Pasquale de Sensi: Calabria as a Creative Island

Pasquale de Sensi, born in Lamezia Terme in 1983, is an artist who practices a form of creative sabotage by appropriating, displacing, and recontextualizing existing images into large-format paintings and meticulous paper collages. He lives and works in the province of Catanzaro, having chosen to return to Calabria in 2010 after studying at academies in Urbino, Rome, and Perugia. De Sensi describes Calabria as an 'island without being one,' where isolation pervades the entire region, making it difficult for local initiatives to connect with the outside world. Despite this, he values the region's light and sky, which influence his color and composition, and he maintains a practice as a cloud photographer. Since 2023, he has been represented by Mondoromulo, a small gallery in Castelvenere (Benevento province) run by Flavio Romualdo Garofano, whom he met in Bologna in 2009. In Lamezia Terme, he is part of Equatore, a group organizing exhibitions, but notes that the city lacks a stable contemporary art museum due to provincialism. He supports himself by teaching art history. De Sensi is the father of an 11-year-old daughter, Leda, who is interested in anime and manga and whose favorite artist is Vincent van Gogh.