Sebastiano Zanetti
Sebastiano Zanetti lives and works in Verona. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona, Brera, Milan and Venice where he specialized in Visual Arts and Entertainment Disciplines. In 2005/2006 he worked at the studio-ateliers of the Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation, Venice. His research in a constant parallel between art and architecture is covered by sector magazines such as Flash Art, Arte e Critica, The Plan, Area. He is invited to present his work at numerous conferences including “Real Presence floating sites”, Istanbul, Türkiye.
His works are present in important exhibitions and private collections in Italy and abroad: among others, we remember his participation in the “X Venice Architecture Biennale” with the project “CZ _VPI 2006” and in the 4th and 5th edition of the European Biennial of Contemporary Art of Nimes” (FR), the exhibitions with the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation and the SPAC of Buttrio (Ud). He is also the creator and curator of visual art, design and architecture projects: including the two editions of “Vrban, urban installations” for the Municipality of Verona, the “Quaranta per Quaranta, circa” project at Pad Verona, “End to end, the golden age” for “Galleria Fuori le Mura” and “Maledetti Albanesi” for the Municipality of Mantua at Casa del Mantegna with arch. L. Marastoni. In 2014 he is the author with arch. Michele De Mori of the book “Verona Writers, Aerosol Art Scaligera from 1984 to 2014” for the Cariverona Foundation.
“Starting from the early nineties until 2004 I only painted: on various supports with multiple techniques and on the walls with sprays, painting as arts in the search for formal and conceptual answers”.
In the early 2000s there was then a shift towards photography, installation, video up to design and architectural planning, linguistic diversity to allow a necessarily changing work that never stopped on achievements, welcomed and followed with interest not only in the artistic field.
However, 2021 marks Zanetti’s return to painting as a preferential medium. revealed a painting composed of glazes, where the bright colors are achieved by addition with the underlying layers: acrylic, quartz and oil colors dialogue with a brush and sprayed with sprays. Sometimes the surfaces are defined as glossy, other times opaque by working on the grain of the paint.
Each painting is a consequence of the previous one, the signs evolve into shapes and vice versa, the flat backgrounds compose organic images in complementarity to compositional geometries often filtered by textures.
“I can no longer draw broken lines and sharp angles but only curves to create soft shapes. I don’t look for the “right way”, for the first time I welcome the imperfection, the smudge, the unexpected without correcting it, the unfinished. The detail is not as decisive as in the past, it comes by itself, but “the big design” .
“I cannot draw broken definite lines anymore neither an acute angle but only curves to create smooth shapes. I am not looking for the “right way.” For the first time I receive the imperfection, the “artistic smudge,” I do not correct or adjust the unexpected neither the unfinished. The detail is not significant as it was in the past, it arrives on its own, but The Great Drawing is the key!”
“They are the most sincere works I have been able to paint, free from any superstructure they do not want to prove anything but themselves. I searched and found among my colors and lines. They are biographical canvases that speak to the present, for each of them something has happened.”
“These are the sincerest works I have ever painted, free from every structure, they do not want to show anything rather than their true self. I have been looking and finding a way through my colors and my lines. They are biographical canvases that speak in the present and for each of them something has happened.”
“This is how works are born with ethereal and playful settings where more or less defined organic shapes seek their place in a continuous exchange between background and foreground, the textures float and filter the compositions.”
“Works with ethereal and playful settings are born where more or less definite living shapes look for their own place in a continuous exchange between background and foreground, where the “texture” float and the arrangements emerge.”
