Federico Pisciotta (Rome, 1975) does not merely paint the present: he captures, dissects, and restages it. As a painter and visual artist, he transforms the canvas into an arena where the sacredness of classical figuration collides with the neuroses and artificial lights of the digital age.
His artistic journey began at the early age of seven under the guidance of masters Fratel Gino Righetto and Giorgio Vespaziani, later culminating in 1997 with a degree in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome under Nunzio Solendo and Sandro Trotti. Moving past Impressionist influences, his research traversed Surrealism and, most notably, De Chirico’s Metaphysics — a conceptual core that would continuously resurface in later series such as Videoplayer. His shift toward Pop Art marked a transition to objectivity, evolving into an expanded painting practice that broke into the third dimension. Through multi-material sculptures and installations — ranging from the polycarbonate populated by LEGO Minifigures in Operaplastica to the asphalt, reinforced concrete, and cold metal plates of his landscapes — the artist actively engages the viewer. Matter thus becomes a lucid critique of environmental disaster, irresponsible urban development, and contemporary chemical alterations. Only later would this mature ecological awareness guide him in reinterpreting the harmony of the Renaissance and the Great Masters through a contemporary lens.
In his hands, oil painting is transformed into a medial surface. The canvases incorporate LED lights, plexiglass inserts, and graphic interfaces, mutating into actual screens. Through series of powerful critical and ironic impact, such as Videoplayer and #Le dame dei selfie — where everyday elements emerge on the canvas as fragments of an alienated modernity — he investigates our permanent connectivity, the obsession with virtual validation, and the collective apathy of our time.
Since 1991, his works have crossed national borders, appearing in prominent galleries and institutions in Rome (from the Amedeo Modigliani Foundation to the Venanzo Crocetti Museum), Warsaw, Miami, and New York. Today, he lives and works in Fara in Sabina, where in his studio 700Artecontemporanea he continues to shape a powerful, lucid painting that is profoundly necessary for understanding contemporary life.
Portfolio:
From pixel to light: painting as a device of hyperreality
With Videoplayer, I inaugurate a new phase of my pictorial research, where figurative tradition converges with the technological language of video games. My painting—rendered through oil, acrylics, and mixed media—explores the virtual world as the new landscape of the contemporary image.
The project is rooted in a reflection on visual identity and simulation, central themes in post-digital culture, where the boundary between the observer and the image dissolves. As in Baudrillard’s Simulacrum, the image no longer represents reality but replaces it: the video player thus becomes the icon of a mediated perception, a suspended pause between being and appearing.
From the pixel to the light, Videoplayer narrates the metamorphosis of the digital image as it seeks a new 'home' within pictorial matter. Throughout the different chapters of the project—from The Pause of the Player to Virtual Dinner—the icon is transformed from a painting into a sensory device, ultimately making the viewer the protagonist.
This research aligns with the light-based traditions of Dan Flavin and James Turrell, as well as the spiritual poetics of Bill Viola, sharing the same tension between perception and transcendence. However, the pictorial gesture—manual and patient—returns everything to a human tempo, countering digital speed with the memory of vision.
In Videoplayer, painting does not imitate technology: it absorbs it, deciphers it, and renders it back as a sensory experience. The synthetic image finds a new dwelling in color.
“On my videoplayer”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass and RGB LED lamps, cm 90 x 94, 2014.
“The game exhibition”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass and ultra white LED lamps, cm 167 x 98, 2014.
“The incoming call”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass and RGB LED lamps, cm 98 x 92,5, 2014.
“The hero on a red armchair”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass and RGB LED lamps, cm 116 x 98, 2014.
“A strange timeless night”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass, RGB LED lamps and motion detector, cm 116 x 243, 2014.
“The shower”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass and RGB LED lamps, cm 70 x 70, 2015.
“Without religion”
Mixed media and oil on shaped wood, plexiglass and RGB LED lamps, cm 124,5 x 98, 2015.