In the vibrant landscape of contemporary Italian art, few stories resonate with the power of passion and resilience quite like that of Angelo Petraccone, known in the art world as GAP69. A Roman painter whose work is gaining significant international acclaim, Petraccone is not the product of a traditional academy. For decades, his world was one of construction sites and technical drawings, a successful career as a surveyor. Yet, beneath the surface of blueprints and building codes, the soul of a painter was waiting for its moment. That moment has emphatically arrived, marked by his victory at the first International Biennial of Art of the Roman Riviera with the powerful triptych “Io e Pablo”. “The Ambassador” had the privilege of sitting down with the artist to uncover the remarkable journey of a man whose life, much like his art, is a testament to the transformative power of creativity.
His transition from a structured profession to the boundless freedom of the canvas was not a gentle shift but a profound and necessary calling, born from a lifetime of experience and culminating in a moment of personal crisis. We asked him to share this pivotal story.
Mr. Petraccone, your transition from an established career as a surveyor to a full-time artist is a powerful testament to the strength of passion. Could you tell our readers what crucial moment led you to fully embrace painting and how your previous profession has influenced your artistic perspective?
“My artistic journey began precisely in middle school, thanks to my Art History professor, SantiProsperi Pietro. With him and 25 of my peers, we created a mosaic of Pablo Picasso’s famous ‘Guernica’, faithfully scaled by a third. We made every single tile ourselves, from the clay fired in the school’s kilns to the subsequent colouring with kaolin-based pigments and further final firings. This wonderful coloured work won many awards and allowed us to travel to several regions of Italy for the three years of middle school, at the school’s expense. As I was the third child of a marriage that failed shortly after my birth, I started working on construction sites without even finishing my first year of high school; in fact, I obtained my surveyor’s diploma by attending night school for working students. This initial misfortune soon turned into an excellent professional training, a blend of theory and practice, which led me to manage important renovation sites in Rome by the age of 19.
All the while, my self-taught artistic path continued, also thanks to my association with the great artist and master Riccardo Fiore Pittari. My professional life was always fulfilling, until the beginning of 2024. In January, after yet another heated argument—following 19 years of subordinate work at one of the largest sports centres in Italy where for three and a half years I had been asking to have my salary and benefits regularised—I found myself hospitalised for severe psycho-physical stress and an off-the-charts atrial fibrillation. In this case, too, it was my strong passion for Art that ‘saved’ me from the abyss of depression… I truly owe so much to Art, to its timeless charm! “
This fusion of a structured past and an expressive present is encapsulated in his very name: !!! GAP69. It is not a random moniker but a declaration of identity. The ‘G’ stands for Geometra (Surveyor), a proud acknowledgment of a past that has indelibly shaped his artistic eye, what he himself calls a “professional deformation” that instills lines, geometric forms, and perspectives into his work like an instinct. ‘A’ and ‘P’ are his initials, Angelo Petraccone, and ’69’ is his year of birth. The three exclamation points, he explains, represent his will not only to transfer his own emotions onto the canvas but to unleash those that lie within each viewer, sparked by their own life experience.
His triptych “Io e Pablo” is a perfect example of this emotional transfer, a tribute to Picasso and a cry against war. But how is a work by GAP69 born? What is the process from the initial spark to the final brushstroke?
Could you walk us through your creative process? Are there rituals, environments, or moods that you consider essential for your work?
“My dear Director, in reality, there is no real ritual, although an initial and constant foundation does exist, and that is the choice of the canvas or canvases that will form the complete work. I refer, for example, to the last work I completed after 4 years, which I still sometimes retouch, titled Hybris. This work, whose name comes from an intuition and an in-depth study by my daughter Flavia, a philosophy graduate, is made on nine separate canvases. It starts from the fifteenth century, passes through the Industrial Revolution, and arrives at the artificial intelligence of today, addressing themes such as pedophilia, the commodification of the female body, the Twin Towers, the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, the oppression of women in Iran and Afghanistan, theology, sexuality in today’s world, and bullying.”
Hybris: Humanity on an Unstable Threshold
The work Hybris thus becomes the key to understanding not only the process but Petraccone’s entire cosmology. The artist explains the dense meaning of the title, which goes beyond simple “arrogance.”
“In the ancient Greek context, Hybris had a negative connotation, referring to an excessive pride that leads to violating divine and human laws, often with negative consequences. However, in some contexts, it could be interpreted as an excess of confidence or ambition that, although risky, can lead to great results and innovations, especially in the artistic and creative field where breaking the mold could be a source of originality. Living in a suspended time, in which the human being is continually torn between two opposing forces: on one hand, the dehumanization that takes shape in wars, terrorism, in the commodification of bodies and minds; on the other, the ancestral need for meaning, beauty, and expression. My work explores the faces of contemporary dehumanization, without, however, succumbing to cynicism. It celebrates those places where the human resists: in the critical thinking of philosophy, in the gestures of the dancing body, in the expressive urgency of art. As technologies advance and artificial intelligence redraws the boundary between the natural and the artificial, we ask ourselves: What remains of what makes us human? It is a profound tension, a crossing, an act of resistance and of questioning. It does not offer answers. It proposes a threshold. An unstable ground where everything is in question, but nothing is yet lost.“
This complex vision is also reflected in his perspective on the role of the artist today, a figure who must navigate a world saturated with technology while protecting a space for human dialogue.
As an artist active on the international scene, what is your perspective on the contemporary art world? What challenges and opportunities do you see?
«My primary perspective is and always will be to want to improve the continuous, intense, and subtle dialogue that exists between the artist and the viewer; the desire to unleash emotions. The greatest challenge for all of us artists will be to resist this super-technological period, thus creating those opportunities for universal communication that only Art knows and can provide. To emerging talents, I feel I must push them towards continuous experimentation, not to stop at pure technique alone, but to travel, as much as possible, still unexplored roads, creating works capable of marking new eras!“
The victory at the Biennial, in the meantime, acted as a catalyst, projecting his unique voice onto the world stage.
What impact has this prestigious recognition had on your career?
“Winning the First Biennial has in fact expanded the knowledge of my works, my person, and my way of making Art abroad. It was as a result of this prestigious recognition that I was immediately invited to exhibit at ‘Le Carrousel du Louvre’ in Paris thanks to an international curator to whom I could not say no… The same thing happened in Italy, and specifically at the Milan Biennial in the same year, thanks to its President, Salvo Nugnes, and where I had the honor of meeting and being appreciated by personalities such as Vittorio Sgarbi, Paolo Liguori, and Katia Ricciarelli… Despite this, my artistic direction has not been influenced in any way, leaving my fundamental artistic beliefs unchanged!“
With a vision so rooted in the present and such a unique path, the question arises spontaneously: what does the future hold for an artist who has already lived and painted so much?
Looking to the future, what are your aspirations? Are there any upcoming projects you can share with the audience of The Ambassador?
«My greatest aspiration is to achieve ‘immortality’ through my works. A project I care deeply about is to complete my first art gallery as soon as possible at the offices of a construction company, which will be called: ‘La EDILGROAN Office Gallery’.»
The work of Angelo Petraccone is a reminder: the most profound artistic statements are not born in immaculate studios, but from a life lived to the fullest. He is an artist forged in the crucible of the Roman streets, disciplined by the rigor of technical drawing, and finally, liberated by the necessity of his passion.
His journey is a powerful narrative of how the Italian spirit of resilience and creativity continues to leave its mark on the world. His is an art that offers no easy consolations, but invites us to pause on an “unstable threshold,” to question, and to resist. As his artistic exploration continues, the audience of “The Ambassador” eagerly awaits to discover what the next chapter will be, the next threshold Angelo Petraccone will invite us to cross.
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