Statement

My work explores light as a living presence within landscape — not simply as illumination, but as a force that shapes structure, atmosphere, and emotional space. I am drawn to moments when form is still emerging, when a place feels sensed rather than fully described.

Working from field studies, memory, and invention, I build paintings through layers — adjusting, scraping back, and reforming until the image begins to breathe. Colour is central to this process, not as decoration but as the mechanism through which light becomes visible. Subtle shifts in temperature, chromatic tension, and dissolving edges allow the painting to hold luminosity rather than illustrate it.

I often work in small series, returning to a motif to test how far an image can be reduced while still retaining presence. The finished works are less depictions of specific sites than records of perception — places where light, structure, and attention briefly coincide.

Background

Francisco Centofanti is a British-Italian painter trained at the Florence Academy of Art. He has worked as a professional artist for over two decades, exhibiting in the United Kingdom and internationally. His paintings are held in private collections across the United States, Europe, and Japan.

He is a two-time First Prize winner of the Glynn Vivian Open Exhibition (2017, 2024), and a recipient of the Carroll Foundation Award at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London. His work has also been selected for the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Selected Exhibitions

Solo
2021 — Golau Cymru, Attic Gallery, Swansea
2018 — Lumières, Kooywood Gallery, Cardiff
2008 — Twilight to Midnight, Beaux Arts Gallery, Bath
2003 — Interiors, Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells

Selected Awards & Exhibitions
2024 — First Prize, Glynn Vivian Open Exhibition, Swansea
2017 — First Prize, Glynn Vivian Open Exhibition, Swansea
2003 — Carroll Foundation Award, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London
2000 — BP Portrait Award (Finalist), National Portrait Gallery, London