Dario Basso

The Spanish painter Darío Basso was born in Caracas in 1966. After a short stopover at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid, he got to know the Talleres de Arte Actual at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. Basso begins to work autodidactically and uses unconventional techniques to develop his own, colorful and dynamic style with geo-cultural-political universality. He is interested in topics and their combination such as culture, myth, religion, literature, philosophy and science. Study trips through, for example, Morocco (1986 and 1987), India and a three-year stay in the jungle in Venezuela are formative:

Basso's works are created with the help of the direct and indirect influence of nature on the paintings created outdoors. The artist not only uses heavily impasto acrylic and oil paint, but also dried leaves, which provide an extremely sculptural relief-like appearance. The roughened, partly furrowed surfaces are enhanced in their effect by the use of marble sand. Formally, Basso draws on motifs such as the dried palm and banana leaves embedded in paint, the Pantheon motif from the series of works "Annibale contra Roma" and combines them in a very casual way. The star-shaped leaves unfold more slender and curve and bend, making them more dynamic. Exposed to natural influences in this way, they are the result of a collaboration between the artist and the influence of others:

Animals, wind, rain and sunlight have left their mark on the canvases, as have brushes and palette knives. His works alternate between abstraction and figuration, the forms are both abstract and realistic, as the basic ideas come from nature. Basso lives and works in Madrid.