Composition 444 Painting

Gabriele Cappelli is a London-based artist born in Forlì, Italy in 1972. Cappelli discovered art at a very young age; his grandfather was an architect and designer who inspired him the passion for abstract art, whilst his uncle was the art critic Mario Verdone, who introduced him to more technical and theoretical art issues. His frequent trips to Rome, where he would spend time with his grandfather and fellow artists, allowed him to get closer to painting, and to start early in life a research that is still at the centre of his practice. Gabriele Cappelli began his career in Bologna where he attended the university Alma Mater Studiorum studying economics; fascinated by the idiosyncratic architecture of the city, he started to focus on its urban plan, taking pictures, which would serve him as preparatory sketches for abstract canvases. Cappelli has always been interested in the dialogue between disciplines, challenging the relationship between photography and painting. Back then he started to focus on the nature of a term such as abstraction, noticing that it never refers to rigid compositions, but rather to fluid architectures made of eclectic elements. Music is a huge influence in Cappelli’s work; classical music is a great passion of him, which has always guided his approach to painting too. Cappelli considers art (and music) as a way of thinking; they both develop from a basic structure, and then add details to their core, whilst synthetically shaping a work, which aims to be definitive. For Cappelli art and music are also characterized by the same attentive devotion of their practitioners; both painters and musicians need to methodically practice and rehearse in order to become confident with their medium and create a unique bond with it. Equipped with a highly technical knowledge, which he acquired through his grandfather, and his personal interests, he moved to London in 1997 where the YBA already took over the contemporary art scene, with Gillian Wearing winning the Turner price in 1997, followed by Chris Ofili in 1998. For Cappelli London was the cutting-edge city where to settle and develop his art practice, engaging with diversities and challenges. He knew he was the right time to invest in his artistic passion, to give up his already-started career in economics, and to fully focus himself on painting.