In a celebration of colors, Xanto focuses his painting on the line of energy. It is not a virtuosic interest in form that dominates his art. It is an introspective journey, the result of constant research that over the years has led him to experiment with a synthetic and conceptual study of form, starting from realistic and figurative painting that, over time, leaves room for an interest in line to arrive at an abstraction that is never an end in itself, but always with symbolic intent. In his paintings the perimeters are scrupulously investigated, distinctly denounced.
The aim is not the pursuit of perfection, but the intensity of the brush stroke that must not amaze, but rather convey a message. The artist has temperament, personality. The sterile sadness that weighs on the entire production is extraordinary, almost as if it were a mission to express everything that is pressing, the burning issues, in the form of a warning to all humanity now adrift.
There is a need to give meaning, to convey a message at a social level through themes such as peace, communion with nature, the importance of ethical justice. The artist does this in many ways, including through the search for light, life, color, almost as a desire to escape the darkness to convey a positive message. From the ink and pencil drawings of landscapes, bodies and faces of his youthful works, he soon moves on to oil colors. Artistic awareness arises at an adult age and is born from the need to seek moral elevation with respect to the ugliness of the world around us, not only by reproducing reality in an impressionistic way but by adopting a particular gaze to seek a broader meaning, almost a synthesis of different points of view.
He is undoubtedly influenced by his career as an advertising graphic designer from which he learned the exaltation of forms, even bright colors, the search for strong contrasts, their harmonious synthesis both in life and in art. Does Xanto's painting therefore have the intention of proposing a better world? Maybe. We are certainly in the presence of a force, a vocation, a true talent.
Some works attract and disturb at the same time like a flower of evil.
It is legitimate to ask whether such painting can heal. Perhaps, but certainly, beyond the bright colors, the hymn to life through light, one can see a dark, disillusioned personality, alert to modern human misery, disconcertingly realistic, because he has intuited the negative meaning of life, of evil, from which, like everyone, he also suffers. Despite everything, however, Xanto does not give up sending a positive message, of hope, because his paintings are this: reflection and hope for a better world.

Barbara Bacchetti

BARBARA BACCHETTI