Pasqualino Fracasso was born in 1973 in Aosta, a small town in the Italian Alps. But heres the thing, he’s not just a painter. By day he’s an Aerospatiale engineer. By night, or whenever he can steal a moment, he’s a watercolorist who thinks about paint the way an engineer thinks about structure. He started painting in 2005 and fell in love with watercolor immediatly. He’s self-taught, which means he learned by looking, by failing, by figuring it out on his own.
He calls himself an eclectic watercolourist. That means he doesnt stick to one subject or one style. He paints urban landscapes, portraits, mountain scenes from his home in the Aosta Valley. He loves mixing traditional watercolor with abstract and modern ideas he’s picked up from other mediums. His work is all about opposites: new and old, free brushstrokes and well-defined shapes, chromatic dynamism and quiet restraint. He once said his vision of watercolour is that the painter has to play on the opposites. Thats not just a philosophy. Thats how he builds a painting.
Q: How did an aerospace engineer end up as a watercolor painter?
A: He had always loved drawing since childhood, but it wasnt until 2005 that he discovered watercolor. He studied on his own from magazines and books, and by 2008 he was exhibiting nationally. Two years later he joined the Italian Watercolour Society and the American National Watercolour Society. He just kept going, and the watercolor world noticed.
He once said, “I believe it’s important to know the classics to be able to go in other directions”. That quote sits right in the middle of his whole approach. He studied the old masters, worked realistically at first to learn the craft, then started pushing against it. He believes you have to know the rules before you can break them. That’s why his work feels both grounded and free at the same time. He knows what he’s doing, and then he lets go.
In 2014 he opened a watercolor school in the Aosta Valley. He’s taught workshops all over the world, from Europe to the United States to China. He’s been invited to exhibit as a guest of honor and serve as a judge at major international competitions. He’s a signature member of the American Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society. Not bad for a guy who started painting in his spare time.
Q: What kind of subjects does Fracasso paint?
A: Everything. Urban landscapes, portraits, the mountains of his home valley. He paints both in the studio and en plein air, which means outside, on location. But he’s not just copying what he sees. He wants to communicate something beyond the surface. He takes time to figure out what he really wants to pull out of a subject before he even touches the brush. Thats the engineer in him, I guess. Plan first, then paint.
