"The balance, or orchestration, between figuration and abstraction is a continuous exercise, one that keeps evolving with time and experience."
- Cosimo Casoni
Cosimo Casoni (Florence, 1990) lives and works between Maremma and Milan. His practice measures itself, through synthesis, stylistic patterns, meta-narration, and experimentation, against the need to find intersections between art and everyday life. This is a mainly diurnal and bright reality made up of classicism, personal memory and underground culture, where it is possible to notice strong influences by post graffitism, Macchiaioli and appropriationist tendencies. Actions such as using the skateboard deck as a large brush, or marking the pictorial material with fingers, are used both individually and as part and parcel of more complex works, through a pictorial process structured in layers, made of overlaps and cancellations.
Although his work is a continuous and incessant search for synthesis, it is often articulated around the coexistence of multiple stylistic and semiotic languages that, when combined on the canvas, give life to pictorial collages. The artist’s restless nature is combined with an opposing desire for order: geometry becomes the enclosure in which to dare and experiment; his creative process consists in a continuous exercise based on the alternation of planning and improvising, moments of action and of thought.
If the absence of an explicit narrative gives the viewer a blank page to get lost in, Casoni’s work, on the other hand, shapes itself as a meta-narrative puzzle whose pieces are visible but scattered. The artist plays with additions and overlays that decompose reality, reconstructing a dialectical image where time is present and space becomes a narrative of the creative process.
AS YOU ARE OFTEN INFLUENCED BY YOUR SURROUNDINGS AND WHERE YOU LIVE, CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR CURRENT PRACTICE AND HOW YOU HAVE BEEN APPROACHING THE FINE BALANCE BETWEEN THE ABSTRACTED AND THE FIGURATIVE? WHAT, IN YOUR CURRENT ENVIRONMENT, IS INSPIRING YOU?
I grew up between the countryside of Florence and the Maremma region. Although I received my artistic training in Milan, where I lived for about thirteen years, the countryside has always had a profound influence on me. My great-grandfather collected Macchiaioli paintings, and even though I absorbed that imagery somewhat indirectly, it left a strong impression. However, during my time at the academy in Milan, I was pushed far away from that world. It was a different era - painting in general wasn’t in favour, and even less so landscape painting.
During those years, I experimented with various media: video art, installation, photography, public art. Yet I never stopped painting or thinking as a painter.
In Milan, skateboarding was at the centre of my daily life a passion I still pursue today, though not without difficulty. Around the age of 25, strongly influenced by my practice as a skateboarder, I decided to incorporate it into my pictorial research. What struck me most beyond the urban aesthetic and the architecture related to skateboarding, were the marks left by the board on urban surfaces: ramps, ledges, railings. These traces, to me, evoked an art form that lay somewhere between the informal and the abstract.
After years of working with figurative painting, I made the leap into abstraction, using those urban marks as a starting point, exploring their possibilities mostly on canvas to remain as faithful as possible to the pictorial context. This shift opened up many new directions in my work: it brought movement to a kind of painting that had been rather static and predictable. Skating over a surface like canvas, either by riding over it or using the board as a giant brush - led my paintings in a completely new direction.
That didn’t become the sole focus of my work, but it remains an important element that continues to shape my practice.
In recent years, the landscape has returned to play a key role in my imagery, thanks also to the intense study I’ve devoted to it. I’ve drawn inspiration from the Macchiaioli painting of the late 19th century, but also from Impressionism and its evolutions toward Abstract Expressionism. Often, my landscapes open like windows onto abstract backgrounds, becoming part of more complex compositions. They are usually nostalgic insertions, and the images I choose often come from photographs I’ve taken during my travels or while moving through Tuscany.
I enjoy combining these landscapes with other techniques and visual languages -spray paint, finger-smeared surfaces, skateboard marks - that, in their own way, can evoke a sense of landscape without actually depicting it. I’ve always been interested in contrasts and the unexpected tensions that arise from different approaches. The landscape, in this way, takes on new contexts, blending into something deeper and more personal. It becomes a window into a mental space.
In the studio, the tools and timelines constantly shift, alternating between slow, meticulous phases and quick, incisive, sometimes clumsy actions. The compositional rhythm of a painting, for me, is similar to that of a piece of music, perhaps jazz that doesn’t follow a single, linear path.
The balance, or orchestration, between figuration and abstraction is a continuous exercise, one that keeps evolving with time and experience.
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT 4BYSIX'S FORMAT AND SOCIAL MISSION THAT DREW YOU TO JOIN THEIR PROJECT?
I took part thanks to Thom’s invitation. I enjoy challenging myself with different kinds of projects like this one, especially when they’re connected to sustainability and community support. I believe there’s a real need for that today.
Cosimo Casoni
Title: "White noise" 2025
Medium: Skateboard marks, acrylic, oil paint on tarpaulin, framed.
Dimensions: 70 x 50 cm
HOW HAVE YOU FOUND ACHIEVING THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN SPRAY PAINT AND OIL PAINT ON THE TARP-BASED UNCONVENTIONAL CANVAS?
Rather than using spray paint, I chose to paint with my skateboard. I wanted to see how it would interact with a plastic, recycled surface. I have to say I really liked how the marks stand out against this smooth material. The final result reminds me of a slab of marble, where the veins are nothing more than traces of the “slides.”
The landscape painted on top, on the other hand, was a real struggle. The brush glides well, but the drying time for the oil was very long.
The piece feels fresh, minimal, yet it holds the full essence of my practice.
WHAT COMPELS YOU TO CONTINUE TO MAKE ARTWORK TO REFLECT THE WORLD AND YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCES IN IT? DO YOU FIND THAT SOMETIMES THIS IS CHALLENGING TO CONVEY IN TWO STYLES AND MEDIUMS?
I believe my work will continue to evolve while always balancing between figuration and abstraction. The “what” I paint may change, but not the “how.” It’s a way of working that feels natural to me and reflects the way I live.
In the future, I’d like to incorporate climbing as well a practice that has been absorbing me lately. I’m sure it will soon become part of my pictorial vocabulary.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT ANY PROJECTS YOU ARE WORKING ON NOW? WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU?
Right now, I am focusing on the theme of architecture and the home, always combined with “skatepainting” and other forms of action painting that intertwine with this subject. In January 2026, I have an exhibition coming up in Luxembourg, and I’m already very excited.