Artist statement

Davide Pedrotti is a Swiss-Italian contemporary artist working across painting, sculpture, and material-based experimentation.

Born in Switzerland and raised between Swiss and Italian cultural influences, Davide developed an early interest in visual expression through graffiti and street art. He began painting graffiti at the age of twelve, moving between Lugano and Milan and exploring urban environments where trains, walls, and overlooked surfaces became early sites of experimentation.

The intensity and recurrence of this early activity gave his presence in the urban landscape an almost collective dimension, at times generating the impression of something larger than a single individual. As that visibility became increasingly difficult to sustain, Pedrotti gradually stepped away from graffiti as a direct practice. What remained, however, was its urgency: a deep connection to gesture, repetition, risk, scale, and the psychological charge of leaving  a mark in space.

Over time, Pedrotti gradually brought graffiti onto canvas, translating its energy into a more controlled but still tension-filled surface. This shift led to private exhibitions and invited projects, including collaborations with Swiss photographer and organizer Michou Manzolini, where he produced live graffiti interventions in front of an audience. Rather than disappearing, graffiti became the basis of a broader artistic practice.

From the outset, Pedrotti maintained a highly protective relationship with his work, approaching it less as something to circulate than as a personal and controlled form of expression. Over time, encouraged to open his practice outward, he gradually began allowing the work to enter private collections.

During his studies in Economics in Milan, Pedrotti's practice shifted in a more conceptual direction, shaped by the visual intensity of the city and its proximity to design, fashion, and contemporary culture. The work gradually moved away from the direct language of graffiti toward a deeper engagement with surface, tension, transformation, and the physical presence of the object.

After an intense period of production in 2024, he adopted a more selective approach to making and releasing work, developing the practice with greater concentration and sharing new pieces more deliberately.

Davide currently lives and works in Lugano, Switzerland.