Italian, b. 1954 An Italian visionary living and working in Paris, Lorenzo Mattotti is a titan of contemporary visual art whose work transcends the boundaries between comics, painting, and animation. For Mattotti, the goal of a still image is to capture "extreme tension" by stripping away the superfluous to reveal the raw energy of line and form. This philosophy has birthed a multifaceted body of work defined by what critics call a "perpetual vibration", a unique language where sinuous chromatic palettes and tormented chiaroscuro create a sense of constant, expanding movement. Mattotti’s arrival on the global stage was marked by the 1984 publication of Feux (Fires), a masterpiece that revolutionized the medium with its explosive use of color and was hailed as a landmark event in graphic storytelling. Over the decades, he has maintained a courageous eclecticism, illustrating world-renowned editions of classics like Collodi’s Pinocchio and Stevenson’s The Pavilion on the Dunes. His ability to reinterpret form has also made him a staple of the fashion world, where he has re-envisioned the designs of great couturiers for Vanity magazine, and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Le Monde, and Repubblica. The scale of Mattotti’s influence is reflected in more than 40 international solo exhibitions, including major retrospectives at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. Whether through his "fragile line" or his powerful, saturated paintings, Mattotti’s art remains transversal and uncontained. His legacy as a pioneer of the "poetic comic" continues to inspire, proving that the drawing is not merely a depiction of reality, but a visceral, vibrating extension of the artist's own experience.