Castagna Maurizio 1961 - XL - Inner Cosmos

Maurizio Castagna – Inner Cosmos
Unique work – Mixed media on canvas
Original work by Italian artist Maurizio Castagna, exponent of a painting research that unites the tradition of gestural abstraction in Europe with the energy of American Action Painting.
Trained at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, Castagna began his artistic path with figurative painting and portraiture, undertaking important commissions for several Italian bishoprics, including the monumental painting of the Stoning of Saint Stephen (cm 350 × 220) 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 and 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 elaborated by the artist, creating surfaces rich in depth where the painting layers remain visible and dialogue with one another.
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, as well as postwar Italian abstract painting.
The work Inner Cosmos stems from a state of deep concentration and inner serenity experienced by the artist during the creative process. In painting, Castagna experiments with a condition of inner peace and total immersion in the present, detaching himself from material concerns and letting the painterly gesture become a direct expression of a deep balance.
Radial marks, luminous color fields and dynamic tensions evoke a sort of energetic universe or inner cosmos, where color, matter and gesture combine in a vibrant and meditative composition.
As curator Okwui Enwezor observed, Castagna’s painting does not represent an objective or subjective reality, but frees 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 Catalogo d’Arte Moderna Italiana – Giorgio Mondadori Editore.
Unique work.
Hand-signed on the front and back.
Accompanied by the artist’s certificate of authenticity.
A piece that synthesizes Castagna’s long painting experience and his research on gesture, matter and the inner universe, destined for collectors interested in European contemporary abstract painting.