Mario Loprete

ART

Mario Loprete



Mario Loprete- Image courtesy of the Artist


Uniting his two-lifetime passions: pop culture and fine art, artist Mario Loprete has discovered an unusual niche that transcends into an enduring medium of concrete, where he can be highly creative in a truly innovative way. Residing in Catanzaro, south of Italy, Loprete likes to travel and seeks much of his artistic inspiration through this vocation, where he consolidates many working relationships with gallerists and collectors.

“My art is always dedicated to who can recognize it” explains Loprete of the concept behind his work. “To who can see a message. To who sees my message. Art is bought for passion, for pleasure, to invest. I like to think that who buys my works, also buys a temporal door and who wants to enter it, will be conducted in my world, in my way of doing art. I live in a world that I shape at my liking, throughout a virtual pictorial and sculptural movement, transferring my experiences, photographing reality throughout my filters, refined from years of research and experimentation.”

Untitled Conrete Sculpture

Untitled Conrete Sculpture

Feeling the desire to utilize a theme that could be comprehended by everyone, Loprete implemented Hip-Hop that makes up the majority of his work, transpiring as a solution and a philosophy of life, without geographical limitations. Endlessly acting as a necessity when honing his craft – rap music was and continues to be, the soundtrack of his sculptural creations that he has now become synonymous.

His artistic process commences by extracting an image from the internet and reimages it by eliminating what Loprete’s believes to be superfluous, creating that vital equilibrium to the impressions his subjects radiate. Amid his works, he addresses Hip-Hip icons including Ja Rule, Xzibit, The Game, Mary J Blige, Beyoncé and 50 Cent, correspondingly painting everyday people, who the artist believes is more authentic and whose identifications feel more emotional.

Loprete’s latest series of concrete works provide the artist with his most personal and professional satisfaction, resulting in a significant investigation that he feels hasn’t been unearthed until now. “In my series “Words” I use reinforced cement in all of its essence and elegance” elucidates Loprete. “I build letters in reinforced cement with which I compose the words that I transmit my message with. They reach the viewer like a scratch, but they are in line with my work and my research. The abstract concept of the word presents, materializing itself with the concrete.”

And where do these artful pieces come to life? – in a lived-in space, he recalls as his “happy island.” “I live in it in total freedom,” he says. “In my studio, I live in the most total anarchy. There are no predefined places where I store the materials and every time I need something, the search for the lost object starts. The studio is quite large, but its peculiarity is that it has an outdoor area of 50 square meters, where I can paint enjoying the sunlight. This is very important for an artist.”

Words by Katie Farley


b boys oil on concrete

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