Michele Del Campo, 1976 | Figurative painter

Italian painter Michele Del Campo was born in San Nicandro Garganico, a small town in rural South Italy. When he was 18 he moved to Milan (Italy), then he went to study in Dundee (UK), afterwards in Madrid (Spain) and finally in 2008 he moved to London (UK), where he now lives and works.

Lately he is spending part of the year in Valencia (Spain), where he has another studio.

He has a degree in Fine Arts from Universidad Complutense of Madrid (Spain, 2007) and a degree in Illustration and Printmaking from 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 2008 he moved to London, where he had several solo exhibitions, and in 2016 to Glasgow (Scotland). It was in this city, where there is hardly any of the sun that he seeks for his painting, and while he was preparing solo exhibitions for Lima and Madrid, that he thought there was no point in struggling to find a good artist studio and commit to spending years in the same place. He stopped accumulating objects, got rid of possessions and began to travel and paint wherever he wanted, and then take the canvases to the galleries with which he collaborated.

In 2017 he began to travel with two suitcases and a tube for the canvases, where he captured the inspiration found in each place.

In 2020 Del Campo established his residence in Madrid, the city with which he deeply connected from the beginning.

Del Campo has had solo shows in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, London, Milan, Lugano, Lima and San Francisco, and has participated in group shows and art fairs in Europe, Asia, the United States and Latin America.

In his work, places are not recognizable, and he often mixes elements of one city with those of another. Rather, his focus is on people, their stories, relationships and moods, which transcend geographical limits and are reflected in a broader human experience.

He paints people he is acquainted with, and fondly cultivates his circle of friends without borders. His paintings, far from simply seeking to capture a resemblance with his sitters or the reality as it is, strive to reach deeper meanings. He gets inspiration from the stories of his sitters, to speak about the uprooting, the zest for life, the awareness of the ephemeral and the melancholy.

In these themes Del Campo recognizes himself too, and claims that his work has a noticeable autobiographical quality. In fact the themes in his work have changed along with the circumstances in his life, as we can observe in series like "Anonymous City" (2005), “Urban Chic” (2008), "Close Strangers" (2010), "Journey of no return" (2011) "The fall" (2015) and "Nomadic souls" (2020) among others.

Michele Del Campo è un artista Italiano nato nel 1976 a Sannicandro Garganico (Foggia). Ora vive e lavora a Londra. Ha studiato Belle Arti in parte a Milano e in parte a Madrid.

Michele ha anche studiato illustrazione a Dundee (Regno Unito). Ha al suo attivo diverse mostre personali a Londra, Madrid, Barcellona, Valencia, Milano e Lima.

"Nei miei quadri costruisco una realtà basata sulla decontestualizzate: scene mondane di persone giovani e attraenti in contesti urbani. Una realtà che va oltre la cattura di un istante, ma cerca di esprimere, in termini più generali, la nozione di un mondo 'globalizzato' secondo la loro visione idealizzata di se stessi.

Questo concetto si materializza nei loro atteggiamenti, il modo in cui occupano il posto, il loro modo di stare in piedi o seduti, mostrando la fiducia che hanno nel proprio corpo, sempre vestito con abiti di moda. gli ambienti in cui essi appaiono sono solo accenni al mondo in cui vivono, spesso personalizzati per il loro intervento, come nel caso di graffiti o tag, ma mai una mera descrizione di un particolare luogo o una città".