By Giorgio Chinea Canale e Cartlo Borloni
Lost Paradise is an immersive experience that weaves together installation, performance, and painting into a journey through a post-apocalyptic world, where youth endures as the final form of rebellion.
The exhibition revolves around 15 silhouettes of JonnyBoy, painted wooden figures that embody the survivors of a fragmented humanity, each with a distinct identity and a symbol that tells their story. The installation unfolds within a dystopian scenographic environment, where the audience is confronted with a cage.Inside are the “Clever Ones” — those who accelerated the downfall of the world through their cynicism and opportunism. They are the effigy of a humanity that has devoured itself, stripped of every mask except the one that reflects its guilt.
“Lost Paradise” - Assab One, Milan, 2025.
The cage is not merely a boundary, it is a mirror. Whoever looks inside sees themselves,because the difference between who is inside and who is outsideis only a matter of circumstance, a question of time.
The “Clever Ones” are consumed, reduced to nourishment for what remains, because every system that self-destructs eventually get sreabsorbed into the cycle of survival.
This is not simply an exhibition, but a collective performance, where the audience moves through a space that is both ruin and rebirth—a metaphor for the contemporary condition.
Artworks, Acrylic on shaped wood.
Artworks, Acrylic on shaped wood.
“Lost Paradise” - The Cage.
“Lost Paradise” - The speech of God.
"I gave you everything. You destroyed it all. And now you wander among the ruins, trying to remember.
I gave you life, I gave you light, the sky, the joy of play. I gave you hands to create and eyes to see.
And you? You scorched the earth, blotted out the sun, buried your own innocence beneath layers of dust and rust.
Now here you are, amid the wreckage of a world you let rot.
Look around you do you like what you’ve done?
Interview by Carlo Borloni with Giovanni Motta
1. What is the origin of JonnyBoy and what does he mean to you?
JonnyBoy was born from the need to remember, to recover what time and the world try to erase. He is the child who lives inside me, inside you, inside all of us. He is not nostalgia, nor regression. He is a journey—a reverse rite of passage. He is the uncorrupted soul, the echo of who we were before the noise of the world buried us in dust.
JonnyBoy is a flame in a dark room, a voice screaming into the void: “I’m still here.”
2. How does the concept of the "inner child" intertwine with the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the installation?
Because the child always survives. In the fire, in the ruin, in the dust of a fallen world—the child endures.
He is the last survivor. While adults build empires only to destroy them with the same absurd speed, he keeps playing among the rubble.This installation is a reflection of an era that has self-destructed, but in the midst of nothingness, JonnyBoy remains—the witness of a world that refuses to die.
3. What visual, literary or cinematic influences inspired this series?
There’s Mad Max and Blade Runner, the lucid madness of Alice in Wonderland, the lost innocence of Stand By Me, the visions of Moebius, the cruel and beautiful aesthetic of Akira, the inner strength of Conan, the Boy in Future.
There’s the melancholy of Joe the Boxer and the magical irony of Haran Banjo. But there’s also something more ancient: the loneliness of Pinocchio, the dream of Peter Pan, the wandering of Ulysses. JonnyBoy is a little hero on a never-ending odyssey, a fugitive in a broken universe, a survivor who still wants to laugh.
4. What guided you in the choice of materials and shapes for the JonnyBoy silhouettes?
The material has to be alive, it has to breathe, it must bear the scars of time. Wood preserves memory, it tells its stories through every grain. The forms are simple, essential—because JonnyBoy doesn’t need ornaments, he’s a primordial icon. Each silhouette is a fragment of a broken dream, a piece of a puzzle that may never find its place, yet will continue to exist.
5. How has your representation of lost childhood changed compared to your earlier works?
At first, it was a return—now, it’s survival. I used to search for the inner child like one searches for buried treasure.
Now I see that he was always there, just quieter, more resilient. Lost childhood is no longer just a bittersweet memory—it’s a struggle. Each artwork is a manifesto of resistance against oblivion.
6. Are the wreckage and debris in the installation merely scenographic elements, or do they have symbolic value?
They are scars, the bones of a dead time, the remains of a shattered illusion. They’re not just a backdrop—they are proof that something happened, that the world was alive before it imploded.
Each piece of debris is a relic, a fragment of a story JonnyBoy collects and carries with him.
7. What is the viewer’s role in this installation? Should they simply observe, reflect, or interact with the works?
The viewer is a traveler. They cannot just look—they must feel, they must get lost. They must recognize themselves in JonnyBoy, see their reflection in his shapes, his colors, his scars.If they feel nothing, then they’ve forgotten everything.
And that would be the true apocalypse.
8. Is JonnyBoy a universal symbol, or does he tell a more personal story?
JonnyBoy is me, he’s you, he’s anyone who still has a spark inside of who they once were. He’s personal because he was born from my own story, from my memories, from my dreams. But he’s universal because every person has a hidden child somewhere,and JonnyBoy is the key to finding them.
9. What is the meaning behind the contrast between destruction and innocence in this installation?
Destruction is inevitable. Innocence is indestructible. That’s the point. The world can collapse, cities may turn to dust—but the inner child remains. JonnyBoy is the proof that the soul can survive even the apocalypse.
10. How did you structure the viewer’s journey through the exhibition space? Are there elements that guide the experience?
The viewer has no map—only instinct. The installation is a nonlinear journey. There are reference points, fragments of stories,but everyone must build their own path. Chaos is an integral part of the experience, because JonnyBoy’s world is not a museum— it is a battlefield of memory. Anyone who enters must be ready to lose something, and maybe, to find something else.
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“Swanee” |
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“Kyashan” |
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“Jordan” |
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“Jesus” |
“Lost Paradise” - Editions - Handcrafted framed art prints.
“Lost Paradise” - The Banquet of Irony.
The Banquet of Irony: Catering as an Extension of the Artwork
In Lost Paradise, the catering was not a separate service—it was an integral part of the artistic installation. It acted as a performative gesture, conceptually woven into the narrative. The “Cunning Ones” — masked figures trapped in cages, symbolic culprits of the world’s collapse — were metaphorically sacrificed to preserve what was still pure: the abstraction of youth, embodied by fifteen Pop-styled versions of JonnyBoy.
Outside, at the LOST PARADISE BAR, visitors were offered a grotesquely ironic menu: Cunning Balls, Cunning Blood, Cunning Piss, Cunning Teeth, Cunning Tongue. Despite their disturbing names, each dish was entirely vegan.
Carefully prepared with artistic intent, the menu carried forward the experiment’s tone of dark humor and subversion.
The audience was not merely observing—they unknowingly became part of the artwork. While eating, laughing, and taking pictures, they were participating in a symbolic act of collective justice. The installation didn’t end with the sculptures or the cages—it extended to taste, to action, to the body itself. The boundary between art and life was consciously dissolved.
“Lost Paradise” - The Banquet of Irony.
Credits:
Production: Basement HQ
Art director: Carolina Stamerra Grassi
PR: Roberta Dalla Bona
Critic: Giorgio CHINEA Canale
Curator: Carlo BorLoni
Director of Photography: Daniele Savi
Food Design/catering: ZIGA bistrot - Marcella Bianchi
Scenic Engineer: CESARE BIANCHI
Web Developer: FABIO GARDINI
Art structure service: Eurofashion Verona
Set construction: Adami Siderurgica
Typography: Grafiche Aurora Verona
