Giovanni Spezzacatena Rabideye

Abstract Painter/ Animator/ Illustrator/ Web designer

My background is in mixed/multimedia and animation, but my painting and visual art production since 1999 has been largely abstract. Based on simple, often geometric shapes that seem to have initially been clear and precise, my experimental processes produce a ‘distressed’ final form, having been subjected to layering, scraping and resist techniques.

The final effect for me is like that of the surface of a vintage, well-loved old child’s toy, where the bright colours and simple shapes are chipped and scratched from use, revealing other textures and colours beneath the sometimes shiny surface.

My work is meant to be about revealing its own making as much as it is about the final piece. Main concerns include the idea of art pieces as artifacts or relics, and the concept of ‘wabi-sabi’ (things in the periphery of coming into being or as moldering into nothingness), Chance Operations, cartoons, graphic design, a punk/graffiti aesthetic, working with natural pigments, assemblage, collage and patterns that try (but fail) to repeat. Also I host a dance music radio podcast.

Abstract Painter/ Animator/ Illustrator/ Web designer

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