Gianfranco Asveri

Gianfranco Asveri was born in 1948 in Fiorenzuola d'Arda (PC) and for many years has lived and worked in the Gasperini, in the hills of Piacenza, surrounded by nature. After spending a difficult childhood, Asveri graduated in technical-scientific disciplines, but he did not make any specific artistic studies or attend academies, characterizing his work exclusively by his strong artistic drive and passion.

Asveri began painting in 1969, approaching painting from a traditional figurative language, and then affirmed his strong artistic identity with a relevant change in style and pictorial personality. In fact, starting in the 1980s, the artist changed register and approached the poetics of Art brut expressionism, a current founded by the painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet in order to indicate artistic productions made by patients confined in psychiatric hospitals.
Art Brut is art outside conventional aesthetic norms, art that is spontaneous, impervious to cultural pretensions and seemingly without any reflection. In the works of the artists of this current, a sense of strong freedom prevailed, they in fact did not pursue recognition and approval, but allowed themselves to be guided by their own instincts and their own emotionality. All this can be seen and found in the bizarre depictions of subjects, the unrealistic use of color, and the independent gesture proper to self-taught artists.

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Asveri adopts its language and makes it his own, revolutionizing his painting style to move from images easily and directly referable to other pictorial experiences, to a more instinctive and personal action, rich in color and matter. In the artist's works we find a more emotional side, flanked by an energetic, incisive, synthetic and extremely expressive character. However, the anti-naturalism of his representations clashes with a strong study and equally careful observation of reality.Asveri brings back to the canvas the animals and nature that he loves above all else, dedicating not only paintings but also drawings and poetry to them.

"I paint what I see by opening the window of my house."