Castagna Maurizio 1961 - XL - Spiragli di Pace

An abstract of great emotional strength by Maurizio Castagna: a collectible piece.




With Slivers of Peace, Maurizio Castagna affirms his position as one of the most personal and vibrant voices in contemporary Italian abstract painting. His training at the Albertina Academy of Turin, combined with a background of rigorous figurative painting and significant institutional roles for the episcopal sees of Asti, Catania, and Caltanissetta, forms the solid foundation from which the artist later freed himself to arrive at a gestural language of great emotional strength.
Castagna's painting arises from a complex and deeply thoughtful process: successive layers of pigments, egg tempera, enamels, acrylics, and resins he formulated himself create a lively, shimmering surface, where each layer remains inscribed like an inner memory. The painting material does not cover: it reveals. It does not erase: it emerges. It is a layered writing that breathes, vibrates, moves.
In this structure, automatic, pulsional gestures emerge, which Castagna entrusts to instinct and spontaneity, in dialogue with the great tradition of Action Painting and gestural Surrealism. The declared references – Pollock, Lee Krasner, De Kooning, Sam Francis (personally known by the artist), along with Afro, Birolli, Severini, Montanarini, and Rothko – never become mere citations, but roots of a completely personal expressive freedom.
Okwui Enwezor wrote about his work.
Castagna's painting does not represent an objective or subjective reality: it releases an internal tension. Every gesture, every stain, every variation of resin is calibrated to generate emotion, suggestion, and thrill.
A valuable observation that reveals the deep nature of his painting practice.
In Spiragli di pace, the energy of the gesture does not explode into chaos but organizes itself into a vibrant balance: radial lines, intersecting traces, luminous patches that surface like sudden lightning. The work seems to capture the moment when tension dissolves and a new light begins to filter through.
These 'glimmers' are not merely chromatic effects: they are a metaphor for a universal desire for harmony in a world torn by conflicts. Castagna does not illustrate peace: he evokes it, allowing it to emerge as an emotional phenomenon.
The work possesses a rare quality: it combines strength and delicacy, energy and contemplation, gesture and breath. It is a painting that speaks to the gaze and, at the same time, to the emotional memory of those who observe it.
Castagna, an artist featured in public and private collections across Europe, America, the Middle East, and Asia, documented in numerous publications such as Giorgio Mondadori, Bolaffi, and Il Quadrato, once again demonstrates his maturity and awareness.
Winds of peace is one of his most intense works: an open window to the possibility of fragile yet luminous peace, capable of crossing borders, cultures, and times.