Franco Anfuso was born on July, 22 1949 in Pontecagnano Faiano, a town in the Italian province of Salerno rich of history and archaeological remains of the Picena, Samnite, Greek and Etruscan civilisations. He graduated at the Institute of Art “Filiberto Menna” in Salerno and attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Naples. Driven by an urge to express the tumult of human emotions and passions of thoughts and desires both manifest and mysterious, he began his exploration of painting in 1965.

Anfuso has exhibited in various Italian and foreign cities. He has won several major accolades, including “Il Masaniello” (Naples), first prize in Viareggio”s art award, first prize in “Fanum Fortunae” (Fano Pesaro), the award “La targa della presidenza del Consiglio Nazionale” (Rome) and the “Iride” prize (Cava dè Tirreni). Important figures from the art and literary worlds who have written about his work include Domenico Rea, Fortunata Trapanese, Antonio Uliano, Nicola Monaco, Gino Liguori (on the newspaper Il Mattino di Napoli), Ettore D”Ascoli and Jone Gaillard.

His works appear in the Bolaffi Catalogo dell”arte Moderna Italiana No.19, the Censiarte Salerno catalogue, the Pittori Campani di Catello Nastri catalogue, and the internazional art catalogue published by Alba gallery in Ferrara. The Alba gallery has had several of his works displayed at important exhibitions, including the Internazionale d”Arte in Bari and the Kunstmesse Interna tional Art Fair in Basil (Switzerland), along with some works from renowned international artists.

Many of his works are in public and private collections in Italy, Germany, Venezuela and Australia. His preferred medium is Oil on canvas, but he also expresses himself through acrylics, graphic art, lithography, ceramics, sculpture, and glass painting. The important Italian writer Domenico Rea describes Anfuso”s art as “esoteric, metaphysical and meta-historical”.

He writes: “His is a word at the beginning. Dawn or Advent, it is the beginning. It is motionless, at the edge of the contamination we endure as humans. Virgin and devoid of archetypes, trasparent and without age as it was when the first breath of existence was drawn. And Through time it remains without age, without the outrage of decay or decline, existing in a fabulous place that no autumn can wither. Yet Franco Anfuso knows the exact limits of life. He knows that every person who is born already carries the imprint of the end and of the years. He knows that they have within them the promise or the peril of the nothingness from whence they came and the nothingness that awaits them “.

“From the deepest part of my soul comes an urgent, sometimes obsessive need to express through colour and form the sensations and strong emotions that my spirit perceives during every moment of my life-even in sleep.”