Ricardo Cinalli: Les Fleurs du Mal

Walking into Ricardo Cinalli's exhibition at jaggedart gives a sense of entering an overgrown garden of luscious flowers, stems and thorns. The intensity of the ink and pencil drawings is both overwhelmingly beautiful and disquieting.

Perversity is suggested, yet beauty in subject and in execution prevails. The dark thorns of roses overlap the adjacent blooms and collaged gems sparkle. Yet what makes Cinalli's images so poignant is his attention to detail. He perforates the paper by hand, creating thousands of tiny holes, which soar above and around the subject.

The world of fable rises to the surface as figures from mythology dance below blooms of tulips blowing across the paper. Layered inky blues swirl over yellow tones; a hint at the boundary between the real and imagined is suggested.

Cinalli is renowned for his large scale paintings and murals of Renaissance proportions that have been shown all over the world. As part of its contemporary sacred art programme, the diocese of Terni, Italy, recently commissioned him to create a fresco for their Cathedral. This monumental work, The Mystic Net, depicts Christ rescuing hordes of lost souls in a fisherman's net.

These intimate, bejeweled, smaller works make this exhibition at jaggedart unique.