DIEGO SANTANELLI
Diego Santanelli (Naples, Italy, 1965) started his creative path at a very young age. A self-taugh artist, his career have been based on explorations of several pictorial tecniques. After working for decades as a physician, in 2008 he decided to entirely focus on his oeuvre. In April 2009, Santanelli exhibited a series of works that he called “the spatulas” at the Maninni Gallery, in Naples. Then, in May 2009, he exhibited in Paris at the Espace Pierre Cardin, where he had his official artistic debut with his “Hiddenart” series, a body of works based on the combination of collages and thermosensitive enamels.
His current series “Apocalypse” was born in 2013 as a result of his explorations with different materials during his previous series (Hiddenart). Influenced by Pollock’s action painting, the artist reaches to create a technique that he called “branching” based on the principle of “dripping” vigorous masses of painting onto the canvas, allowing the materials to mix themselves at their will. The canvas is covered with several layers of painting, emulsions, enamels and resins whose trajectory over the pictorial surface Santanelli masterfully controls. His ability to control “the pictorial accident” is the core of these works. The name “branching” comes from the process of superimposing and linking layers of pictorial materials over the canvas surface. The result are riches and robust paintings that recall mystical landscapes.