Summary
Antonello Venditti (born 1975)
Originally from the Marsica region, he lives and works in Artena, within the metropolitan area of Rome.
Illustrator · Writer · Visual Artist · Painter
Antonello Venditti discovered oil painting at the age of eight, taking part in his first school competitions. He held his first solo painting exhibition at fourteen, followed by a second at fifteen in Trasacco (AQ).
In 1995, he graduated from the I.S.A. of Avezzano with a specialization in metal arts and goldsmithing, and later continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, attending the painting program.
During his military service in L’Aquila, he created significant mural paintings and completed twenty-five commissioned panels for the commanding general of the army corps. After 1997, he returned to Rome, where he continued experimenting with acrylic painting, refining his technique through professional work as a copyist.
Winner of numerous plein air painting events and national and international competitions—including the prestigious Manzù Prize (2004) and the Caresio Prize (2017)—Venditti developed a distinctive vision capable of reinterpreting myth, legend, and the classical world through a surrealist lens.
In 1998 and 2000, he contributed his artistic expertise to the creation of allegorical carnival floats, winning first prize at the Marsican Carnival in 1998 and second prize in 2000.
He exhibited in group shows, galleries, and international exhibitions until 2005, after which he began presenting his work to the public through a pop-surrealist style.
Acrylic painting became the dominant medium throughout his oeuvre, leading to a personal innovation of hyperrealism—particularly evident in technically demanding master copies created on commission. A trompe-l'œil painter and muralist, his works came to define him as an artist “with an extra gear.”
Between 2008 and 2010, he focused on the creation of archaeological reproductions. He later approached fantasy art, producing fairy-tale imagery for merchandising.
In August 2010, he participated in the 13th International Art Fair of Beijing, exhibiting six paintings at the World Trade Center with the Associazione Artisti Italiani.
In the autumn of 2013, he took part in a fashion-and-art event inspired by the Roman Dolce Vita, presenting eleven paintings under the title Fauves.
In the years leading up to 2014, Venditti also explored writing and published his first fantasy novel. From 2015 onward, he began working professionally as an illustrator, producing artwork for music albums, small publishing houses, and private commissions, while also starting his journey into digital painting.
In 2018, he published his first fantasy illustration book.
In 2017, he was selected among the fifty artists of the OverLuk Prize, an experience that led him to create live artworks for charitable purposes at the Performance Area of Lucca Comics & Games.
In 2019, he collaborated on a series of traditional illustrations for the fan-made short film Dark Resurrection, set in the Star Wars universe, directed by Angelo Licata. In the same period, he wrote the first volume of the fantasy trilogy The Mutations, completed in the summer of 2021.
Since 2020, he has collaborated with Fanucci Editore Group, illustrating numerous book covers for major international fantasy authors, including Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb, John Gwynne, Raymond E. Feist, Megan Whalen Turner, Kylie Lee Baker, Tasha Suri, Sabaa Tahir, Richard Swan, Anthony Ryan, James Islington, and Anne McCaffrey.
In autumn 2025, his illustrated book Norse – Viking Myths and Gods was released, published by Mirage Comics and Eterea Edizioni.
Antonello Venditti shapes the visible and the invisible with equal intensity.
His hand—honed through rigorous study of classical techniques—travels ancient paths to reveal unseen worlds, where flesh and dream, metal and light intertwine without boundaries.
Formed in the alchemy of academic drawing and the discipline of traditional painting, Venditti has forged a style that draws upon Renaissance knowledge and channels it into the vertiginous realms of the fantastic.
In his works, every surface breathes: fabric ripples, skin vibrates, darkness becomes living substance.
A cult illustrator within the international fantasy publishing scene, he has consistently maintained a rare aesthetic rigor—even in commissioned work—fusing narrative imagination and symbolic construction with a tension that borders on the sacred.
Alongside his mastery of traditional media, he employs digital painting with discernment, not as a technical shortcut but as an additional expressive path—one that expands and enriches the visual language of his creations.
Through the material presence of acrylic and the lightness of digital technologies, Antonello Venditti invites the viewer to linger at the edge of the unknown: where reality becomes myth, and myth becomes flesh.
He lives and works between gathered silences and inner horizons, in a constant dialogue with the infinite.
Skills
Software proficiency
