Francesco Mestria
/ Italy

Born in Ferrandina in 1953, Francesco Mestria is a sculptor
from Lucania who lives and works in his home town. He
graduated in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine arts in Bari.
He has taken part in several national and international
art events and his works can be found in public, private
and religious collections. He often works with traditional
materials, including wood, limestone and papier-mâché, with
an eye to the dimension of material and anthropological
culture that has had one of its centres of international interest
in the Matera hills. He does not shy away from using the
materials of “modernity” such as plastic, sometimes reused
after a lifetime of industrial products – such as packaging – in
a way that is both sarcastic and poetic.
In Warriors Mestria mixes attention to the materials and signs
of tradition with the artist’s aptitude for “re-signification”,
capturing potential hyper-realities: two oxidised sheets of
metal seem to bring out the figure of a vanishing warrior. The
warriors are pierced by two iron rods, also recovered, which
materially passes through the surface of the metal.