Mario Stefano was born in Naples in 1983. Thanks to a stimulating family environment, he cultivated his artistic vocation as a self-taught artist until adulthood. He later earned a degree in Educational Sciences and dedicated over fifteen years to managing his two companies, setting aside his personal studies in painting. Passionate about art history, he revisited his old studies and drawings during the pandemic’s forced confinement, deepening and experimenting with various painting techniques and mediums. In 2020, he set up his atelier in Caserta, initiating a substantial artistic production. In 2021, his works were noticed by a well-known art and finance expert, the president of an international organization particularly active in promoting artistic talents through supporting exhibitions and fairs in every sector of the cultural economy. Thus began his professional artistic career.

Some of his works are part of the private collections of well-known TV personalities, including Ezio Greggio, Claudia Gerini, Remo Girone, Mariagrazia Cucinotta, Albano Carrisi, and Denny Mendez.

Mario Stefano’s work consciously reproduces a sense of unease inherent in contemporary society, giving it a touch of decadent charm and lightness. His works create an aesthetic shock: his painting language is eclectic, vibrant, and elegant, yet humorous, due to his ability to perceive, express, and represent the most curious, incongruous, and amusing aspects of reality. The element that makes Mario Stefano unique is his ability to conceptualize the possible coexistence, juxtaposition, and syncretism of irreconcilable visual universes, through a composition capable of integrating different realities into an “eternal instant,” skillfully using the painting techniques of the old masters. In this recontextualization, references to classical art and masterpieces of the past are combined with elements of pop culture and urban art, with some references to the world of comics and cartoons, leaving the viewer to make appropriate considerations on the evolution of visual language: through a careful reading, one arrives at a reflection on how art allows the dissolution of barriers of time and space.

In the words of the artist: “I like to create pictorial compositions with an indefinite space-time atmosphere where everything is plausible… Contrast, divergence, opposition of elements are very important factors in my painting language because they allow me to open a portal to provoke thought and encourage imagination… I believe it is very important to engage viewers and lead them to eliminate prejudice and observe beyond the apparent. I want to be the means to expand the perception of things, through divergence that leads to convergence, of times, places, cultures, languages, and ways of seeing reality.”