Born in Terlizzi (BA) in 1996 and raised in Molfetta, Roberto de Pinto currently lives and works in Milan. In 2021 he received his Master’s degree in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
Summer heat and geographic motifs urge the characters immortalized in Roberto de Pinto’s works to take off their tank tops, to be in their swimsuits, to uncover their skin, which, naked and imperfect, is exposed to the sun’s rays: rough and sweaty, it burns and colours itself with argillaceous earths, it stains with charcoal; the reds and blacks of the figures of ancient vases.
At the center of Roberto de Pinto’s practice is a body, a self-portrait that becomes the spokesperson for a very precise identity: Mediterranean-ness, with all its baggage of sensuality, more precisely virile, uninhibited and contaminated.
Climate, territory, history, rural and popular culture as shadows are cast on each figure in de Pinto’s paintings, always generating different narratives. His painting style is entrusted to the encaustic technique, which constitutes a fundamental part of the work. Wax, mixing with pigments, earths and charcoal creates a coating that is similar to the surface of a frescoed wall, refined by time.