Sette segni (Seven Signs), 1976

“I don’t represent anything, I paint,” Giorgio Griffa commented meaningfully on his work in 1972. Born in Turin in 1936, Griffa distinguished himself in the late 1970s with his reduced pictorial style and his essential components of canvas, personal marks, and color, which the artist uses in a nonrepresentational manner.

Griffa works on untreated paper and canvas made of cotton, linen, or hemp, all left with their various thicknesses, textures, and original coloring blatantly exposed. In 1969 he also decided to eliminate the canvas’s stretcher, wishing to maintain as much as possible the characteristics of the works when they were painted in his studio.