Gianluca Franzese a San Francisco based artist was born in Calabria, Italy and raised in New York. After a loss of hearing at a young age Franzese was educated in a school for the deaf. Naturally excelling in his visual abilities, he studied Fine Art at Pratt institute and eventually the Florence Academy of Art in Italy focusing on the Old Master techniques. Meticulous about detail, Franzese’s still lifes and nudes are reminiscent of Caravaggio. After years of rendering the everchanging San Francisco cityscape where he has made his home; his artistic vision has evolved and focused in on the minutia of insect life set in a backdrop of repetitive geometric patterns. Undoubtedly Franzese’s new work shows a marked contemporary shift. Three-dimensional bees, ants, centipedes are painstakingly placed as puzzle pieces between a grid of multiple levels and layers evoking a sense of claustrophobia within a seemingly endless mechanical system. A featurette about Franzese will appear in the upcoming edition of notable art magazine, Juxtapoz.