Simafra Event

Riccardo Prosperi, also known as Simafra, lives and works in Florence, his hometown. He started painting as early as 2000, working for a famous Florentine workshop of restorers and at the same time studying with Professor Ottavio Troiano.

He first participated in competitions and group exhibitions around Tuscany in 2004 and within a few years he was exhibiting in Italy and abroad. 

In the following two years, he began collaborating with the Virginie Barrou Planquart gallery in Paris, with whom he participated in numerous fairs around Europe. The same gallery hosted his first Parisian solo show in March 2015.

In 2016 he started two new collaborations, one with Maddox Gallery in Mayfair, London and one with Russo Gallery in Rome-Istanbul. The same year he also worked on his first site-specific installation, entitled Autostima and exhibited within the group show Ecosistemi at the Biagiotti Progetto Arte Foundation in Florence.

Simafra’s 2017 opened with Eden, the artist’s first London solo exhibition, hosted within the Maddox Gallery spaces. The same year, the gallery included some works by Simafra in two group exhibitions, Modern Masters and Art Across Borders, the latter organized on the occasion of the gallery’s participation at the International Art Fair of Bahrain.

In 2018, one of Simafra’s works was included in the Luigi Pecci Contemporary Art Center collection. With 2019 Simafra began a new path in the States, thanks to Maddox Gallery, which exhibited his works in their newly opened gallery in Los Angeles.

Finally, in 2020 the artist moves his workshop to a new location and decides to embark on a new path. His recent works are the expression of the research he has undertaken in recent years.

Entirely dedicated to the relationship between Man and Nature, these new paintings are the symbols of a reborn artist. This rebirth materialized in 2022 with the solo exhibition Quarantanove, set up at the Pastificio Cerere in Rome. 

CURRICULUM

MUSEUMS
Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Alessandro Grassi Collection, Prato (Italy)
Kakslauttanenm Museum, Lapland (Finland)

ART FAIRS
Arte Fiera Bologna, Italy
Art Verona, Italy
Arte Fiera Reggio Emilia, Italy
Art Across Borders, Bahrain
Houston Art Fair, Houston, Texas, USA
Art Arsenal, Kiev, Ukraine
AAF Brussels, Belgium

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Quarantanove, Pastificio Cerere, Rome
Aequilibrium, Russo Gallery, Roma, Italy (catalogue and critical essay by Marco Tonelli)
Eden, Maddox Gallery, Mayfair, London, UK
Humus, Galleria Ex Marmi, Pietrasanta, Italy (catalogue and critical essay by Marco Tonelli)
Le Quattro Stagioni, Palazzo Panichi (Pietrasanta) e Palazzo Gianfigliazzi Bonaparte (Firenze), Italy

PUBLICATIONS
Exibart, 222 Young Artists to buy in 2018
Exhibition catalogue “Humus”, curated by Marco Tonelli
Exhibition catalogue “Aequilibrium”, curated by Marco Tonelli