About artist
Massimo Cecchetti was born in Venice in 1948; in 1975 he moved to San Donà di Piave, currently he lives and works in Noventa di Piave. He attends the State Institute of Art in Venice, in the Graphic Arts section and completes the cycle of studies with the two-year teaching course in the same Institute. His cultural formation, however, is previous, and much, to the school cycle. He remembers "...I must have been 5-6 years old, when my father took me, to my great joy, to visit the enormous artistic patrimony present in Venetian churches and museums. It was he who made me understand the greatness of Venetian painting, simply by entering the churches to admire the altarpieces of the great Tintoretto, Titian, Giorgione, Carpaccio, Piazzetta, Bellini, Tiepolo, ... names that still make me and any artist shake in their boots. I remember he would point out to me the beauty and confidence of the brushstrokes seen up close; individually they were abstract works but, as they moved away from the painting, they magically transformed into faces, skies, draperies, buildings, landscapes..." Today Massimo Cecchetti tells us that that was his true cultural and professional imprinting. His entry into the school cycle was only a fixed point in his life, necessary to culturally consolidate the instinctive training he had already received.
He immediately embarked on a career in the world of advertising, closer to his cycle of studies, more related to industry than to pictorial expression, working with many brands and companies of national and international fame belonging to niche sectors (construction, earthmoving, wine sector, etc. ..). He embraces the graphic arts in their entirety: illustration, photography, design and layout of catalogs and posters, comics and the design of logos and brands. For publishing we mention the collaboration for "Turismo Veneto" and "tuttoTRENO". Massimo Cecchetti confides to us "...before the advent of the digital era, sketches were literally built by hand. I would put a slide in the photographic enlarger and, after having chosen the framing and the enlargement, I would draw, as realistically as possible, what would then be replaced by a four-color photo, paginated with a text, also simulated. It was necessary that the clientele be perfectly aware of the visual effect obtained, so the search for a very strong realism was crucial..." And so here we are to understand the aesthetic content of his current works: real images but finally freed from the rigor of the processes of commercial and editorial communication. A reality turned from crude realism to poetry.
The desire for this creative freedom is clearly visible in his works, all worked on paper and with the use of specific materials for this material. The most significant and suggestive part of the drawing is carried out by colored pencils and chalks, or more often by their powder, diluted and modeled by hand on the paper support and, obviously, by their harmonious interaction. A poetic hyperrealism, with atmospheric lights in luminous and nuanced contrasts. Even the detail of a "moving" image, a legacy of a photographic culture based on low shutter speeds, makes the drawing dynamic, almost as if one did not want to stop and reproduce the reality of the moment but to prepare the observer for the next moment. Let's extrapolate from the interview with Massimo Cecchetti a sentence that describes him very well: "... I realize that we are literally surrounded by objects, even very modest ones, which, if transported to the area of artistic perception, assume extraordinary aesthetic values..."
Among his artistic appearances, all cut out in his free time from professional commitments, we gladly remember: a personal exhibition in Rimini, associated with an exhibition of model trains and vintage toys, a collective exhibition at the Casa dei Carraresi in Treviso, with images dedicated to the real train. We also remember a personal exhibition in Bassano del Grappa a Vicenza inside the Automobile Museum "Bonfanti-Vimar" with drawings dedicated to the car and the historical car.