Artist Rossano Liberatore

February 29, 2020
Artist Rossano Liberatore was born in Maratea -Basilicata, Italy in 1969. After completing his studies at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Rome, he began an intense exhibition activity. He now lives and works in Salerno, teaches painting and art history and collaborates with the USI, the Swiss Italian University in Lugano. His artworks are part of various collections in Italy and in the United States. One of his paintings is kept among the Vatican treasures, since it was donated to John Paul II during 2000 Jubilee.

Rossano Liberatore’s painting investigates the encounter between an external, environmental vision and an intimate, personal meditation. It aims to connect places and spaces and integrates them to moods and feelings: by redesigning nature it appears as transfigured in a meaningful portrayal through energetic signs and striking colours. The landscape thus becomes an opportunity to project abstract sensations, sometimes we may find quiet or serenity, some other times rather restlessness or tension. It is a painting of a somewhat informal origin that, in trying to reach a universal vision, also aims at sharing an environmental consideration, both aesthetic and conceptual: remodulated places, isolated marks, balanced spaces, planes of section, vertigos, slants, chromatic connections, geometrical layouts and talking shapes.


When did you begin your exhibitions activity? what are your best memories about those times?

My first exhibitions date back to around twenty years ago, right after completing my studies in Rome. They were mainly held in some Art Galleries and recreation centers. I thought I was ready to share in public what I had worked on for long time: paintings getting rid of representation, reproducing landscapes with disruptive elements or big underwater sequences. I still remember how I felt when in one of those events I sold my first painting to a collector. I was so thrilled about the idea someone could appreciate a work of mine enough to pay for it! I was 25.


What are you working at lately? What would you like to accomplish with your art moving forward?

Actually, I haven’t moved so much away from my beginnings. I am still fascinated by the abstract image, or by the single object as a way to tell something different. I keep aiming at creating images that can tell situations and states of mind, and I do that on a daily basis. I am talking about a seamless pursue of relationship between shapes, colours, symbols, traces and materials. what would I like to accomplish? As long as I am satisfied about my paintings, keep painting is all I aim to.


Was there any special moment or episode, in your activity so far, that made you proud the most?

Well, I still remember when one of my works was donated to John-Paul II, during 2000 Jubilee. It was a painting about restoration in the world. During the ceremony, I had the honour and privilege of sitting beside the Pope while a Portuguese girl handed him my fresco. I was so excited! I was told it would be kept among the Vatican treasures. Short after, I became receiving requests about my paintings, especially from USA collectors.


By checking your website we noticed that you don’t express yourself with paintings only; we noticed installations inspiring social and environmental thoughts. what are they about?

Sometimes I like experimenting the relationship between art and public via site-specific installations. These works want to bring art out of museums and meet people. They want to play with people, think with them, such as “public clothes” for instance. Public clothes were wooden silhouettes hanging on a rope pulled over a rundown square. They disobeyed to a municipal ordinance forbidding clothes hung on balconies. Obviously my public clothes were not real, rather a mere representation. As such, the disobedience was there as a conceptual reaction; I rather wanted to hang my clothes in that square to report its state of degradation. With boat-parking (“barcheggio”) instead, boat silhouettes painted on big sheets occupied several parking fee lots in stead of cars. Motorists’ arrogance completed the installation by running over the sheets with tyres.


What are the upcoming events in 2020?

I have been invited to exhibit next April at M.A.C.A, Alcamo’s Museum of Contemporary Art. It will be the first time in a Public Museum, and I will be exhibiting recent paintings and graphics on paper. However, I am also considering the creation of a site-specific work, for it to communicate with Sicilian people. I love the idea of landing to Sicily, a beautiful place steeped in history, and stories.


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