The linguistic references to Impressionism such as faces, bodies and light movements by Degas inspire the artist to translate into present languages the dim lights of the Parisian contemporary places starting from 1998. For this reason, Ruggiero Bignardi goes back to his beloved city, where he studies the masterpieces of Degas at the Musée d’Orsay. His crayons become the result of a process. The dust of the crayons lays like time on bodies and faces and gives out the fact that they are just temporary matter. The white tones come up more frequently in his last works, in which the artist transcribes figures and scenes from the late Thirties, and are the expression of a melancholy that permeates his gaze.

According to the artist, “the crayon is one of the techniques that requires the most contact with matter and instrument: it almost seems like colour spontaneously flows from the fingers and gestures, that is, the fluid exercise of the soul that characterizes the painters of the post-WWII years. This results in a hand-matter relationship that can only be compared to the relationship between sculptor and clay, dancer and body, musician and notes.”