Gioni David Parra Italy, b. 1962

Painter, sculptor and set designer. He lives in Viareggio and works in Pietrasanta.

His research, based on stone, is refined over years of work and study aimed at the principles and potential of matter and light, leading to the development of a peculiar type of works, now internationally recognized, defined by the artist himself Bladelight, blades of light: stone, mainly marble in its chromatic and mineral declinations (but also: granite, onyx, quartzite) is in fact worked and translated into sharp sculptural elements that cut through space in height, rhythmic paradigms of abstract derivation that found a sculptural alphabet potentially extendable from the plastic object to the large monumental installation.

In this direction, remember Obelisk of light, made of steel - 12 meters high - and installed in Seravezza (Lucca), while another Obelisk is in Val del Conero; the Bladelight Concert X, which in 2018 entered the permanent collections of the MUPA (International Center for Outdoor Sculpture in Portofino); finally, on the occasion of the solo show at Villa La Versiliana, summer 2021, the new monumental sculpture entitled - Bladelight's theater"Point break" - In black granite, white marble and gold leaf.

He collaborates with prestigious international galleries, including Cris Contini Contemporary, London: here, in 2019, the artist held the solo show "The cutting of light", curated by Francesca Boschieri.

In Italy, among other recent exhibitions, remember: “Abitò con se stesso” at the Museum of the Abbey of Montecassino curated by Roberto Capitanio, with site-specific works (2020-2021); the double solo exhibition entitled “Oltre la Materia” curated by Valerio Dehò, at the Armanda Gori Gallery in Prato and in the Banca Mediolanum branch, again in Prato (2018).

In 2020 he was selected by the critical committee of ArteJeans, a project aimed at gathering a nucleus of Italian and international artists to create works of art with jeans fabric in view of the establishment of a Museum-Archive of Jeans in Genoa: his work, exhibited at the Museum of Villa Croce in Genoa on the occasion of the collective exhibition “ArteJeans. History of a myth in the plots of contemporary art", has become part of the collection of the Civic Museums of the Ligurian capital.

In the summer of 2021 a new solo show of the artist opens at Villa La Versiliana: it is entitled “Le seduzioni timbriche della scultura”, curated by Luciano Caprile and with the support of the Armanda Gori gallery: over fifty works that trace a first anthology of the research of Parra, where the minerality of sculpture blends with the lightness of light and air, in an uninterrupted dialogue between space, time, matter and in the recognizable and unique sign of his language that combines the conceptual and minimalist reduction to physical lyricism and "Warm" of his Bladelights, constantly evolving. Ilaria Bignotti

They wrote about his research, among others: Francesca Baboni, Sandro Barbagallo, Ilaria Bignotti, Giorgio Bonomi, Francesca Boschieri, Vera Canevazzi, Roberto Capitanio, Luciano Caprile, Alain Chivilò, Marcello Ciccuto, Daniele Crippa, Alberto Dambruoso, Valerio Dehò, Francesco wrote about his research. Delli Carri, Tobia Donà, Carlo Franza, Caterina Frulloni, Matteo Galbiati, Gabriele Ghisellini, Paolo Levi, Adolfo Lippi, Paolo Mangiante, Leonardo Marchi, Valerio Meattini, Laura Monaldi, Serena Mormino, Luca Pietro Nicoletti, Gianluca Ranzi, Salvatore Russo, Serena Tacchini, Maurizia Tazartes, Maurizio Vanni.