Beppe Madaudo – Anteprima

The Saint Peter fish bears two dark spots on its sides, one on each flank. Legend has it that they are the fingerprints of Peter, left when he pulled the fish from the sea to find the tribute coin in its mouth. The mark has remained. Whether it is true does not matter; what matters is that the fish carries with it a story that does not entirely belong to it. It is a fitting image for entering the work of Beppe Madaudo and one of the pieces on display.

From May 23 to June 28, 2026, Art Studio La Marina presents Anteprima, Beppe Madaudo’s first solo exhibition in Pietrasanta, curated by Diego Ferrante. The works on display introduce a body of painting that engages with figuration as a material practice: dense, layered, and resistant to any purely symbolic reading.

Madaudo’s painting works outward: toward what the surface brings forth when it is worked, incised, and layered—without turning toward interiority or abstraction. The recurring subjects—horses, felines, fish, human figures—do not present themselves as images to be deciphered. They carry a quality that precedes discourse, an intensity that does not coincide with what they depict and does not translate into symbol or narrative. This intensity passes through the relationship between figuration and matter.

The title is not descriptive. Anteprima names a condition: a moment in which the image appears without yet becoming fixed. It does not indicate a chronological “before,” but a “before” that insists on the surface. The figures seem at once ancient and present. They do not belong to a past to be recounted, but to a present that holds, within the visible, its own prior.

The exhibition consolidates a new direction for the space led by Barbara Goi and Antonio Pavolini, within an exhibition program that regards art as a living practice, capable of keeping open what is still in motion.

Beppe Madaudo was born in Palermo in 1950 and trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1975 he published his first volume, Watanka, which earned him the Golden Yellow Kid award as best Italian illustrator. He continued his path as a painter while periodically returning to comics: he produced aquatint engravings for Casanova by Franco Maria Ricci, the comics De Satyricon (Rizzoli), and the Quadri di Divina Commedia (Milano Libri). He has collaborated with numerous publishing houses and periodicals, including Paese Sera, L’Espresso, and RAI.

His figurative language combines Western painting tradition with Asian influences, marked by a distinctive use of color, gold leaf, and a dense, layered materiality. His works have been exhibited in solo shows in Italy and abroad, including in New York, Takayama, Wil, Arles, and Hamburg. He has been included among the 87 most significant artists of the twentieth century in the multimedia work Great 20th Century Artists. He lives and works between Palermo and Rome.

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Documentation

Wall Text [PDF]