About Federico Cattañeo

Federico Cattañeo, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, displayed a keen eye and talent from a young age, that could not be ignored. In his mid-teenage years, Cattañeo moved to the U.S.A and attended the Magnet program for painting, drawing and sculpture. With his flourishing art career underway he moved to New York City to refine his painting technique. After receiving high profile gallery representation within the city, he then went on to develop a special interest in the art of painting in Chicago, where he obtained a BFA and MFA.

Cattañeo has been influenced by an amalgamation of many artists and genres. He creates processes that gesture these influences but always staying true to his roots and providing a distinctive point of view; unique to his own experiences and education. His recent and most sophisticated series to date explores his unique ability to amalgamate both his painting and sculptural techniques into hand carved wooden panels. He continues to accentuate the carved lines by inserting them with strong pigments, to emphasize their voluminous and sculptural qualities yet creating a smooth, seamless surface and in some parts even retreating within the panel itself. This elaborate montage of different medias give prominence to the contrast between exterior and interior spaces, an integral theme in his most recent bodies of work. These lines also manifest a tension between a certain appearance of spontaneity and the painstaking reality of a deliberately manipulated process.

A crucial component of the “Line” series is his use of wooden veneers and silk fabric; allowing him to explore the different spaces and motifs whilst maintaining its materiality. He intentionally illustrates the special contradictions, which painting inherently has, along with confronting the viewer with issues of pictorial representation. The result is a variety of beautifully executed techniques, with a dynamic yet sophisticated play on ambiguous dualisms and a juxtaposition of abstraction and representation, interior and exterior, fantasy and reality, profundity and perception.