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Editor’s Note: This body of work inhabits a restless, almost feverish visual language where figures dissolve, collide, and reassemble within layers of colour, line, and instinct. The artist moves freely between figuration and abstraction, creating distorted bodies and fragmented faces that seem to carry emotional residue rather than fixed identity. There is a raw immediacy to the mark-making—scribbles, scratches, and bold contours—that resists polish in favour of urgency. At times playful, at times unsettling, these works echo traditions of outsider art and neo-expressionism, where the subconscious spills directly onto the surface. Beneath the apparent chaos lies a deeply human terrain—of vulnerability, desire, memory, and dislocation—rendered through a visual vocabulary that is both childlike and profoundly complex.

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Claudio Parentela, born in 1962 in Catanzaro, Italy, where he continues to live and work, is a multifaceted contemporary artist whose practice spans illustration, painting, digital art, photography, collage, textile art, and cartooning. In addition to his visual work, he is also active as a freelance journalist, mail artist, and tarot practitioner. With a career extending over several decades, Parentela has been a consistent and dynamic presence in the international contemporary art scene. His work is characterised by a distinctive visual language that blends experimentation with diverse media, often exploring surreal, symbolic, and expressive forms. Through his wide-ranging artistic pursuits, he continues to engage with global creative networks, contributing to exhibitions, publications, and collaborative projects across disciplines.