When Hyperrealism Meets Surrealism Marco Grassi.

Marco Grassi was born in 1987 and lives and works as a painter in Italy. Since early childhood Marco grew up surrounded by the old masters paintings and Chinese pottery gathered through the years by his grandfather a small collector from Northern Italy. Despite having a strong fascination with fine arts from the very beginning of his life he chose to follow his passion and turn it into a career during his university studies. From an early stage in his art career Marco studied the painting techniques of many of the old masters. Over time he modified and reinterpreted them in new ways to create his unique personal style and contemporary finish. Maybe it is the extreme realism with a variety of small fine details that forces the audience to stop and focus their attention on his paintings. Nevertheless there is something else that plays an essential role in the creation of each one of his paintings. That is sfumato a technique mastered during the Renaissance by the Italian painters. Marco employs it in a new way updated for the 21st century with the soft transitions between each part of the painting achieving very delicate and natural color passages. Marco is particularly interested in the changes within a persons body and personality. This is why he often portrays people in a moment of metamorphosis. The bodies of the characters become allegories figurative expressions of various concepts and above all the relationship and fragile balance between humans and Nature. Those continuous transfigurations human figures evolving into unanimated matter the contamination of Nature as well as the resilience of human beings are the main focus of his artistic research. In this way Marcos paintings slip away from the boundaries of the typical definition of hyperrealism. They surpass the idea of a simple reproduction of photography and bring his art into a limitless creative dimension while maintaining extreme high quality of the depicted images. Speaking on the idea of female beauty Marco notes: A womans beauty may be revealed through the painters ability to capture a moment in time that epitomizes her essence. If I succeed in finding a balance and harmony on the canvas I think that makes the figure enchanting. ,

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