Paolo Medici
Contemporary artist | Italy
Paolo Medici
I was born in Rome in 1955.
As a boy, I had the privilege of meeting the great maestro Corrado Cagli.
My parents often visited the "La Villetta" restaurant in Rome, where he ate lunch every day. Day after day, I watched this man—an established and acclaimed painter whom everyone talked about—with fascination. With the innocence of youth, I dared to show him one of my paintings; having created it at just fourteen, I would now describe it as "unfit to be seen"!
He said, "Forget it...!" I didn't; on the contrary, I persisted in my efforts and was rewarded... I became his student.
From 1970 to 1976, I was a regular at his studio, watching him work and—as he once told me—learning that "monkey see, monkey do."
Frottage was just one of many techniques he employed, but it captivated me so deeply that I adopted it as my sole method of painting. I have never used brushes; my works are created using oil pastels rubbed onto thin sheets of paper, allowing me to bring out the textures of the underlying matrices I use.
Like Cagli, I initially used matrices—objects placed beneath the paper—until 2002. Over time, I discovered that by rotating certain types of matrices, I could blend colors and achieve a denser texture. This discovery enabled me to render skin tones more effectively. Today, the skin appears more luminous; I can better refine chiaroscuro nuances and achieve a depth comparable to the results of oil painting with brushes.
This represented a genuine innovation in the frottage technique, and it is for this reason that some now call me the "Master of Frottage."
