Paints with a strong sense of intimacy, as if Ciabattini’s intent was to unveil his own personal world, full of small, cosmic secrets, which are his private universe, a parallel one.

The well-known painter Arshile Gorky used to talk of… “revealing lost perceptions through the retina, filtering and forwarding a red synergy with the human brain…” These are Ciabattini’s own perceptions, the ones which should be stripped of any kind of mental judgement in order to be freely combined with the use of the colour, of the canvas, with the drawing, the sign, while using and changing the artistic matter and point of view.

His art works titled “Refractions” (2012 and before) were born after many years of studies, which allowed the painter himself to develop the concept of “Figuration” by approaching abstraction, as a result of long, personal and spontaneous maturation which entangled Ciabattini in deep introspection.

We might even say that the influence of Action Painting is evident. Nevertheless, he informed this with his strong and personal unique style.

His artistic progress is evolving daily, as he is constantly on the lookout for new ways of expression thanks to the in-depth analysis of artistic techniques, as well as of the criteria for choosing his poetics. In his upcoming, new art works (2013) he paints his new canvas by delving deeper into the matter of “Dialogues With the Time”. In fact, his decision to use “pozzolana”, a red powder very similar to the one used by the Etruscans, is thus really connecting his work with the ancient past of Italian history.

We can point out that these “New Refractions” are, themselves, a kind of Gestural Art and are born by an instinctive painting gesture.

All the inert materials are melted with water and colours. Once they dry up, they result in roundish shapes, which are very different from the barbed shapes of the past.

Newness in Ciabattini’s work is also disclosed by the upcoming presentation of the “Micro-canvas”, canvas which are linked and matched with one another, but also divisible and usable in autonomous contexts, and this is definitely such a different way of painting compared to the big canvas Ciabttini used to create, and still creates.