Sea People: The Sad Soul of Liguria

Andrea Colturi, Italy

Born in Bormio, (in the upper Valtellina in the province of Sondrio), where I attended the Scientific High School, I was lucky enough to follow, in addition to school activities, the precious drawing and painting lessons of the painter Elvio Mainardi. After having served a few years in the military, I moved to Milan and enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, where I took courses in figurative arts and art history, which further sharpened my interest in the visual arts. During that period, out of passion, I worked as an illustrator for children's books and nationally distributed magazines. However, in the early years of my professional activity as an architect, work commitments kept me away from my passion for painting. While writing my degree thesis, with the eclectic architect Giuseppe Galimberti, an exceptional artist, I tried to assimilate all his artistic teachings in the hope of transposing those lessons into my works, aspiring one day to reach the level of my master. Now, after retiring from the profession of architecture and having reached retirement age, I can finally devote all my time and energy to painting, which has become my main interest. This period of my life allows me to explore my creativity in a deeper and freer way, ranging between different styles, from figurative to abstract art. The ability to use color is one of the central aspects of my work, through which I try to express emotions and give life to the subjects I paint. The attention to details, to chromatic nuances and to the expressive rendering of faces and shapes allows me to capture not only the external appearance, but also the deepest essence of the subjects, both human and landscape. During my career as an architect, I have kept this artistic sensitivity alive, which was also reflected in my works of recovery and restoration of historical buildings and in the design of urban furniture. Currently, I dedicate myself completely to my passion for painting, carrying out continuous research on the use of color and the emotional representation of my subjects.