Dario Ballantini Italian, b. 1964

Dario Ballantini lives and works between Livorno and Milan. A graduate of the Liceo Artistico, he began exhibiting his paintings in Tuscany in the mid-1980s while simultaneously developing a successful career as an actor and performer. Throughout more than four decades, Ballantini has maintained a parallel artistic practice, establishing himself as one of Italy's most distinctive contemporary figurative painters.

Drawing on the expressive legacy of Italian Modernism, Ballantini constructs powerful figurative compositions in which fragmented bodies, architectural forms, and psychological landscapes converge. His paintings explore memory, identity, and human relationships through bold colour, dynamic geometry, and a highly personal visual language that moves between Cubism, Expressionism, and Metaphysical painting. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout Italy and internationally, and in 2007 he received the A.B.O. d'Argento for painting, presented by Achille Bonito Oliva, recognizing the strength and originality of his artistic practice.