Arcangelo

Arcangelo was born in Avellino in 1956. He lives and works between Milan and San Nazzaro, in the province of Benevento. In 1976, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he graduated in 1980. It was in his homeland, in the early 1980s, that he created his first cycle of works, Terra mia, dominated by dark and dramatic atmospheres, made with poor, organic materials such as earth, charcoal and pure pigments, which draw a line of discontinuity with the chromatic vivacity of his fellow Transavantgarde exponents. Terramia is a cycle that occupies Arcangelo for several years and lays the foundations of his work, through the elaboration of a fleshed-out gestural sign, which transforms the landscape into an abstract and at the same time sanguine and carnal vision of nature. The motif of the Earth, of the physical and spiritual place in which the signs and symbols of the ancestral tradition thicken, also returns in the many later cycles, enriched and amplified by intuitions and suggestions deriving from the exploration of new cultural horizons. All of Arcangelo's research, writes Ivan Quaroni, "is founded on rootedness and a sense of belonging, and on the sharing of a cultural inheritance, the Samnite one, which he was able to extend and transform, to the point of including the legacies of other places and other peoples". An affection for his place of origin that "has been able to evolve and transform itself into something more powerful and universal, generating a painting with a "global" vocation, populated with suggestions from Africa and the Near East, the Mediterranean, distant China and much more".Arcangelo made his debut in Germany and Switzerland, at the Tanit Gallery in Munich and in Basel at the Buchmann Gallery and with "Perspective", an exhibition on the occasion of ArtBasel, Basel. This was followed by Galerie Janine Mautsch, Köln, Galerie Pierre Huber, Genève, Galerie Maeght-Lelong, Paris, Edward Totah Gallery, London. He participated in the 11th and 12th National Art Biennale, Rome. In '86 in Milan, he opened the Galleria Guenzani, and exhibited at the PAC. Exhibitions continued in large museum and private spaces: Le Centre d'Art Contemporain La Ferme du Buisson, Marne-La-Vallée, Noisiel; Galleria Civica, Modena; Galleria Civica d'arte contemporanea, Trento; Museo d'Arte Moderna, Réfectoire desJacobins, Toulouse; Kai Forsblom Gallery, Helsinki; Galerie Lüpke, Frankfurt am Main; Galleria Municipale d'Arte Contemporanea, St. Priest; Galerie Bernard Cats. Priest; Galerie Bernard Cats, Brussels;Kodama Gallery, Osaka; Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne; Galleria Di Meo, Paris;Kunstverein, Braunschweig; Galleria Gentili, Florence; Caffè Florian, Venice; FondazioneVolume! Rome; Lorenzelli Arte, Milan; PoliArt, Milan; Il Chiostro Arte Contemporanea,Saronno; Marco Rossi arte contemporanea Milan/Verona/Turin; Galleria Tanit, Beirut. In 1929 he had a large exhibition at the MA*GA Museum, Gallarate and at Malpensa International Airport in the VIP Lounge, Terminal 1. In 2023 he inaugurated 'Terra Mea' at the Mazarine Variations Gallery in Paris and participated with the Tanit Gallery in Art Paris with a solo exhibition and again with the Tanit Gallery in Munich. In February 2024, he opened two exhibitions in Rome, at Marco Rossi arte contemporanea project Rome and at the Fondazione Volume! an installation exhibition 'Morphine and Metamorphosis'. Numerous monographic publications and artist's books have been published and his works have been acquired by private and public foundations.