Marco Picci was born on the 14 agust 1974 in Carbonia (Province of Carbonia-Iglesias, former province of Cagliari) in the heart of the Sulcis region, in the South-West of Sardinia; he lives and works in Perdaxius (prov. Carbonia-Iglesias), 9 KM from Carbonia. He started drawing in 1992, self taught, urged on by a passion which had been growing since a very young age. He has undertaken private studies in drawing, using pencils, wax crayons (pastels), Chinese ink and charcoals, therefore enabling him to build up his very own personal and recognisable artistic style.
Since 1995 he has concentrated on watercolor painting, an often lesser used technique due to its difficulty and the impossibility of making even the smallest of corrections, but which at the same time brings out extraordinary precision, in light affects, colour and transparency. He prefer portraits and personal models with a hyperrealist inspiration, in which his strong character emerges, and emphasises his love for that technique and a meticulous attention for details.
As Marco says: «I have always been fascinated by realist painting, from the Renaissance masters, those of the 17th Century (Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi etc.), the 19th Century (Ingres, W.Turner), painters and graphic art masters of the 20th Century (Pietro Annigoni, Renzo Vespignani) to those of the european (Franz Gertsch, Gerhard Richter, Luciano Ventrone) and american hyperrealists from the begining of the 1970s (Richard Estes, Robert Bechtle, Ralph Goings). From the latter of these, I have taken ideas for some of my recent watercolor pictures, a rather unusual technique for this style (for which oils and acrylics are normally used). In fact, my own personal research is aimed towards uniting the naturalness of colour,transparency and the very softness of the water-colours to produce an extremely photorealistic image of the subject, obtained by meticulously working on details and emphasising the contrasts.
Since 1995 he has concentrated on watercolor painting, an often lesser used technique due to its difficulty and the impossibility of making even the smallest of corrections, but which at the same time brings out extraordinary precision, in light affects, colour and transparency. He prefer portraits and personal models with a hyperrealist inspiration, in which his strong character emerges, and emphasises his love for that technique and a meticulous attention for details.
As Marco says: «I have always been fascinated by realist painting, from the Renaissance masters, those of the 17th Century (Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi etc.), the 19th Century (Ingres, W.Turner), painters and graphic art masters of the 20th Century (Pietro Annigoni, Renzo Vespignani) to those of the european (Franz Gertsch, Gerhard Richter, Luciano Ventrone) and american hyperrealists from the begining of the 1970s (Richard Estes, Robert Bechtle, Ralph Goings). From the latter of these, I have taken ideas for some of my recent watercolor pictures, a rather unusual technique for this style (for which oils and acrylics are normally used). In fact, my own personal research is aimed towards uniting the naturalness of colour,transparency and the very softness of the water-colours to produce an extremely photorealistic image of the subject, obtained by meticulously working on details and emphasising the contrasts.
I attempt to obtain a balance between dark-light contrasts and the strength of the colours. The colour has to «emerge» from the picture and grab the viewer's attention. It is in this way that my research into water-colours is at the moment differing from the more classical way of using this technique, like a flood involving all the water-colours fading away into an undefined line. My love for watercolors includes all its techniques and it forces me to explore other aspects which have always been some what under-rated».
