NEBOJŠA DESPOTOVIĆ. THE PAINTER'S CRAFT

The Fondazione THE BANK ETS in Bassano del Grappa presents The Painter’s Craft by Nebojša Despotović, one of the leading figures of contemporary figurative painting. Alongside the exhibition, a focus on Atelier F of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, where the artist teaches Painting Techniques.

Fondazione THE BANK ETS – Institute for the Study of Contemporary Painting in Bassano del Grappa (VI) presents, from 21 November 2026 to 28 February 2027, The Painter’s Craft by Nebojša Despotović (Belgrade, Serbia, 1982), curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi.

A devotee of painterly quality and of the “return to craft,” Despotović belongs to the generation of artists who have helped bring figurative painting back to the center of contemporary Italian art, turning it into a tool for exploring identity, memory and perception.

The exhibition features over 40 works in a variety of formats, created between 2013 and 2026, documenting the most significant moments of the artist’s career, including many previously unseen pieces. The large and medium-sized paintings are mainly executed in acrylic and oil on canvas, while the smaller works also employ engraving and carving on wood, oil and encaustic.

“The exhibition project highlights painting as a critical tool for decoding the contemporary, capable of containing and slowing the uncontrolled flow of images that dominates the present. At the heart of the show is a claim for a kind of painting that sustains itself through its own primary elements – color, matter, surface, gesture and figurative structure – regardless of mere conceptual content or the subject depicted,” writes Cesare Biasini Selvaggi.

The exhibition unfolds in three sections, each corresponding to a stage in Despotović’s artistic inquiry.

The first section comprises a cycle of paintings centered on the exploration of identity, in the vein of an introspective narrative. Drawing on cinema and the mass media, the artist creates theatrical settings from which costumed figures emerge, “cast” in the great spectacle of existence. Here light is a powerful constructive device, essential to defining space, time and narrative.

The second section presents a series of canvases focused on the artist’s family. His relatives are portrayed at different moments of their personal histories and confined within the settings of their daily lives. The colder light and the chromatic choices (predominantly blue, in some cases pink) raise existential questions that oscillate between life and death, fear and desire, moving through disturbing taboos and complex aspects of the human condition.

A third group of works consists of portraits of friends, particularly fellow artists. In these works the painting ignites its own color, becoming intense and saturated, while gesture gives way to a more modeled, tactile and material treatment. They are devices of relationship, in which physiognomic likeness makes room for an exploration of what the artist perceives in the other.

A side section of the exhibition, set up on the first floor of the former Banca Commerciale Italiana branch converted into a museum, is dedicated to six young artists from Atelier F of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice: Anna Furlan (Monfalcone, 1998), Giorgia Martinuzzi (Venice-Mestre, 2004), Elia Peruffo (Verona, 2002), Silvia Pezzi (Verona, 2004), Lorenzo Piazza (Desenzano del Garda, 2003) and Isabella Ponte (Venice, 2003).

Founded by Carlo Di Raco, who still directs it together with Martino Scavezzon, Atelier F of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice has for years been a key reference point for education and research in contemporary painting. Among the talents trained there is Nebojša Despotović himself, now a professor of Painting Techniques at the Venetian institution, who maintains a constant dialogue with the Atelier, combining his artistic practice with a valuable commitment to teaching and exchange with students.

“While following autonomous expressive paths, these young artists share a fresh and unconventional approach to painting, distinguished by their highly personal reworking of the figurative and constructive strategies of the image. Their work traces a possible trajectory for the painting of tomorrow, not only within the horizon of Atelier F, but across the broader Italian scene,” states Cesare Biasini Selvaggi.

“I wanted this exhibition very much because Nebojša Despotović belongs to that rare category of painters who are viscerally obsessed with their own language. The key to understanding it lies entirely in the title of the show, The Painter’s Craft: his is first and foremost an investigation of painting itself, and only through it, of the human being. Welcoming Nebojša’s proposal to include works by young artists from Atelier F of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice in the exhibition was natural and enthusiastic: supporting new generations is a founding part of our mission and fully consistent with what is happening in Venice. Despotović is a concrete model for many young talents, who see in him proof that a path of rigor is possible. Thanks to the work of Carlo Di Raco and Martino Scavezzon, and to the contribution of Nebojša himself, Venice has established itself, beyond any doubt, as a true epicenter of emerging painting in Italy,” states Antonio Menon, president of the Fondazione THE BANK ETS.

The exhibition, made possible with the support of Integra Business Consulting, is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 4:00 to 7:00 pm, or by appointment (www.fondazionethebank.org/it/visit). Closed from 25 December 2026 to 8 January 2027 inclusive. Free admission.

Parlano di noi

Di pittore in pittore: Nebojša Despotović e la scuola veneziana - Il Giornale dell'Arte www.ilgiornaledellarte.com/Mostre/Di-pittore-in-pittore-Nebojsa-Despotovic-e-la-scuola-veneziana

Nebojša Despotović, il mestiere della pittura www.finestresullarte.info/mostre/nebojsa-despotovic-porta-bassano-del-grappa-40-opere-sul-mestiere-della-pittura