Jacopo Scassellati

Outstanding Italian painter and ceramist

Jacopo Scassellati was born in Sassari in Sardinia in 1989 where he lives today. His family is originally from Umbria. Very early on, he displayed a strong predisposition for art. Son and grandson of artists, he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather Franco Scassellati, by strolling through the meanders of the ceramist laboratory, where he played with clay and colors, transforming them into works that revealed his precocious talent. Thus, he quite naturally learned the handling process of colors and the secret of ceramicists. He attended the classic D. A. Azuni high-school in Sassari and obtained his baccalaureate in 2008. During the course of his studies, while working on a project aimed at preserving the Sardinian language, he met writer Gavino Ledda; a friendship that was to lead to the new edition of the novel Padre padrone and other works by Gavino Ledda. In 2012, he graduated from the Beaux Arts Academy of Sassari. While he likes to express himself with his brushes and his colors, he nonetheless often reverts back to sources. He sculpts clay works that bring to mind the Sardinian tradition as well as his classic studies. For him, art is a mental process that is displayed through the manipulation and transformation of materials, that are researched, studied, experimented with patience and obvious pleasure. Indeed, his hands accompany all his creations, guided by his experience as artist-craftsman, from the choice of materials up to the composition of the painting, pursuing an idea, resulting from his urges, emotions, souvenirs and academic studies. He makes his own pigments, like a painter of yesteryear, even though he is constantly seeking new experiences.

From there springs his constant artistic metamorphosis, which according to art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, makes him “a young man of talent with a rhythm that no longer exists”.

He was commissioned to create two altarpieces for the Cathedral of Campi (Teramo), representing the Annunciation and the Deposition. His first personal exhibition, which took place in 2008, was entitled Jacopo Giovin pittore (Jacopo young painter), in Spello (Perugia). For this occasion, the leading Italian art critic, Vittorio Sgarbi, displayed a enthusiastic interest for the talent of Jacopo Scassellati, even comparing him, because of his amazing artistic ascension, to the Grand Masters of the past, having reached the summit of glory at a very young age.