About Fabio Inverni
Fabio
Inverni was born in March of 1968 in the small Italian village of Poggia, south of Florence.
He grew up in a world steeped in tradition and love of the arts. His father was a fresco artist
and had great influence on the younger Inverni's style.
Inverni builds layer upon layer of oil paint in his pieces, then polishes the dried surface until it achieves a unique soft glow. This luminescence is the earmark of an Inverni painting. The viewer is almost compelled to reach out and touch the surface to verify what the eyes register; the butterfly softness of old leather, the aged smooth patina of well-worn wood, the coo! luster of crockery, or the alabaster glow of silken flesh.
Fabio is an exciting young talent who has taken Europe and South America by storm.
At a January show opening in Viña del Mar, Chile, Inverni sold every painting, as he did in Florence, Italy in 1996, a rare and impressive phenomenon for any artist, but especially for one so young.
American collectors are not unaware of his talent. Serious collectors from the west and east coasts have kept the Tatbot and Engman Gallery busy keeping up with the demand for his oils on linen.
"Vali and i both wanted to purchase one of Fabio's paintings from a recent shipment. But the ones that we wanted sold the very first day that we hung them in the gallery. Since then we have sold every piece that he sent us. He is busy creating new masterpieces."
Inverni's unique take on the still life fast forwards the viewer several thousand years, he said.
Done with a palette knife, or spatula, the semi-abstract representatives of vases and portraits look as if they had been painted on a wall and aged, complete with marks of water drips and faded graffiti.
"I wanted the look of something that was ruined over time," he said. With the overly subdued background details, the paintings have a soft look about them. "Everything else sort of vanishes into the past." His style of portraiture, including one self-portrait has an ageless fell to it, with the viewer unable to determine the clothing's period or style. Again, he takes the approach that gives an age-old impression to an image that could be contemporary or otherwise.
While painting, he said, he first puts the images, such as vases, on the linen canvas. Then he balances the background with the object, using shadows which might look similar to drapes on a wall. He admits his idea of balance may not be the same as other's perception of balance. Fabio received his artistic training at a technical school of printing and textile patterning. He said he has been drawing since he learned to hold a pencil. He started painting during his mid-teens and began to look at art as a career around the age of 20. His credits include numerous exhibitions in Italy and throughout Europe.
