Dario Moschetta | Distressed Paintings Torn and Worn Out by Time

Dario Moschetta’s distressed paintings are a result of a spontaneous urge for expression.

Dario Moschetta is a self-taught artist from Castelfranco Veneto, Italy. He’s trained himself by reading a lot and looking at a lot of pictures of artists. He started by studying artists from the past to get to modern and contemporary art, reaching the hallmark of his distressed paintings. Here are some articles in magazines and newspapers that talk about him: The Guardian, Il sole 24 ore, and Juxtapoz. Dario’s original artworks, paintings and drawings are present in private collections worldwide.

Dario likes materials such as paper and canvas and acrylic paint. He mixes them in unusual ways, mixing glue and color paper and then melding them with the canvas. He likes people and bodies. He also loves painting towns, the busy life of the metropolis.

Figurative Distressed Paintings That Evoke Motion

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A self-taught artist paves his way towards a career

Dario started drawing when he was a child and never stopped since. He has always had the need to draw, color, paint, mix various materials together, express something and give form to his ideas. “It took me a long time to become an artist as a profession,” he says. “I have been trying since the early 2000s, Since 2010 I have managed to have a certain stability.”

At the moment, Dario considers Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and the whole world of contemporary figurative artists to be brilliant and absolutely worth studying. They’ve had a great influence on his self-education. There are also shots and magnificent images of directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Christopher Nolan. Finally, photographers such as Helmut Newton, Robert Capa, Anton Corbijn, Mario Testino, etc.

Distressed paintings: soft contours and precise motion

Dario is currently working on a series of portraits (distressed paintings) for an online auction/exhibition at the end of April. They are works with dimensions 60×80, 80×80 cm, almost all female figures or subjects like classical Greek or Roman statues.

“I usually have a hard time explaining how and why I made a work,” Dario says. “The female figure is a bit the sum of what I usually work on, a uniform and clear background with a bust, nude, with something that strikes me in the expression, a sense of movement that you can interpret a bit as you want, without a precise sense, but still in motion, dynamic, with not very defined contours.”

Don’t conform

“If you have an idea, go for it, try to do what you want, don’t conform,” Dario says. “Dress the way you want to dress both at work and in other places, take good care of your teeth and eat healthy, treat animals and nature well. And if you want to be an artist, don’t get comfortable, work.”

To see Dario’s latest artworks, visit Saatchi Art >

If you love Dario’s work, you may also like these artists:

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