Bio
Filippo Francocci was born in 1974 in Città di Castello, Italy. At the age of two, his family moved to South Africa, where he grew up and studied Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, graduating with a BA in 1998. That same year, he was awarded the Standard Bank Fine Arts Prize for the Fine Arts student who made the most advancement as an undergraduate.
Following his studies, Filippo worked as a painter for backdrop and interior decorating companies in South Africa, London and Rome. He moved to Europe in 1999, continuing his artistic practice while also working as a teacher. In 2005, he won the Cultural Web.it art competition, held at the Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari in Rome.
His artistic practice has since developed across painting, drawing and digital media. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Italy, South Africa, Spain and internationally, including exhibitions of digital and NFT-based work. In 2023 he participated in the Vertical Residency and its 6th Cohort Exhibition.
Filippo is also a musician and songwriter. He currently lives and works on the Costa Brava in Spain.
Artist statement
My work explores the space between abstraction and figuration through drawing, painting, layering and digital manipulation. I work across different media, using a process that generally begins without a predetermined subject: I make marks, add colour and respond to what emerges.
As the work develops, forms begin to reveal themselves. They may arise from my own marks, or from traces and structures already present on the surface, such as wood grain, stains or marks from previous work. I might recognise a landscape, organism, geological structure, network or something less identifiable, and follow where the form seems to lead. I may develop it, alter it, obscure it or work over it, allowing new forms to emerge.
I am particularly drawn to structures in nature—trees, roots, cells and rocks—as well as constructed structures such as buildings, maps and electrical circuits. I am fascinated by the way these forms can overlap and resemble one another, and by how similar structures can occur at very different scales. Because of this, the forms may be interpreted as anything from a landscape or geological structure to a microscopic organism. Through layering and accumulation, I often create increasingly complex spaces in which organic, geometric and imaginary forms coexist.
The process is driven by discovery. I enjoy the moment when something begins to appear that I did not consciously intend, and the challenge of responding to it while still allowing the work to develop freely. I continue working until I feel there is little more to explore and the image feels resolved.
The resulting works can remain ambiguous, existing somewhere between the recognisable and the abstract. They do not need to represent a particular thing or convey a fixed meaning. For me, their value lies in the visual possibilities they contain and in the sense of discovery that comes from bringing them into being.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2023 VCA online residency
1998 BA Fine Art, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Prizes/Awards
2005 - “Cultural Web.it” art competition winner, Museo Nazionale delle Arti e tradizioni Popolari, Rome, Italy
1998 - "Standard Bank Fine Arts Prize" Award presented for the Fine Arts student who made the most advancement as an undergraduate, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2012 Art@school, British Institutes Pomezia, Rome, Italy
2008 Inheritance, Festival dei due Mondi, Spoleto, Italy
2004-2005 Filippo Francocci, Borni management srl, Rome, Italy
1997 Filippo Francocci, Festival dei due Mondi, Spoleto, Italy
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Let Art Be, Digital art exhibition, Lezar House Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
2023 VCA Residency 6th Cohort Exhibition, Arium spaces (online )
2023 In-Between festival (Online Exhibition)
2022 Art Basel Miami, exhibited an NFT on digital screens through Artcrush Gallery
2021 Time and tide, Art gallery 118, Virtual exhibition
2021 Discarded: A Recycle Art Exhibit, Virtual exhibition by the Ikouii Creative, Atlanta, US
2020 Covid_2020 Virtual Gallery , Online Exhibition by 212 productions, UK
2016 Visionari Vol. 2, PunkRazio, Rome, Italy
2015 Visionari, PunkRazio, Rome, Italy
2014 Stoned Zombies, Palarockness, Genzano, Rome, Italy
2008 Fleurs Opere d’amore, 2nd edition, Palazzo del Comune, Spoleto, Italy
2006 Premio OpenArt 2006, Sale del Bramante, Piazza del Popolo, Rome, Italy
2005 I colori del Lazio, Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari, Rome, Italy
2004 L’arte nell’Uovo di Pasqua, Fendi Gallery, Rome, Italy
2004 4 Trofeo ACCA in...Arte, Four Point Hotel Sheraton, Rome, Italy
1999 Student Exhibition, Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1998 Martienessen Prize Exhibition, Gasworks Gallery, Newtown, Johannesburg, South
Africa
Publications
2008 “Fleurs Opere d’amore”, Studio A’87 Franco Troiani, Spoleto, Italy
2006 “Annuario D’Arte Moderna 2006”, ACCA in...Arte Editrice S.r.l, Rome, Italy
Collections
Museo Nazionale delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari, Rome, Italy Private collection
Let Art Be, Digital art exhibition, Lezar House Gallery, Barcelona, 2023
