Toni Alfano

Toni Alfano was born in Legnano (MI) in 1977. He exhibits in Italy and abroad in private galleries, fairs and public museums. Self-taught, he has always been involved in cross-disciplinary research (video, music, comics) that leads to pure painting and its informal deconstruction. Influenced by spontaneous art phenomena, he creates expressive paths in the field of palliative care and non-pharmacological therapies. In 2014, he published the graphic novel POMPEI for Neo Edizioni: an essay on self-discovery through the expressive codes of art and the creative process. In 2019, on the occasion of the 26th World Alzheimer's Day, he exhibited the monumental painting THE HIDDEN GATE at the MAGA Museum in Gallarate. His pictorial research investigates three main aspects: CREATION, with its visual dimension; CONSERVATION, in the choice of materials and the durability of the work over time; DESTRUCTION, the action of time and space on the work, the transfiguration of its appearance into fragments of gestures, glances, profiles, moments recovered and presented in a continuous Moment-History. The paintings are made on cardboard covered with a thin layer of cement. A slow layering of tempera paint recreates the effect of a wall hypothetically repainted over decades. The figures are made with charcoal and bitumen glazes. The final process is that of Descialbo: an ancient restoration technique that literally means “to tear away”, removing the layer of paint from the plaster with a hammer, spatula or scalpel.