Fulvio Gonella
Born in 1973, Fulvio Gonella is a contemporary Italian artist whose work navigates the breakdown of language, image, and meaning through painting, text, and conceptual systems. Based in Spain and active internationally, Gonella’s practice has evolved from his well-recognized art brut–inspired, childlike figuration into a radical, minimalist form he defines as “Degree Zero Surface” — a space where words become residue, gestures interrupt themselves, and the image ceases to perform.
Recognized for his raw, emotional characters and unfiltered visual narratives, Gonella first gained attention for his art brut–inspired, childlike figuration. His visual language was direct, instinctive, and emotionally loaded — a reflection of life’s imperfection through innocence and distortion. Today, that language has shifted: figuration gives way to absence, emotion is distilled into interruption, and the surface becomes a site of conceptual tension.
Structured in conceptual series, his current paintings, installations, and printed pieces reflect on the failure of communication, the aesthetics of repetition, and the systems we invent to survive chaos.
This is not a rejection of the past — it is its residue, repurposed.
– Statement –
I used to paint heroes.
They had stiff arms.
They were fine.
People smiled.
People said it was naïve.
I didn’t correct them.
I kept going.
Lines didn’t align.
Stories made sense.
That was the problem.
I wrote things.
Too long for the canvas.
Too late for the painting.
The paintings started to resist.
They looked back at me.
Too clear.
Too sure of themselves.
I erased a face.
Then two.
Then the story.
I left the colors.
Then I left the color.
Someone asked if I was changing.
I said: no.
I was subtracting.
The words came back.
Alone.
Not poetic.
Just there.
Like trash you forgot to throw away.
Now I paint something.
Or maybe I stop before that.
There’s a mark.
There’s a phrase.
There’s a silence.
It’s not a transformation.
It’s what’s left when the image gives up.
This is the work now.
No metaphor.
No recovery.
A collapsed system that still generates signs