EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PIETRO CAPONE

I am 29 years old, living and working in Italy, specifically in Rome.

My artistic journey is fragmented and has many different stages. When I was a child, I was obsessed with history and archaeology, but I also spent a lot of time drawing comics, mostly Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. So I can say that drawing has always been a part of me for as long as I can remember. I attended an art high school, and afterward, I enrolled in Near Eastern Archaeology, with the goal of one day becoming an Egyptologist. I abandoned my studies because, during that period, I was playing music very frequently with several bands, and I started to see the possibility of making music my profession. During this time, almost like nested boxes, I began painting copies of artworks in my free time. I can say that I immediately fell in love with oil painting at first sight, and from that moment on, I never changed my path.

A detail I omitted earlier is that my first true form of expression was writing, particularly poetry or poetic prose. During high school, I spent many hours, both during lessons and outside, filling my notebooks with texts, often including drawings—whether it was a statue I found while walking, a detail from a painting in a museum, or original subjects that ended up existing on those messy pages alongside my compositions. Even then, thinking about combining words with images helped me. To me, those notebooks were a personal visual diary, and a few years ago, I decided to explore their content by elevating it to a more finished level, transferring it onto canvas with ink and oil paint.

I was introduced to ferrogallic ink by my drawing professor at the Rome Academy of Fine Arts. He taught us various techniques, including how to produce lead white and this particular ink. My love for the past, combined with the fact that everything ancient gives an aura of preciousness and tradition—not only visually but also in the very process of creating the painting—draws me to it. 

Actually, this is probably the most challenging part for me, maybe even more than writing the poems on the canvases. Beyond many books on compositional aura, I believe it’s important to feel whether the relationships between space and figure are right. To understand this, I often leave a painting untouched for months before returning to it, because each work suggests to me how much to let the painting "win" over the writing and vice versa.

My aim is always to make the poetry accessible to all viewers, allowing them to connect more deeply with the artwork. I find that pairing printed text with the subject within which it is written makes the experience more profound. 

Giorgio Dante and Roberto Ferri are two great Masters who taught me ancient techniques and observation skills to relate to the painting of the past.  

I call it experimental archaeology because I love exploring ancient treatises and restoration analyses to understand materials and possible execution techniques, conducting numerous tests of priming and palettes to achieve the result that most satisfies me. I also enjoy working with traditional ancient materials; I would feel like betraying them if I used cadmium red instead of an authentic vermilion. 

They have been very intense emotions! For the Vatican donation, I must thank the Rome Academy of Fine Arts, while my first solo exhibition in a magical place was one of the most dreamlike experiences of my life. I can never thank enough Lorenzo and Manfredi Zichichi and the entire team at Cigno Editore for making it possible. 

Winning the "Best of Show" prize at NOMA Gallery's PORTRAIT competition was an exciting moment in my career. It’s a great opportunity to showcase my work to an international audience, opening new opportunities for exhibitions and collaborations. It also strengthened my confidence in my work and motivated me to continue exploring the theme of portraiture.

My poetic focus is on narrating fragility, falls, and melancholy. I’ve never been attracted to heroic, triumphant figures in art; I’ve always been seduced by those emotions that, in defeat, carry the dignity and poetry of scars. The presence of absence as a fulfillment of pain.

For years, I was afraid to reveal this poetic side of mine. I am a traditionally trained figurative painter, and creating a painting that dissolves space and environment in a conceptual fusion of writing and painted form made me feel under judgment. But once I found the courage to step out of that comfort zone, I received many critical and public appreciations that filled me with joy. 

My poetic focus is on narrating fragility, falls, and melancholy. I’ve never been attracted to heroic, triumphant figures in art; I’ve always been seduced by those emotions that, in defeat, carry the dignity and poetry of scars. The presence of absence as a fulfillment of pain.

As a painter, I would love to collaborate with Bouguereau or Waterhouse, but if I had to choose one overall—painter or poet—I’d say Edgar Allan Poe! It would be a dream to write together with him, and I believe the result would be a painting so compelling that I’d have a hard time parting from it. When working with admiration and contemplation, the most beautiful works often emerge.