Gianfranco Zappettini is one of the most radical stars of the so-called “Analytical Painting”.
Gianfranco Zappettini was born in Genoa in 1939. He currently lives and works in Chiavari.
In 1962 he held his first solo show in his hometown and began collaborating with the German architect Konrad Wachsmann. From him, Zappettini learned formal precision, the importance of tradition and also attention to innovation. In the Seventies, the painter tried to formulate a new pictorial language by investigating, in an analytical manner, the simplest grammatical elements: surface, color, process, canvas, frame and material.
During his late period of production in early 2000s, Zappettini chose paper, symbol of seeming tradition and embryonic ideation process. In those years he produced the “Warp and weft” series where the Ligurian and family tradition of macramé has become the protagonist: the daily work on the loom is harmonic symbol of the artist’s work and pure sense of human existence.
Color takes on a symbolic value: he prefers blue, red and even white.
The materials are of humble origins: cords, vinyl resins, acrylics, temperas and nylon.
