Calisto Peretti

Calisto Peretti Born in 1937 in St-Ghislain. He studied at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts in Mons. He is a miner for the collieries in Tertre, in the region of Hainaut, Belgium, where he drew the first prevention drawings of the mine for his coworkers. He was the artistic director of the Association Nationale pour la prévention des Accidents du Travail (National Association for the Prevention of Occupational Accidents) in Brussels between 1959 and 1984 (where he drew more than 800 safety posters). Since 1961, he has showcased several personal and collective exhibitions in Belgium and abroad (paintings and posters). When it comes to paintings as well as posters, everything is mostly based on mankind and its condition; his taste for the human anatomy is reflected in an expressionist and baroque way in his spatial creations. Studio: Rue de l’Aire 7 7480 Hornues 067/33.31.40. Remarkable drawer, he likes to wound people’s consciences and eyes by using clashing colors. It was a deliberate choice made by that “muscle” artist. It is true that here, bodies have an acquaintance with minerals and plants, but mostly – and much more – with a lust for life, or it is more likely, with the fear in their guts. In the end, it is a strange painting coming from an incredible character, not so far from the new Italian and German expressionists, especially regarding the crudeness of the colors because, when it comes to graphic design, Calisto Peretti is predominantly a personal master with a diabolical touch. We must however admit that, in this case, the artist plays with the chromatic hell. Alain VIRAY