Andrea Vizzini was born in Grotte (Sicily), in 1949. He lives and works in Italy.
Vizzini was one of the initiators of the movement which, before the Transavanguardia, was oriented towards a return to painting, simultaneously with the conceptual currents. His early years are characterized by conceptualized painting, using figures in alienating and diversified contexts, thus contributing to the main exponents of the historical nucleus of the New Figuration movement of the seventies. His work gained the gradual affirmation of the movement when the panorama of Italian art was dominated by artists such as Renzo Vespignani and Giuseppe Guerreschi. In Vizzini's works on canvas, he reconfigures the sense of myth, art history, and literature with a visionary gaze.
The history of art and its iconography are the central elements of his research. His works "Theoretical Interior" 1980, "Places of eternity" 1986, "Iconic Aniconic", 1994 are characterized by this symbolic structure, manifesting a vision of the world as a dichotomy of two opposite principles.
Over time, the dominant motif of the works increasingly adopted the conjugation of figurative values with informal layouts. His Negations Period (1995-1998) assumed, in painting and sculpture, an increasingly intimate and minimal attitude. After using acrylics and collages, he experimented with different materials, including earth, iron, and light. The series "The places of immortality" dedicated to Gino De Dominicis or "Logical abduction" dedicated to Balthus, embrace an almost Caravaggesque form of light, which showcased the effects of spatial depth and a particular use of architecture.
He integrated his language through the production of sculptures and the decoration of public places, some of which can be found in the Farnesina Collection. At the 2008 Olympic Games in China, he held an exhibition at the Beijing Biennale where one of his pieces was acquired by the National Gallery of Fine Arts. Fascinated by the architecture and unbelievable perspectives of Maurits Cornelis Escher, Vizzini worked to create a major exhibition in 2008 at the Italian Cultural Institute in London entitled, “Places of Eternity”.
In 2011 he set up a personal exhibition entitled, Perpetual Code at the Castel Nuovo - Maschio Angioino Museum, in Naples. Presented by Angela Tecce, this exhibition presented for the first time an intense and interactive dialogue between painting and sculpture. The essential and chromatically pure forms become part of the painted rooms and at the same time, they are present in all their totemism within the exhibition - transforming the exhibition hall into a reflection of the pictorial representation.
