Marco Cassarà (Born in Palermo, IT 1984)

Abstraction is at the center of his research, the investigation of color, stroke, and form, often explored through extra-pictorial materials, including metal in his more recent works.

His chromatic conception is reminiscent of Italian Tonalism, achieving peaks of luminosity through layers of glazing, by an interplay of adding and subtracting color, strong chromatic contrasts emerge, concentrated on configurations of signs. The stroke is characterized by processes of abrasion, lively by an instinctive and automatic gestuality, it’s conveyed and engraved with electric grinders, amplifying its effect, creating a drawing so refined or blurred that it appears virtual. The form tends to have a centrality, often emphasized by an extremization of the support.

Finally the conceptual use of the “word”, intermittent among his works, is emphasized and veiled as a secret, with the Braille alphabet. Employed as a metaphor for a deeper mode of perception, and most as means of creating an inclusive and poetic dialogue with a visually impaired audience.

Environmental-scale installations, halfway between painting and sculpture, artist’s books composed of bound canvases, tanned leathers tattooed with pure pigments, give life to abstract works with a digital yet archaic aura.  In which linguistic processes and inner processes converge into a single visual code. Exuding a perceptible “resonance” of the performative action of the engraving with electric grinders. 

After collaborating with the Venetian collective Fondazione Malutta, he participated in several exhibitions in galleries and institutional spaces such as Monitor Gallery and Museo Santa Maria della Scala. In 2020, he conceived and directed Studio Luminescent, a digital pop-up project that involved international artists in the multimedia work Leviathan-19, winner of the public call “Pandemos” promoted by Fondazione Studio Rizoma and European Alternatives. In 2022, he exhibited by invitation at the National Pavilion of Bangladesh at the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, in the show Time: Mask and Unmask, curated by Viviana Vannucci and Moinuddin Khaled. In 2024, he participated in the exhibition Animae, a project promoted by Fondazione Sicilia, dedicated to the most representative artists of the region. Recently, the Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo acquired one of his artist books, Il libro dei nomi, for its permanent collection. In 2025, he held a workshop at the Casa di Reclusione Calogero Di Bona – Ucciardone in Palermo, within the project Spazio Acrobazie: Productive and Redevelopment Laboratory through Artistic Mediation, curated by Elisa Fulco and Antonio Leone, promoted by Fondazione Sicilia and Fondazione CON IL SUD. Over the years, this project has involved artists such as Marzia Migliora, Flavio Favelli, and Genuardi-Ruta.