[...] A child’s gaze, apparently naïve, pervades much of Paladino’s art as he takes us on a nomadic journey through various traditions and cultures. But Paladino’s art is never exoticist or escapist in its ‘primitivism’: he explores the cultures of the ancient peoples who lived in the Mediterranean area where he too resides. He looks at the agrarian civilization they created with a contemporary outlook, with the gaze of a modern artist searching for the origin of imagery. Human forms, geometric shapes and imagen of animals (horses and dogs) recur in his universe, as well as hybrid figures that are both human and animal, animal and plant-like. Esoteric and hidden elements join references to popular culture in his drawings, paintings, sculptures, installations and environments. He has often associated
painting with sculpture by combining elements of both in works that are at once bounded by the format of a canvas or a frame, and unbounded by growth beyond those limits [...].
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, The Italian Transavantgarde: a Rereading,
in ”Transavanguardia”, Turin, 2002

Selected solo exhibitions: 2003: Christian Stein, Milan; 2002: Valentina Bonomo, Rome; Volume, Rome; Pescheria, Pesaro, Italy; Pecci, Prato; 2001: Waddington Galleries, London, Stein, Milan; Santuario di Oropa, Biella, Italy; Museum of Art, Boca Raton, USA; Thadaeus Ropac, Paris/ Salzburg; 2000: Arispope II, Bruxelles; Mimmo Scognamiglio, Naples; IIC, Prague; Depelmann, Hannover.