BIOGRAPHY
Luca Ferraro was born in Rome in 1998.
From an early age, he demonstrated a strong aptitude for drawing and a deep artistic sensitivity. His artistic development was profoundly influenced by the creative legacy of his grandfather, Ferdinando Ballarini, who, in addition to painting as a personal passion, designed and created stained-glass windows and mosaics for churches. In 2017, he graduated from a scientific high school. During those years, alongside his interest in the visual arts, he developed a strong passion for the humanities, particularly Latin, ancient history, and the cultural heritage of the classical and mythological world.
That same year, he attended an illustration course at the Arts in Rome Cultural Association. This experience strengthened his commitment to pursuing an artistic career and confirmed his desire to dedicate himself to the visual arts. In 2018, he enrolled in the three-year Illustration program at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Rome, where he further developed his drawing skills and visual storytelling techniques.
In 2019, he expanded his artistic education by attending an illustration course at the Scuola Romana dei Fumetti, gaining exposure to new creative approaches and expressive languages. In 2020, he enrolled in the three-year Painting program at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome (Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma), located in Via di Ripetta. During this period, he deepened his study of painting and the figurative tradition, graduating with highest honors. In January 2021, at the Scuola Romana di Pittura “Scienza dell’Arte,” he met Master Marco Rossati, a pivotal figure in his artistic, cultural, and professional development. Initially joining as an apprentice, Ferraro was gradually involved in the school’s educational activities, eventually becoming Rossati’s assistant and student. This experience proved fundamental to his formation, allowing him to deepen his understanding of the pictorial tradition while developing an increasingly conscious and refined artistic vision.
Luca Ferraro’s artistic research is grounded in a continuous dialogue between contemporary reality and tradition. His work establishes a close relationship between the modern world and the realms of classical culture and mythology, not as distant historical references, but as living frameworks through which the present can be interpreted. Through painting, he explores the human condition and the dynamics of contemporary society, employing symbols, archetypes, and narratives drawn from antiquity to reflect on the complexities of our time. His works thus become a mirror of both society and human nature, where past and present converge within a timeless dimension.
SELECTED WORKS
PAINTINGS
VOCI PERDUTE
70 cm X 70 cm
VARCO
70 cm X 70 cm
MATERIA OLTRE IL TRAMONTO
40 cm X 30 cm
DRAWINGS
CRITICAL RESPONSES
Master Marco Rossati
Marco Rossati
For several years now, I have closely followed the work of Luca Ferraro, a painter whose artistic and aesthetic sensibility is deeply rooted in a world that may seem remote, yet remains essential to his vision: the Classical world.
In his paintings and drawings, one is immediately struck by a careful, and at times arduous, commitment to a pictorial depth founded upon the pursuit of true mastery, that sense of order which underpinned painting before the advent of the avant-gardes and the countless derivative movements that dominate the contemporary scene.
Ferraro’s work draws its substance from ancient art, above all from the Greco-Roman tradition, but also from the Renaissance and the Baroque, not merely through its refined chromatic sensibility or through the crucial role accorded to the meticulous rendering of detail within the pictorial structure. More profoundly, it emerges from a vision of nature understood as a reality immersed in the luminous and shadowed dimensions of myth. Ferraro’s de rerum natura, narrated with almost obsessive precision, does not confine itself to the representation of the visible world; rather, it evokes the experience of a mental Big Bang, generated by an instinctive and irresistible need to paint images at the precise moment in which they attain their fullest formal realization.
The extraction of forms and pictorial substance from myth, and therefore from the history of art and literature, constitutes the primary hallmark of Ferraro’s oeuvre. His works are often traversed by intricate formal pathways and unexpected juxtapositions of objects that may initially appear unrelated. Yet their apparent silences ultimately speak of the enigmas and nearly insoluble mysteries that inhabit every existential condition.
They speak, in other words, of the enduring and tangible presence of myth.
And yet this Classical dream, stubbornly pursued in paint and deliberately removed from the seductive traps of contemporary fashion, is permeated by a way of feeling, seeing, and creating that, in my view, embodies the last genuine hope of our age: a
return to the life of the mind.
A hope far more compelling than the fragmented, disoriented, and often violent imagery projected onto the world by the complacencies of modern culture.
Luca Ferraro, a Roma, dipinti e disegni 2021-2024
Negli spazi del Caffè Letterario, inaugura il 7 dicembre, e proseguirà fino al 19, la prima mostra personale del pittore romano Luca Ferraro.
A dispetto di quanto oggi si è spinti a pensare, non esistono solo gli ‘istallazionisti’, i ‘performatori’ e i ‘poveristi’. Luca Ferraro (Roma 1998) è un pittore propriamente detto…
Spin Time Labs
Performance art esposizione interattiva Collettivo artisti: Annalinda Maso Maria Ginzburg, Luca Ferraro, Rose Marie Ciuciuc, Elena Griscioli, Leonardo Di Roma, Ilaria Racca, Aurora Segafredo. A cura di Anselm Jappe, docente di Estetica presso l’Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.
KEEP IN TOUCH
Contact me for any information or
just to ask questions about my work…