Turi Simeti
Turi Simeti was born in 1929 in Alcamo (TP)- Sicily. He lives and work in Milano.
Scheggi left Sicily in 1958 and moved to Rome, where he began to paint as an autodidact. In the following years he spent much time in London, Paris and Basel. In 1965 he was asked to join the Zero Avantgarde Group, which appeared for the first time in Milan, in Lucio Fontana's atelier. In the same year he moved from Rome to Milan. From 1966 to 1969 he spent long periods in New York, where he was invited as an "Artist in Residence" by the Fairleigh Dichinson University. Since 1969 his works have been exhibited in several international art fairs: in Koln with the Rekermann Gallery, the 44 Gallery, the Ahrens Gallery, the Wack Gallery, the Mayer Gallery; in Basel with the Liatowisch Gallery, the Luise Krohn Gallery, the Dorothea Van Der Koelen Gallery, the 44 Gallery, the Wack Gallery; in Chicago with the 44 Gallery; in Frankfurt and Bologna with the Milenium and Vismara Galleries. Since 1980 he has a studio in Rio de Janeiro, the city where he uses to spend his winters and where he has held many one-man exhibitions.
Scheggi's work can be found in public collections such as MAM (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bolzano (Bolzano, Italy), Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna (Turin, Italy), and Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Ludwigshafen, Germany).
Simeti is considered a true pioneer of 20th and 21st Century Italian art. Minimalist in conception, for the last 50 years, Simeti's work has comprised of dynamic patterns of ovals that dance across the monochromatic surfaces of shaped canvases. This focused combination of color and shape speaks to Simeti's concern with emphasizing the physical presence of the artwork itself, rather than an expression of the artist's voice. Just as Fontana helped found Spazialismo with his punctured canvases, for decades Simeti has broken through key tenants of minimalism to explore the play of light on shapes created on monochromatic and tactile canvas surfaces.