Tra sé e me (lo sguardo irriducibile), 1985

The author-actor staged at the centre of the room outlined in perspective on the group of nine sheets placed at short intervals is intent on performing a magic trick and finds his own head rolled out along his extended arm, while a real top hat is suspended above on the wall behind the painting. At several points the red pencil diagonals are delineated on torn pieces of white paper prevalently scattered about at the centre. Resounding in the incongruence of the title – derived from the Italian expression “tra sé e sé” and “tra me e me”, (literally, between him and himself, between me and myself) – is the disconnection of the figure and the incoherence of the elements that make up the work.
The male figure wearing a tail-coat – a stylized self-portrait – is a distinctive presence in many of Paolini's works from the 1980s: it covers the role of the master of ceremonies, the spectator-presenter, or the artificer, actor, illusionist (the top hat is another recurring attribute of the wizard-magician). It is associated with the declaredly theatrical dimension that enlivens the works made during this period, correlated with the mise-en-scène of the wait for the work to take place, of its possible manifestations, and of the artifices implicit in its "theatre".