San Pietro a Otranto Drawing

Pasquale Urso was born in 1945 in Grottaglie, in the province of Taranto. He is a modern figurative artist who has been working in the artistic field for more than fifty years. A student of the master Alberto Manfredi of Reggio Emilia, he has been dealing with intaglio graphics since 1966. He trained by attending the Decoration course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, a student of Raffaele Spizzico. The themes dearest to him are united by a passionate attention to a world characterized by values ​​often lost in the contemporary era. Children's games, for example, once took place on the street, and had rules to learn and respect: the memory of these games gave life to the Lost Games series. Then there are the themes linked to the territory and in particular to the historic centres, understood as places of peasant and artisan civilisation. And here is the focus on the abandoned or fortified farms, on work, on the daily routine of village life, with the theme of La Porta Aperto or 'Nnanz la Porta. Finally, a current path: a more loving attention to the beauties of Puglia, "read" with the eyes of the hagiographer, the chronicler, the historian, the documentary maker and portrayed with the watercolor technique. Painting and graphics, however, allow something more: the study of atmospheres, colors, the taste for detail, for the significant particular. All elements that only an engraver with an "antique flavour" is able to note down. For this reason, Pasquale Urso has been defined as an "artist with three souls": that of the painter, that of the graphic designer and that of the watercolourist in search of light. The Torchio d'arte "La Stella" printing house, his creation born in 1974, carries out a now consolidated task in the area: the rather difficult task of informing, bringing and finally making the public fall in love with "original" intaglio graphics, respectful of the specific international standards.