Roberto De Pinto

Terlizzi (BA), IT – 1996

Lives and works in Milan, IT.

In 2021, he received his Master’s degree in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Roberto populates the canvas with bodies from the deep Mediterranean. They are the painter’s alter egos, almost self-portraits, idle, immersed in water or in the shade of vegetation; sometimes only parts of faces or anatomical details emerge, while at other times they are depicted in small groups, scantily clad, perhaps due to the heat. They amuse themselves with small flowers that look like something out of a botany textbook or some of Pisanello’s studies. Sensuality dominates, and the techniques he uses become an eroticism of the skin, with tans and shadows on bodies.

De Pinto uses pastels, but especially encaustic, the central technique of his works, which has its roots far back in the history of painting and is inextricably intertwined with magical and miraculous moments in this language, such as the Fayum paintings, which were very important to de Pinto himself. The Mediterranean basin is, in fact, one of his primary sources of inspiration. His characters are depicted in two different tones and follow the classical division into red figures and black figures of Greek vase painting.