The winner takes it all Painting

My name is Nicola Masuottolo, I was born in 1964 in Naples (Italy) and I’ve been painting since I was 10 years old. I started painting landscapes and views of the place where I live (the Phlaegrean Fields) first oil painting and then acrylic painting, but in the last period, after an exhibition in a roman archeological bookstore on the theme “The Cyclops”, I started with painting human figures modifying my technique in search of a major expressive liberty. The last years output, exclusively oil paintings and totally different from the previous one, is a kaleidoscope of colours, texts, faces, figures and emotions, which have in common the telling of everyday life, the little and big protagonists of the period, the never solved or bad solved problems of world. An old but always topical voyage between East and West, which tries to persuade the conscience to reflect above cultures which, going through places, transform themselves and at the same time transform mysteriously the men, making them reflect on the necessity to understand their story and the humanity’s story. Painting can be a means to understand and I paint for many reasons. I paint to understand, I paint for myself, to create a social or political point of view, I paint as personnel therapy, to better understand painting, I paint for a committee, I paint to sell my job, I paint because I’m an egoist, I paint to show beautiful things, to show horrible things, I paint for many other reasons I can’t either explain. Thanks for your interest for my job. ...and they write on me: Originally from the bay of Naples, Nicola was gifted a set of oil paints for his tenth birthday. He then began to experiment with shapes and colours during his free time, while studying computer sciences. This passion led him, in 1996, to take the decision to stop working as a programmer and to dedicate all his time to graphic creation and painting. Young Nicola began learning to paint alongside a friend, who focused on art related to the sea. Nicola loved both the act of painting as well as the smells that emanate when the material unites with the thinners. He dedicated his efforts to perfecting his technique and developing his art style, and regularly submitted his works to the demanding eye of the public. In the late 80s, the artist fortuitously discovered the landscapes of American painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967), which led him to try and immortalise the beauty of his birthplace.