Mostly using muted versions of brown, green and grey, Argentinian artist Federico Milano creates indoor and outdoor scenes featuring male and female characters of different ages and situations. Themes of loneliness, addiction (to alcohol), reflection (on one’s tiring domestic life, one’s weak old age) easily emerge. Every painting is imbued with an attractive rustic flavour and a meditative spirit.

“The central axis in my work is the human being,” writes Federico, “his external circumstances, his inner universe, his mental states, his way of living in the world, his dreams, his moments of introspection. The inner world, the individual’s psychic universe can be manifested in many forms, whether it be a portrait, a scene of one or several figures, a landscape, an object, or even an animal image.”

Federico’s representations are always in tune with an inner feeling. “When I’m painting,” the artist continues, “I intend to ‘immerse’ the scene in a wraparound climate that accounts for the psychological state of the one who is represented, or the one who is watching what is represented.”

Executed mainly in a dry pastel technique, and occasionally in watercolour, acrylic and oil, Federico’s works are snapshots of specific moments that speak of small human experiences in the world. 

The artist is more interested in pointing to the universal than the particular, he hopes to transcend his cultural background to reveal something that could be accessible to one and all. He explains further: “Many of my works are inspired by concrete situations and people, belonging to the present moment and to my surroundings. Others, however, move away in time and space to epochs and places remote and indefinite.

“Then there are occasions where the proposal is deliberately symbolic or dreamlike. What I intend to manifest is the tension between the external reality and the inner world of the characters, the dialogue between both domains. That is why I believe that my work revolves around the universal human. Although exterior circumstances may change, the heart of man remains the same in all places and times.”

Federico was born in 1980. In 2004, he graduated as National Professor of Painting from the National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, where he continues to live. In addition to being an artist, he works as an art teacher in various schools.

Links: Website (sites.google.com/site/fedemilano/home) | Saatchi Art (www.saatchiart.com/Fedemilano) | Instagram (www.instagram.com/fedemilanoarte)

Images used with permission.