Maurizio Gracceva

Maurizio Gracceva was born and lives in Rome. His interest in art has developed since his high-school years. He studied literature and philosophy at La Sapienza University, where he graduated with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger. He worked as professor of history and philosophy in different high schools in Rome. He worked with literary-philosophical essay writing, publishing books on Céline, Benn, Hölderlin, and articles on various specialized magazines. For a while, he has collaborated on the cultural pages of L’Unità. Convinced that his existential interests move towards artistic expression, since the beginning of the 2000s, he has focused intensely on painting. In 2006, he took part in his first solo show Forse soltanto un albero, whose title was an explicit reference to a verse from the Elegie Duinesi by Rilke. His latest solo show Avvicinamenti, took place in 2017. Between the first and the last solo show, he has often drawn inspiration from poets, philosophers, musicians, film directors that he has loved in his life. Other titles of his shows presented references often to Eraclito, Meister Eckart, Milton, Richard Strauss, Vasco Rossi, David Lynch. To paraphrase a sentence by Céline, he believes that in artistic expression “emotion is all”.