Urban Scapes And Youngster’s Street Lifestyle In Melancholic Paintings By Michele Del Campo

Michele Del Campo was raised in San Nicandro Garganico, a small town in rural South Italy. When he was 18 he moved to Milan (Italy), where he started his Fine Art studies, then he went to study in Falmouth (UK), Dundee (UK) and Madrid (Spain).

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In 2008 he moved to London and in 2016 to Glasgow (UK), and in 2018 to Milan, where he now lives and works. He has a degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (Spain, 2007), and a degree in Illustration and Printmaking from the University of Dundee (UK, 2001). Del Campo has had solo exhibitions in Italy, Spain, UK, Switzerland and Peru, and group exhibitions around Europe, US and Asia, and has won many art prizes, among which the Premio BMW in 2006, given by Queen Sofía of Spain.

In his ongoing series of paintings “Daydreamers”, he generally depicts an idle and melancholic youth, beautiful and kissed by the bright Mediterranean sun, but they appear aloof and immersed in an unfulfilled inner world. In his other ongoing series “Life on the edge” he expresses, in a more dramatic form, the isolation, the loneliness and the sense of loss of the individual.

He paints both from life and from photos, according to the complexity of the composition. His works from photos are careful combinations of a number of different reference photographs that he has taken to models, objects and spaces in different times and places. He paints often on large formats with the freshness and sensuality of a very personal wet on wet technique.