GASTINI Marco

The painting of Marco Gastini stems from a question that runs through much of the art of the second half of the twentieth century: where does the painting end and the surrounding space begin? In his artworks, color does not simply fill a surface, and the mark does not serve to depict a subject. Stone, glass, metal, wood, and traces of pigment engage with the wall, the light, and the viewer's position. The result is a rigorous yet far from cold inquiry, in which the material retains its physical presence and painting becomes an experience of space.

From his Turin education to research into the mark

Born in Turin in 1938, Gastini encountered the concreteness of materials very early on in the workshop of his father, a stonemason. L's experience with stone, its weight and surfaces was not simply a youthful episode: it helps explain why, even when his language became more essential, the artist continued to consider painting a material fact before it was an image. After studying at the Art High School, he attended the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1960. His early figurative and late Informal experiments belonged to a cultural climate in which many Italian artists sought to move beyond both traditional representation and the gestural expressiveness of Informal art.

During the 1960s, this need became increasingly evident. Gastini reduced descriptive elements, allowing the white of the support to emerge and focusing attention on traces, intervals, and minimal presences. This was not a matter of impoverishing the image, but of making the conditions of its existence perceptible: what happens when a mark meets a surface, how much space does it need, and how does its intensity change in relation to the void? Between 1967 and 1968, he experimented with spray paint, producing light, almost suspended traces that softened the traditional substance of the brushstroke. The works presented in 1968 at Galleria Il Punto in Turin bear witness to this gradual shift in interest from the image to the painting process.

Analytical Painting and the Move Beyond the Picture

His work is associated with Analytical Painting, which in the 1970s investigated the constituent elements of painting: support, color, gesture, and surface. Gastini shares this focus, but takes it in a personal direction. The canvas is no longer enough for him as a closed, self-contained space; what interests him is the possibility of painting entering into direct relationship with the wall and the surrounding environment. The introduction of plexiglass in 1969 is decisive: the transparency of the support allows the reality behind it to participate in the viewing experience and makes the distinction between the work and the surrounding space less stable. L's

In the early 1970s, lead and antimony also entered his vocabulary. The presence of these materials was not intended to be decorative: their weight, density, and behavior on the surface create a physical interaction with the painted marks. Meanwhile, drawings made with charcoal and pastel show how a line or isolated trace can act in space without needing to form a figure. Emptiness becomes an active component of the composition, and the relationship between distant elements takes on the same importance as what is materially present.

In the years that followed, this approach led Gastini to develop artworks that extend beyond the conventional boundaries of the picture. The wall is no longer merely a place to hang a painting, but part of the visual relationship. Viewers must consider the position of each element, the distances, the protrusions, and the variations in light. Painting thus ceases to represent an imaginary space and begins to intervene in real space.

Material, Color, and prints

Starting in the 1980s, the work incorporates wood, glass, iron, stone, parchment, and other materials, often combined with pigments and gestural interventions. Some elements seem to emerge from the surface, while others cross or interrupt it, creating a constant tension between the lightness of the mark and the solidity of the object. Color also takes on a more explicit presence: blue, pink, and more intense fields appear alongside white and faint traces. This is not a return to traditional painting, but an expansion of the possibilities already explored, in which gesture and material once again engage in a more evident dialogue.

prints constitute an important chapter in this body of work. The sheet can accommodate drawing, pigment, and applied materials without necessarily being reduced to a preparatory study. In some compositions, paper becomes the site of a unique work; in others, it may be involved in publishing or graphic design projects. For this reason, when describing a work by Gastini, it is essential to distinguish an original drawing or mixed-media work from a print in an edition: visual similarity is not enough to determine whether it is a lithograph, screenprint, or another process. The technique must be established from documentation of the specific work and not inferred from the image.

Gastini's work gained recognition through major Italian and international exhibitions, including the 1982 exhibition at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich and subsequent showcases in Modena, Milan, Bologna, and Turin. Having died in Turin in 2018, the artist leaves behind a body of work in which the analysis of pictorial language does not lead to a repetitive formula, but to an ever-renewed engagement with the qualities of materials. His originality lies precisely in showing that a painting can exist not only for what it contains, but also for the relationships it activates beyond its own boundaries.