Roberto de Pinto

Born in Terlizzi (BA) in 1996 and raised in Molfetta, Roberto de Pinto currently lives and works in Milan. After graduating in Painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 2021, de Pinto has continued to develop his artistic language through a practice centered on painting and drawing, through which he investigates themes related to identity.

At the core of his work is a painterly alter ego, almost a self-portrait: a recurring male figure with Mediterranean features, often nude or partially clothed, captured in moments of intimacy, idleness, and suspension. Through this body, de Pinto explores and reinterprets sexuality, eroticism, and masculinity, placing the individual in relation to emotions, nature, and art history. The body is sometimes represented in its entirety, and at other times in close-up details that abstract the skin, transforming it into a surface of tactile and painterly tension.

The skin is pivotal in his research, and natural elements such as flowers, petals, leaves, and shadows appear as minimal signs—traces of invisible contact or restrained desires.

His practice is primarily based on the use of encaustic, reworked into a “cold” technique using wax, pigments, and charcoal. This approach engages in dialogue with the tradition of the Fayum portraits, one of the artist’s earliest sources of inspiration. This medium is capable of conveying a strong physical presence of the body and evoking a tactile and sensory dimension; the wax becomes the erotic element of the skin and, on canvas, creates a patina similar to the surface of a frescoed wall, smoothed by time.

Selected exhibitions include: La Quadriennale Roma, Rome (2025); Palazzo Reale, Milan (2025); Fondazione Giuseppe Iannaccone, Milan (2024); Casa Testori, Milan (2024); La Triennale di Milano, Milan (2023); Museo Luigi Varoli, Ravenna (2023); Lucerna, Le Dictateur Studio, Milan (2023); Galerija Vžigalica, Ljubljana (2022).