Roberto Fontana was born in Cambiano (TO) in 1969. He did his first artistic studies in Palermo, where he currently lives and works. In 2000 he attended the painting and drawing class of the Chinese artists Zhou Brothers at the Internationale Sommerakademie fur Bildende Kunst in Hallein, Austria. In the same year, in Palermo, he took part in the engraving and art print shop run by the French masters René Tazé and Elisabeth Bascou. Also in Austria, in 2001 and 2002, he studied at the Internationale Sommerakademie fur Bildende Kunst in Salzburg, first in the gestural painting class of the Viennese shareholder Hermann Nitsch, winning a scholarship, then in the class of painting and drawing of the Venezuelan artist Jacobo Borges.
From 1999 to 2001 he followed the course of engraving and lithography techniques of the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo. He has taken part in numerous personal and collective exhibitions, and his works are present in public and private collections.
In this continuous mixture of figuration and colourism, the constant reference to autobiographical elements, tension and isolation as metaphors of human life are found as fundamental parts of his work. Fontana is always in dialogue with himself for an existential reflection on contemporary living.
