Gianfranco Asveri

"You make everything dirty here! If you want to paint, go to your room!" This instruction from his late mother, given to him as a child, still resonates with him today. His room on the first floor, bathed in sparse light from a small window, became the cradle of his painting. It was his own domain, where he could throw the remnants of paint tubes and cans into the corners, which still accumulate today as grown monuments of his childhood memories. These memories seize him time and again, guiding his brush as if they fear being forgotten, and he loves to dive into them to escape the present.

"Learn something sensible!" he can still hear his mother admonishing him. The more often this demand struck him, the more he retreated into his room and painted. Gianfranco Asveri may not have been an easy child in his time, as he vehemently refused to join the adult world and stood his ground—right up to this day, and likely will continue to do so in the future.

Gianfranco Asveri still relives his childhood today. A childhood that continually lays its memories upon him, refusing to let him go, from which he seeks to free himself through his painting.

His works are marked by a painterly gesture that defiantly confronts the adult world with wildness and rebellion. In these paintings, there is no trace of childish naivety, innocence, or simplicity. With the expressiveness, wildness, and honesty of children's drawings, he confronts us with a world that we have partly forgotten, yet perhaps we would like to reclaim a bit of it—because we too are the sum of what has been.