Bio
Simafra (Riccardo Prosperi) was born in Florence in 1985 and began painting in 2000, taking individual lessons from the master Ottavio Troiano. Soon he started working in a famous Florentine atelier where he learned the art of restoration and decoration.
Starting from 2004, he began exhibiting in Italy and abroad. Between 2008 and 2010, he stayed in Paris and Germany, collaborating with Galerie Golkar in Bonn and Infantellina Contemporary in Berlin. In 2012, he participated in the International Biennial of Kiev Art Arsenal and founded 'La Bottega Moderna', the artist's studio and independent cultural space in Florence.
Between 2013 and 2014, he collaborated with the galleries Art Moor House and Cadogan Gallery in London, and the gallery Virgine Barrou Planquart in Paris, and subsequently from 2016 with the Maddox Gallery in London, with which he participated in the Houston Art Fair and Art Across Borders - Bahrain International Fair.
In 2018, Simafra created a series dedicated to Lapland, one of these artworks became part of the prestigious "Alessandro Grassi" collection, and two other pieces were exhibited at the Kakslauttanen Museum in Finland. In the same year, the editorial staff of Exibart included him in the publication "222 Emerging Artists to Invest in 2018". Still through Maddox Gallery, the following year he started exhibiting in the United States (Los Angeles), simultaneously creating a new collaboration with the "Belvedere Art Space" gallery in Beirut.
Wrapped in an aura of mystery, where archetypes and symbols intertwine in deep reflections on life and death, Simafra's works question us about the reason for our existence. Dense and immediate brushstrokes alternate with scratches and overlays that give life to colossal compositions where unconscious apparitions take shape.
The use of arcane, almost esoteric symbolism, is linked to the profound inner journey undertaken by the artist who, in 2020, at the peek of his career, unexpectedly disappears from the public scene simulating his death.
After two years, at the end of 2022, Simafra announces his rebirth and exhibits an extraordinary series of paintings at the solo exhibition "Quarantanove" at the Pastificio Cerere in Rome, followed in the summer of 2023 by an exhibition at Nuar Gallery in Capo Boi and an exposition in Dubai.
This new series of exciting, shocking, and at times indigestible artworks, due to the violence with which the artist exposes himself, are a symptom of the beginning of a new conceptual and aesthetic path undertaken, abandoning any form of decoration to dedicate himself to the visceral narration of man facing his fears, showing an expressive maturity worthy of the path of a great artist.
His paintings have been exhibited in the main capitals of the world, among his illustrious collectors are the Royal Family of Bahrain, the Minister of Finance of Lebanon, and international stars like Cameron Diaz.
Esposizioni
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018 Galleria Russo, Roma, Italia;
2016/2018 Maddox Gallery, Londra, Regno Unito;
2017 Belvedere Art Space, Beirut, Libano;
2015 ArtMoorHouse Gallery, Londra, Regno Unito;
2010 Galerie Golkar, Bonn, Germania;
2018 Maddox Gallery, Los Angeles, USA;
2015 Galerie Virginie Barrou Planquart, Parigi, Francia;
2019 Macek Gallery, Miami, USA;
2013 Cadogan Contemporary, Londra, Regno Unito;
2016 Fondazione Vacchi, a cura di Marco Tonelli;
2016 Fondazione Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Firenze, Italia
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 L’arte cambia il mondo, Università della Cucina Italiana
2024 Dubai Park Hyatt
2024 Daimon, Firenze - Poggio Imperiale
2022 Quarantanove, Pastificio Cerere, Roma;
2017 Aequilibrium, Galleria Russo, Roma, Italia, (catalogo con un testo critico di Marco Tonelli);
2017 Eden, Maddox Gallery, Mayfair, Londra, Regno Unito;
2016 Humus, Galleria Ex Marmi,
Pietrasanta, Italia (catalogo con un testo critico di Marco Tonelli);
2015 Le Quattro Stagioni, Palazzo Panichi (Pietrasanta) e Palazzo Gianfigliazzi Bonaparte (Firenze), Italia
MUSEUMS
Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Collezione Alessandro Grassi, Prato
Museo di Kakslauttanenm, Lapland
