Castagna Maurizio 1961 - XL - Inner Cosmos

Maurizio Castagna – Inner Cosmos
Unique work – Mixed media on canvas
Original work by Italian artist Maurizio Castagna, a figure in a painterly research that blends the tradition of European gestural abstraction with the energy of American Action Painting.
Trained at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, Castagna began his artistic career with figurative painting and portraiture, completing important commissions for various Italian episcopal sees, including the monumental painting of the Stoning of Saint Stephen (350 cm × 220 cm) placed behind the altar of the Sisters Stefanine church in Asti and official portraits of bishops for the dioceses of Asti, Catania and Caltanissetta.
During his artistic evolution, the author developed an abstract, gestural language based on the stratification of matter and the energy of the gesture. His works are built through overlays of pigments, egg tempera, acrylics, enamels and resins devised by the artist, creating surfaces rich in depth in which the paint layers remain visible and dialog between them.
His research dialogues with the great tradition of international abstraction, evoking artists such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Sam Francis, whom Castagna had the opportunity to know personally, in addition to postwar Italian abstract painting.
The work Inner Cosmos arises from a state of deep concentration and inner serenity experienced by the artist during the creative process. While painting, Castagna experiences a condition of inner peace and total immersion in the present, detaching from material concerns and letting the painterly gesture become a direct expression of a deep balance.
Radial signs, luminous color fields and dynamic tensions evoke a kind of energetic universe or inner cosmos, where color, matter and gesture combine in a vibrant and meditative composition.
As curator Okwui Enwezor noted, Castagna’s painting does not represent an objective or subjective reality, but unleashes an inner tension through the painterly gesture, transforming the canvas into a space of energy, emotion and suggestion.
Maurizio Castagna’s works are present in public and private collections in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia and have been published in important catalogs and art magazines including Bolaffi and the Italian Modern Art Catalog – Giorgio Mondadori Editore.
Unique work.
Hand-signed on the front and back.
Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the artist.
A piece that synthesizes Castagna’s long painting experience and his search into gesture, matter and the inner universe, destined for collectors interested in European contemporary abstract painting.