Italian artist Francesco de Stefano studied at the Academia de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Venezuela in 1955 and went on to win a scholarship to the prestigious Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, in Milan, Italy in 1959.
After spending the 60’s in Milan, and working very successfully as a set designer with the leaders of Italian cinema which was at the forefront of both visual and dramatic art in Europe, de Stefano returned to painting. In the 80’s he moved to Spain and having lost his desire to work in cinema with its increasing dependence on computerization, he found himself most happy when working with his hands. The focus of his work became the feeling of space attained between the attraction and the repulsion of the force of light.
The paintings in this exhibition were created using a technique called ‘fortezzato.’ The images are brushed with gold and silver and illuminate upon the canvases playing with both natural and artificial light. Landscapes and abstract images have a glowing appearance.
Francesco de Stefano’s use of fortezzato brings an unexpected element to the work making the overall compositions completely unified, the opposite to collage, a form generally associated with breaking the unity of an image. Now in his seventies, de Stefano’s work reflects his training as an architect and his work as a cinema set designer indeed the landscapes have a feeling of being painstakingly constructed or built.
Francesco de Stefano has been exhibiting his works internationally in both Europe and South America and now in Asia.
“To write about my work is much easier than to talk, because the timing is different. In the time of your life you have an incredible quantity of information, they go one on top of another one… all this is in disorder, and they resurface in the form of emotions and events… this is the way to express through painting, emotions from experiences.” Francesco de Stefano
7 March - 5 April 2008
