Tre Case, II.

Sandro Bracchitta

Sandro Bracchitta ( Ragusa, 1966) is a printmaker and an artist in the full meaning of the term.
Born with a precious talent, during the years he has been capable to make the most of all his experiences reaching a uniqueness that makes him recognisable but, simultaneously, time after time he successes in the attempt of creating amazement towards works that contain repeating signs, but that can assume different meanings and interpretations.
These signs change as life does in its evolution, and so it is for the artist, even though there are cornerstones upon which he builds his research.
Bracchitta shows his personality since childhood and he has the freedom to express it to the highest.
His education started at the Art Institute of Comiso and continued at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he had the opportunity to study painting and to get close to the world of printmaking.
The Florentine environment has been through the centuries a place where artists of every kind and provenance meet and confront, and this feeds Sandro's talent and capabilities.
In 1990 he graduated and shortly after he enters, thank to a scholarship, 'Il Bisonte', a graphic specialistic school where afterwards he became assistant to master Domenico Viggiano.
From this moment on he started an intense professional life made of numerous participations in national and international events in the sector, and enriched with many prizes for his activity as an engraver.
The first important presence is in 1994 at the Charmeliè World Triennial of Engraving (France), followed by the participation, in two occasions, in the Graphic Arts Biennial in Ljubljana, and the Engraving Triennial in Krakow.
The nineties end with an experience at the atelier of the Wolfsburg Castle in Germany where he was invited to produce works, which will be considered as an early corpus in which the inspirations and the recurring themes of his aesthetic identity are already shown.
Next are his participation in the 4th Sapporo International Biennial (Japan) and the Beijing Ex-Libris Salon in China, and the prize 'Young Italian Engravers' received at the 'Villa Croce' Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa.
These first but significant experiences build Sandro's maturation of his stylistic and chromatic research, leading to a personalization of the engraving medium and contravening the traditional use of black and white colours.
His return to Sicily coincides with the beginning of his journey as a Professor of the Engraving and Graphic Arts Chair, initially commuter, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, Catanzaro, Sassari and Reggio Calabria.
Later he obtained the transfer to Palermo, where he still teaches.
During the 2000s he participated in other events and in many group exhibitions in Italy and overseas, besides the set up of his solo exhibitions.
The Craved Miracles exhibition (2012) has a special relevance, in which the fullest identity as an artist is expressed through painting works and installations: in these last the use of materials such as lead, steel and iron in relation to gold leaf and velvet gives new light to the symbols found in his engravings as constants.
Bracchitta has even been involved in various exhibitions by the Gruppo di Scicli, though maintaining unaltered his style and personality.
In particular, he established a mutual esteem with Piero Guccione, which is born from a common cultural identity and it solidified despite their different formal language interpretations.
The interest in his works has strengthen during the years and this led to the inclusion in many private collections, as the Finnish Muotka, and in the ones of important museum institutions as the Uffizi in Florence ( at the Prints and Drawings Department) that displays the work Contenitori Ciclici , winner of the 1st Giuseppe Maestri Print Biennial assigned at the Museo delle Cappuccine in Bagnacavallo (Ra).
Copies of it are kept at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Calcografia Nazionale, the Museo della Grafica in Pisa, and the Pinacoteca of Bologna.
A further proof of his capacity of touching the sensibility of audiences belonging to cultures very different from the local one and European in general, is the growing appreciation by Asian critics and artists, mainly Japanese and Chinese.
As a consequence, already in 2001, after his participation in the Kanagawe International Print Triennial, one of his works was included into the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokio and then, in 2016, he was invited to the artist-in-residence program (for two months)
at the Guanlan Original Printmaking Base in China, a renowned institute involved in the production and diffusion of graphic works of national and international artists.
Even in this case, the result of this interesting and stimulating experience is the presence of one of his engravings in the permanent collection of the China Printmaking Museum in Guanlan.
In 2019 he won the international prize for engraving "honorary work" at the International Biennial of Printing in Guanlan in China.
Bracchitta's artistic life is daily accompanied by the commitment at his 'Art Printhouse' in Ragusa, the town where he lives.

Birthdate: 24/09/1966

Nationality: Italian

Website: www.bracchitta.it