to tell a story, his factual and emotional story, using colour, symbols and allegory willing to submit himself to judgement, to listen to himself by listening to the critique of his creations, Joe Fnord is the man in search of the occult stone that in the depths of the ego represents the basis on which to begin the endless work of refinement that accompanies us throughout life.
To date, Joe Fnord has never exhibited these artworks in exhibitions open to the general public despite having innovative projects never seen in the art world.
CV
2017 Blackheath Halls London UK Personal Exhibition
2018 Monty Shadow assistant Photography in automotive and luxury
2019 6X8 Turin Italy Personal Exhibition
STATEMENT
My art is inspired by a historical Italian company, Pirelli,
is a metaphor for the scars of life that become like a cyclic, repetitive, identical tattoo, but gradually more faded, worn, evanescent, that has marked and marks the places we have passed through, that we are passing through and that we will pass through in the future,
jeopardising even the immediate future, until we metaphorically change ‘our covers’ or the way we move forward or otherwise decide to stop and enjoy that experience and emotional fulfilment, which some call wisdom.
