Cappelli discovered art at a very young age; his grandfather was an architect and designer who inspired him the passion for abstract art, whilst his uncle was the art critic Mario Verdone, who introduced him to more technical and theoretical art issues.

His frequent trips to Rome, where he would spend time with his grandfather and fellow artists, allowed him to get closer to painting, and to start early in life a research that is still at the centre of his practice.

Gabriele Cappelli began his career in Bologna where he attended the university Alma Mater Studiorum studying economics; fascinated by the idiosyncratic architecture of the city, he started to focus on its urban plan, taking pictures, which would serve him as preparatory sketches for abstract canvases. Cappelli has always been interested in the dialogue between disciplines, challenging the relationship between photography and painting. Back then he started to focus on the nature of a term such as abstraction, noticing that it never refers to rigid compositions, but rather to fluid architectures made of eclectic elements.

Music is a huge influence in Cappelli’s work; classical music is a great passion of him, which has always guided his approach to painting too. Cappelli considers art (and music) as a way of thinking; they both develop from a basic structure, and then add details to their core, whilst synthetically shaping a work, which aims to be definitive. For Cappelli art and music are also characterized by the same attentive devotion of their practitioners; both painters and musicians need to methodically practice and rehearse in order to become confident with their medium and create a unique bond with it.

Equipped with a highly technical knowledge, which he acquired through his grandfather, and his personal interests, he moved to London in 1997 where the YBA already took over the contemporary art scene, with Gillian Wearing winning the Turner price in 1997, followed by Chris Ofili in 1998.

For Cappelli London was the cutting-edge city where to settle and develop his art practice, engaging with diversities and challenges. He knew he was the right time to invest in his artistic passion, to give up his already-started career in economics, and to fully focus himself on painting.

Back in the days, Cappelli dialogued with the kind of conceptuality expressed by YBAs, whilst always being faithful to his craftsmanship-driven practice. Theory and dexterity has always gone together in Cappelli’art.

Colour is a pivotal feature in Cappelli’s work. Since the beginning of his career the Italian-born painter has attempted to find brand new nuances whilst combining existing ones. Cappelli uses oil colours, which is not common amongst abstract painters who work on big-size canvas. Oil colours guarantee a long-lasting adherence to the working surface, and attentively express the painter’s labour, efforts and progress throughout time. The way the Italian painter uses colours recalls what Delacroix once stated; the French master carefully distinguished the use of colours, which implied making paintings out of a chromatic intensity, from coloration, which merely stands for applying colours.

Aesthetics drives Cappelli’s practice; the painter is concerned with sensation as the first, essential, yet not absolute step of a complex process of knowledge.

He lives and works in London