Roberto Ruspoli

Tuesday 27 October – Wednesday 23 December

Rui Freire-Fine Art, Lisbon

Roberto Ruspoli was born in Lugano, the son of a Swiss mother and an Italian father, and grew up in Rome, where from an early age he developed a deep interest in drawing and painting. At eighteen, he moved to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). In the city, Ruspoli had the opportunity to exhibit his work for the first time and to meet influential figures from the art world, including his teacher Michael Goldberg, an important abstract expressionist contemporary of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. After five years in New York, Ruspoli returned to Europe, living first in London and then settling definitively in Paris. His first solo exhibition in Paris, in a gallery in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, was a success, reflecting his deep cultural connection with France. The artist states that his 'artistic language is very French', feeling culturally close to that country. Among his influences, the choreographer Pina Bausch stands out. His participation in O Dido, in Rome, in 1999, was a transformative experience, revealing the synergy between dance and drawing. Ruspoli compares the act of drawing to a dance, requiring a fluid and spontaneous interaction with space, something he considers almost meditative. Ruspoli's aesthetic, marked by figures drawn in profile that reflect his childhood in Rome and his classical training, is also influenced by Cocteau, Picasso and Rothko. In addition, the artist adopts the fresco technique, which consists of painting directly onto the wall, a gesture he describes as an electrifying experience, with no margin for error.

Tuesday to Saturday, from 2pm to 7pm. drawing painting.

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