ARTISTS                                                                                                     Fausto De Nisco

Fausto De Nisco

 

Fausto De Nisco is an Italian painter from Sassuolo, in the province of Modena, whose work has evolved through decades of research into gesture, color, and pictorial depth. Active since the late 1970s, he developed an early interest in painting that led him to formal studies and, soon after, to a sustained exhibition career beginning in the 1980s.

A defining phase of his practice emerges in his exploration of dense chromatic fields and layered mark-making, where painting becomes a space of accumulation and rhythm rather than representation. In series developed over the years often described through metaphors of forests, clearings, or visual “entanglements” De Nisco constructs surfaces where signs overlap, dissolve, and reappear, creating dynamic compositions charged with inner tension.

His work balances abstraction and poetic intuition. Color is never decorative: it acts as structure, atmosphere, and emotional register. Through stratification and controlled spontaneity, De Nisco transforms the canvas into a perceptual field in which memory, gesture, and material presence converge.

Today, his painting is recognized for its ability to hold together intensity and restraint, instinct and reflection offering a language that is deeply personal while remaining open to contemporary dialogue.

Transmanierism

Transmanierism literally means “beyond Mannerism.”
The prefix trans- indicates crossing or going beyond, while Mannerism refers to the historical artistic movement of the 16th century, characterized by expressive tension and refined complexity.

The term was introduced in Italy during the 1970s to describe a new artistic position that sought to move past both conceptual rigidity and detached abstraction. Rather than returning nostalgically to figuration, Transmanierism reaffirmed painting as a living process, placing renewed emphasis on gesture, emotion, material presence, and subjective expression.

At its core, Transmanierism understands the artwork not as a closed image, but as an open field of energy and transformation. The mark becomes an event, the surface a layered territory of tension, and color an active force within the composition.

It represents a critical crossing of tradition — not restoring past styles, but reactivating their expressive intensity within a contemporary context.

The Transmanierismo movement emerged in Italy during the 1970s as a theoretical and artistic current articulated by cultural critic Giorgio Celli and art historian Flavio Caroli. It developed at a moment when many artists felt the need to move beyond both the rigidity of conceptual art and the impersonal coolness of certain forms of abstraction.

Transmanierismo did not propose a nostalgic return to figuration. Rather, it sought a renewed centrality of gesture, emotion, and painterly material. It emphasized:

– the MARK as physical experience
– the SURFACE as a field of tension
– COLOR as expressive energy
– painting as process rather than closed image

Within this context, Fausto De Nisco became involved in the movement during its early phase. For De Nisco, participation in Transmanierismo was not merely stylistic but deeply aligned with his developing language. His paintings are built through layered marks, accumulated traces, and dense chromatic fields that create internal rhythm and tension.

The movement offered a theoretical framework that resonated with his practice: the canvas as a space of entanglement and clearing, where gesture does not describe but occurs, and where the image remains open, suspended in becoming.

Through this engagement, De Nisco also entered broader exhibition circuits, presenting his work in contexts such as ArteFiera Bologna and the International Contemporary Art Fair in London (ICAF), contributing to the dissemination of a vision of Italian painting grounded in expressive intensity and material presence.

In this sense, Transmanierismo represents a formative phase in De Nisco’s career — less a label than a moment of consolidation of his painterly identity, one that continues to inform his emphasis on process, gesture, and the living depth of the painted surface.

01 FAUSTO DE NISCO

UNDERGROUND PAINTINGS 

 

De Nisco catalogue 26

EXHIBITION

 

UNDERGROUND PAINTINGS

IG

 

Fausto De nisco IG

ARTISTS                                 Fausto De Nisco

Fausto De Nisco

 

Fausto De Nisco is an Italian painter from Sassuolo, in the province of Modena, whose work has evolved through decades of research into gesture, color, and pictorial depth. Active since the late 1970s, he developed an early interest in painting that led him to formal studies and, soon after, to a sustained exhibition career beginning in the 1980s.

A defining phase of his practice emerges in his exploration of dense chromatic fields and layered mark-making, where painting becomes a space of accumulation and rhythm rather than representation. In series developed over the years often described through metaphors of forests, clearings, or visual “entanglements” De Nisco constructs surfaces where signs overlap, dissolve, and reappear, creating dynamic compositions charged with inner tension.

His work balances abstraction and poetic intuition. Color is never decorative: it acts as structure, atmosphere, and emotional register. Through stratification and controlled spontaneity, De Nisco transforms the canvas into a perceptual field in which memory, gesture, and material presence converge.

Today, his painting is recognized for its ability to hold together intensity and restraint, instinct and reflection offering a language that is deeply personal while remaining open to contemporary dialogue.

Transmanierism

Transmanierism literally means “beyond Mannerism.”
The prefix trans- indicates crossing or going beyond, while Mannerism refers to the historical artistic movement of the 16th century, characterized by expressive tension and refined complexity.

The term was introduced in Italy during the 1970s to describe a new artistic position that sought to move past both conceptual rigidity and detached abstraction. Rather than returning nostalgically to figuration, Transmanierism reaffirmed painting as a living process, placing renewed emphasis on gesture, emotion, material presence, and subjective expression.

At its core, Transmanierism understands the artwork not as a closed image, but as an open field of energy and transformation. The mark becomes an event, the surface a layered territory of tension, and color an active force within the composition.

It represents a critical crossing of tradition — not restoring past styles, but reactivating their expressive intensity within a contemporary context.

The Transmanierismo movement emerged in Italy during the 1970s as a theoretical and artistic current articulated by cultural critic Giorgio Celli and art historian Flavio Caroli. It developed at a moment when many artists felt the need to move beyond both the rigidity of conceptual art and the impersonal coolness of certain forms of abstraction.

Transmanierismo did not propose a nostalgic return to figuration. Rather, it sought a renewed centrality of gesture, emotion, and painterly material. It emphasized:

– the MARK as physical experience
– the SURFACE as a field of tension
– COLOR as expressive energy
– painting as process rather than closed image

Within this context, Fausto De Nisco became involved in the movement during its early phase. For De Nisco, participation in Transmanierismo was not merely stylistic but deeply aligned with his developing language. His paintings are built through layered marks, accumulated traces, and dense chromatic fields that create internal rhythm and tension.

The movement offered a theoretical framework that resonated with his practice: the canvas as a space of entanglement and clearing, where gesture does not describe but occurs, and where the image remains open, suspended in becoming.

Through this engagement, De Nisco also entered broader exhibition circuits, presenting his work in contexts such as ArteFiera Bologna and the International Contemporary Art Fair in London (ICAF), contributing to the dissemination of a vision of Italian painting grounded in expressive intensity and material presence.

In this sense, Transmanierismo represents a formative phase in De Nisco’s career — less a label than a moment of consolidation of his painterly identity, one that continues to inform his emphasis on process, gesture, and the living depth of the painted surface.

01 FAUSTO DE NISCO

UNDERGROUND PAINTINGS 

 

De Nisco catalogue 26

EXHIBITION

 

UNDERGROUND PAINTINGS

IG

 

Fausto De nisco IG