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Always painting directly from nature, Giovanni Casadei invites the viewer to share in his experience of seeing: to participate in the flood of feelings and intuitions that come from the act of making a work of art. The result is a sharing of perception between the artist and the viewer, as familiar objects and places are filtered through the eyes of the painter and offered to the observer as paintings that are intimate in scale but grand in impact.
This body of work reflects Casadei’s philosophy of trusting his instincts and establishing a personal relationship with what he observes during his process of painting. Casadei says, “I am in love with nature, with light, with form, with the natural abstraction that light creates; to see the common with an uncommon eye. I want simply to experience the moment and see what I can discover through the process and medium of painting….I am in a place of freedom, pure freedom of expression.” Demonstrating a mastery of the way light plays on objects, Casadei uses the interplay of illumination and shadow to create mystery and depth in his still life paintings and to capture the ever-changing drama of the sun-swept expanses of the Jersey shore.
Giovanni Casadei began his studies at the Scuola Libera del Nudo (Free School for Drawing) in Rome, Italy, where he also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. After moving to Philadelphia, he received a Certificate in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1992. His works have been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions all across the country and he currently teaches painting at the Fleischer Art Memorial. Casadei is the recipient of many awards for his work, including the Berthe M. Goldberg Award from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2006. He has been represented by the Gross McCleaf Gallery for over ten years.