Maurizio Lanzillotta
(Italian, born 1960)
Born in Campobasso (Molise, Italy), Lanzillota spent his childhood and teen years in Santa Agata (between Módena and Bologna) moving later to Rávena and eventually settling in Spain. He was greatly influenced by the landscape of his home and of his adopted country, infusing his works with the sense of thick fog and diffused light he fondly remembered from his childhood.
The semi-translucent quality of his surfaces account for the seductive and calming nature of his paintings. His detailed, patient, meticulous work, obsessive to the point of exhaustion, is achieved by eliminating any sign of brushstrokes, smoothing out the pictorial matter and polishing the surface itself until he reaches that "early Italian" patina, superimposing successive and subtle layers of paint until he reaches the desired effect.
Some of Lanzillotta’s most important artistic influences were Giotto, the metaphysical school of Ferrara (especially De Chirico), and of course Giorgio Morandi. But, his greatest influence (more intellectual than plastic) would be Mattia Moreni to whom he owes a question that has been the key to his own freedom of expression: "What is all this prattle about post-modernism when modernity has not yet taken place?"
