Roberto del Frate

Trieste, Italy

Website:
delfratearte.blogspot.com
Art Medium: painting, portraits, mixed media
Technique: Oil and acrylic

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Angel, mixed media on canvas, cm 120×120

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Marameo, mixed media on canvas, cm 100×100

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Portrait of woman with abstract painting

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Portrait with shawl, mixed media on canvas, cm 120×120

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Portrait of boy II mixed media on canvas

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Portrait of boy, mixed media on canvas, cm 100×100

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Portrait III, mixed media on canvas, cm 90×90

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Portrait of woman with abstract painting III, mixed media on canvas, cm 120×120

Roberto Del Frate:

“The possible space of the dream into reality.

One thing that I find very important is the choice of colors to put on the palette, because it is from this that everything comes at the end …. I usually use five or six basic colors, and then variations and mixtures thereof, to get what I want … Even the choice and care of brushes is important, even if I often leave some brushes without cleaning: these are the tools of the trade of a painter, his hands, his eyes, his mind …

Another important thing is to know how to “frame” the mental image that you want to paint on canvas or hardboard to avoid then to fight for hours with initial errors: this is one of the great lessons I learned in the workshop of my father, in Venice ….”.

The taste for bright vibrant color for the little touches, the love of the landscape came to Roberto Del Frate from the artistic culture of Veneto and Venice in particular absorbed over the years of “apprenticeship” at the studio of his father, Enrico Del Frate, said Frattini, Venetian painter follower of Ettore Tito and lagoon painters of late nineteenth century as Guglielmo Ciardi and Pietro Fragiacomo. The matrix painting in which Roberto del Frate is taking the first steps is the result of the encounter between Impressionist technique and that of Macchiaioli practiced in the studio of the Palazzo delle Meravegie, a few steps from the Accademia di Belle Arti.

Here artistic production become disoriented along two trends: the most purely mannerist tradition of the Venetian lagoon close to the 800 and appreciated by art dealers and foreign collectors who recognized a wise call to precious seasons of Venetian view painting, and that, freer and staff, close to the French plein air painting and the “stain” of Tuscany, characterized by a large brush and paste and the free choice of themes and atmospheres original, made with a personal style, cool and elegant at the same time.

“Arts training of Roberto del Frate is completed after the contact with the international artistic experiences and moved to Paris, where he lives for a long period and painted sketches live mostly en plein air. After a few years spent in Brussels and London, he returned to Italy in 1990 to open his own atelier in Venice. Participated in numerous national and international exhibitions, being appreciated for vibrant color-style. The technique in oil starts to run alongside the watercolor sketches with live music and new techniques to mix with acrylic paints. He began working with numerous Venetian galleries exporting his paintings all over the world, especially in USA and UK, continuing to tour Europe and in particular working for French galleries and Belgian and American designers, with large-scale works. In this period, in 2005, he discovered his vocation for the urban landscape. The following year he began to replace the traditional technique of oil painting with a new technique based on an alternation of acrylic, oil, acrylic, which adds sometimes a mixture of color more dense and full-bodied, making striated and wrinkled the surface to be painted and giving it more matter.

On the death of his father in 2006, Roberto Del Frate inherits the management of the studio, carrying on the tradition artistic family in a respectful sign of renewal: while keeping the characteristic style, learned in the father’s atelier, technique and execution of his works show a willingness to change and personal choices, evident with the introduction of new themes and original pictorial research, focusing on works even larger and greater emotional impact. There are countless sketches and experiments, for the most part executed en plein air to capture and make the immediacy of things: “Small, fast watercolors are often the opportunity to capture the first impression live, then transfer to the real painting… For a painter, the most important thing is to make the atmosphere of a place … I’ve often wondered, what is the best subject for painting, and I’ve always said, the next…”.

The material used for all the works is the table: wood (with hardboard) is preferred by the painter, who never uses the canvas, because for the most suitable structure and consistency with oil colors but also with acrylics, to which the artist in recent years adds other ingredients to make the amalgam richer and more viscous, and on which, between a passage and the other, a glaze oil gives the final result of expressive freshness.”

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