Saturno Butto

Saturno Buttò, born in Venice in 1957, started his exhibition career in 1993, when he published his first monograph titled “Portrayed from Saturn: 1989-1992”. Since then he has exhibited in Italy and US (New York and Los Angeles) and published many works including “Opera 1993-1999” and the more recently “Martyrologium” (2007).

The Venecian artist discusses in his artworks a provocative and grotesque theme: the conventional religion change, becoming obscure and mysterious, perturbing women are represented as erotique deities and in turn represent the carnal passion which can border on almost painful. The artist draws on the great period of painting of the 17th century. Nothing in his paintings are like it seems- there is much ambiguity insinuated, well hidden behind a confusing and dazzling luxury, just like in the baroque era.

It was winter 2000, the turn of the millennium, and Mark was trying to clean a patch of blood off a new leather jacket he had been given that Christmas. By accident he scratched into the surface of the jacket and that tiny patch on the leather suddenly opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Mark says; "It was my own Archimedes "Eureka" moment... it was as if an explosion went off in my mind. I saw a world of possibilities. I then spent the next few years focused on developing this technique at my studio. I was living as part artist & part mad-scientist trying to perfect the process which I'd accidentally discovered."

Sensuality and religion are the main topics of his artworks. The artist like to think of his characters as real persons living between the human world, characterized by “sex and sin” and the spiritual universe, where every soul will find his redemption.
The very broken taboo in Butto’s art is not sex itself, but the sensory experience that a body can fulfil through its extreme practices.