Simona Amato, known as Simonè, was born in Messina in 1972 and attended the “Ernesto Basile” Art High School. She later graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. A multifaceted artist, she draws inspiration from figurative abstract painting alternated with elements of pop art and comics. She has participated in various group exhibitions, catching the attention of art critics such as Vittorio Sgarbi and Antonella Nigro, who selected her as the sole representative of pop art at the Egyptian Arab Embassy in Rome. Amato’s paintings are characterized by vibrant colors, which are present in every work and are among the defining elements of her style. The artist analyzes contemporary society and its artistic representation through mass media, studying and reinterpreting suggestions and images from cinema, television, advertising, photography, and comics. Her pop representations share with American art of the 1960s an interest in stimuli from external social events but do not neglect the introspective study of the individual. While Amato’s canvases may exhibit the vivid color palettes and precise figurative depictions reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein’s works, the artist’s aspiration is not merely to describe contemporary reality.

Amato finds the pop art language particularly congenial for its contemporary iconography and the use of bright, shadeless colors, but she breaks free from mere reproduction where she offers a drawing, albeit realistic, free to dance between stylistic novelties and Art Nouveau flourishes, as well as with color, which often does not follow the retinal vision. The artist’s research, focused on a defined figurative style and strong visual impact, is enriched by a series of paintings linked to the deeper dimension of the unsaid, of the mystery hidden behind appearances: thus arise female effigies full of charm and mystery emerging from the fragmentation of color, from a dense spatula technique, from backgrounds become indistinct and timeless, from the dripping that caresses them like unexpected rain or dresses them like a cascade of sparks.

She has exhibited in Milan alongside contemporary art giants such as Andy Warhol and Renato Guttuso. Among her various exhibitions are those at Castello Arechi in Salerno, Art Salerno (Sa), the Biennale (Sa), Casa Cava (Ma), Galleria Spazio 40 (Rome), Ex-tabacco factory (Mercato S. Severino), Moa Eboli Museum with Frida, Casa San Remo, Berlin Now Art, among others.