Art + Artists

Sal Scarpitta attended the Academia di Belle Arti in Rome. His early work foreshadowed his race car constructions with expressionist portraits of race car drivers. Canvases developed into abstract forms, taking on thickness and texture and then protrusions, finally becoming torn and stretched canvas and elastic soaked in plaster and plastic resins. Found materials were developed into objects of transport, which depict “silent journeys” or “voyages of the mind” reminiscent of Native American, Eskimo, or Laplander vessels. Finally, facsimiles of race cars, born out of childhood memories, brought Scarpitta out of the solitude of the studio.