A past and a present featuring changes of homes and jobs, with the goal of renewing passion/commitments/challenges (transferring passions to everyday work). A professional, an entrepreneur in the world, a CEO in Italy… many experiences, many different places and situations. The idea of painting had always existed but been contained as a mere “dream”, never blossoming due to not having enough time and space to dedicate to it in the reality of everyday life.

Everything began to happen in winter 2014 in Menorca, an island which immediately appealed to him, and where he regained a sense of harmony in the island’s peace, simplicity and nature. He travelled there for short periods with his wife, and began to approach painting on canvas. He decided to “go it alone” without referring to specific examples or even studying the works of the most “acclaimed” artists. His objective became discovery, made alone and for its own sake, without the risk and fear of heading down the beaten track and thus feeling obliged to go off it.

He set up a space equipped with basic facilities in the garage of a holiday home where, during the short Christmas vacation of 2014, he made his first works.
For the first two years, he painted during his brief holiday breaks. He progressed, went through and got beyond various phases, learning to paint without studying, and with a single gift – his passion- and a single objective: to have fun and relax.

At the end of 2016 he took a long break in Menorca, and set up a well-equipped studio, with the intention of moving forward in his research and in his personal creative activity. What he considers the defining moment came after his 54th painting (titled “All you need is fantasy”) – a canvas that he himself felt had been painted for fun. He decided to channel his energy by returning to his childhood fantasies, even in a simple, seemingly disordered way, without polluting himself with the search for order. His artistic practice turned a corner, combining simplicity with a bold process of containment” and “deprivation”. He recognizes this “deprivation” as a requirement and a possible solution of our times, in a world of compromises that’s spinning on itself without knowing how to find linear, simple solutions.

The first works of the series called “Tracce e segni di questo tempo”, and made on panels of wood fibre which he chose, sometimes adding the element of the red Menorcan soil. It was a game on many levels and layers of colour, first concealed and then brought to the fore or removed altogether.

The resulting painted material is not thrown away, but is reused, roughly, on the surface of the painting. Traces and signs of spinning, and at the end of the work, a line of colour, pointing to a simple way out.

The works in the series ‘Gestures and signs of metamorphosis’ are characterised by the inserting of colour (‘line without borders’) into wood through a hole … a search for the natural and a revisitation and adaptation of the past … (a response to a model … that of modern times … which in his opinion did not work and does not work) with inserts of wild olive tree and sawdust and Minorcan soil … all on a panel with corners cut to represent a breaking out of the traditional mould.

“From essence to unfinished”: a new series distinguished by the subtraction of the essence search and characterized by a color line (“line without borders”) that goes to the core (hole made in the work) representative of the essence, of the unfinished, of the unrepresented; a hole … which empty space …indefinite …an element of sharing even with the observer …

The “Recovery of symbols” series was born on impulse stimulated by chance by symbols that interpreted and impressed want to represent in a contracted way some “lines” of the artist’s thought.

The research continues with works “Suggestions”, a series of works created for his brother Massimo that are characterized by a recent new approach to the canvas, the result of the evolution of the inner journey and experimentation. A research that maintains essential elements such as: “subtraction”, “deprivation”, “recovery” … THE ESSENCE “.

In mid-2018 the artist interrupts his work to support his younger brother Massimo in an important fight that will end at h. 23.03 December 4, 2018.

In February 2019 the artist returns to work this time approaching a large canvas, almost representing his will to return to immerse himself in the work titled “Guardiamo un po’”, fourth work dedicated to his brother.

In the works of this new series “IN SEARCH OF THE ESSENTIAL” completed to produce in Spring 2020, the artist seems to catch sight of the way…
It is a new path with the same goal: ‘containment-essence-deprivation’.
The material chosen for the canvas is jute, a poor, rough material made of a NATURAL textile fibre.
The use of chromatic colours is limited.
The size of the canvases, which this time is significant, represents my need to lose myself in and merge with the work, while also leaving empty, apparent incomplete spaces.

Spring 2023 Menorca – “imagine” work just completed

I will speak, and this time I have chosen to write and communicate in the first person.

First, though, I would like to recall some words written about me in the past by friends that may, perhaps, make it easier to understand and justify my latest change of direction.

My friend Federico: “Many lives lived with intensity, passion, devotion, and without too much attachment to what he has become”.

My friend Maurizio: “I am familiar with a maxim that Guido is fond of, a sort of symbolic compass guiding his professional decisions, but also applicable to the inevitable twists and turns of life, a maxim that he has always shared with those with whom he is close: ‘if you keep doing what you have always done, you will end up where you have already been’. The maxim of a free and restless spirit”… “There is an adjective I believe successfully pinpoints the common thread in Guido’s work; it has remote origins, as though from ancient Rome. The Romans repaired marble statues using wax to cover up the defects, the cracks, the chinks. And so Sine Cera was the equivalent of a product created without ruse or deception, and therefore honest”.

My friend Anna Maria: “There is, ultimately, a sort of ancestral self-sufficiency in the works of Guido Profumo, like when one sets off on an expedition. They feature the essential. They feature what is useful, what we find in nature, within us, recovering and recycling internal and external elements, with practical reason and with respect to their essence (as in ‘Naturale, minimale sobrio’): there is always an act of decision, prior to setting sail”.

My friend Pino: “In Menorca I ‘glimpsed’ his mode of making art, in a tireless, almost relentless fashion”.

It has been months since I have felt that frenetic impulse to pour emotions onto the canvas…

Over the past few months, this impulse to paint that had ploughed and sowed me to the point of wanting to discover all aspects of the world in great detail, giving my all to works, catalogues, exhibitions, communication and engagement, has waned.

I am aware that if the impulse to produce and communicate has lessened, it seems consistent to experience my mode of making art more intimately.

A consistent approach that, in fact, if I consider myself from the outside, I was already embracing in my work, by way of a journey I declared was intended to free me of superfluity and excess, a journey of subtraction, towards the ESSENTIAL…

I am now directing this journey towards Nature, and what enthuses me about Nature…

Culture, values, and Art have been, are, and will be, the cornerstones of my life journey, inspiring my every choice.

I am convinced that no friend or acquaintance will be disappointed by this latest change in direction… an updating of the passions that have always defined my life choices: “Sine Cera”.

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future”.
(From the letter by McCandless to his friend Ronald Franz)

Indeed! I now think and feel that my “making Art” must not run the risk of becoming an involuntary expression of security, conformity, and conservatism.

Restless as I am, I no longer seek peace of mind… I embark on this extraordinary adventure that life can offer on condition that we live with sincere passion and enthusiasm.

My thanks to everyone who, over the years, has appreciated my artistic endeavours, and who I hope will continue to appreciate them in this new phase.