Stefano Cescon is the winner of the 8th edition of the Cramum Prize

It is the young Friulian Stefano Cescon with the work Honey Boxes who is the winner of the eighth edition of the Cramum Prize, the prestigious award that each year helps discover and launch young talents in Italian art. The winner was announced yesterday at Villa Mirabello (Milan) at the opening of the international exhibition (LA) NATURA (E’) MORTA? In second and third place were Elisa Alberti and Miriam Montani, respectively. Cescon follows Daniele Salvalai (2013), Paolo Peroni (2014), Francesca Piovesan (2015), Matteo Fato (2016), Giulia Manfredi (2017), Andreas Senoner (2018), and Ludovico Bomben (2019) in the award’s roll of honor.

“Stefano Cescon,” said Sabino Maria Frassà, who has been artistic director of the Cramum Prize since 2014, “won for his recognized ability to combine a sharp approach to color with an innovative technique that nurtures a deep reflection on the ambivalence nature and modernity that permeates our contemporary living.”

Born in Pordenone in 1989, Stefano Cescon, after graduating with honors in Decoration from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, concentrates his artistic research around a path designed to discover the expressive potential of beeswax. The artist explains the work that earned him the title of winner of the eighth Cramum Prize as follows: “The Honey Boxes series was born from the need to propose a way to bring into dialogue the daily practice of painting and the virtual aesthetic experience that each of us experiences every day within social shop windows. In my research I use kerosene (an artificial mixture derived from petroleum) beeswax and pigments. The balance between antithetical aspects, natural and artificial, human and meta-human, thus becomes my personal path to a virtuous dialogue between the parts, not only in art.” The work is the result of a process that includes the use of different types of wax, from kerosene to beeswax, which delineate both a technical and defined aspect and a natural and expressive form. Other variables are added to this stage: the boiling temperature, the percentage of pigment in the mixture and the speed of sedimentation. Thus, one senses the presence of expressive codes that depend on the dialogue between the material itself and the artist’s sensibility.

The win gives the artist access to a path of exhibitions and publications that will end after two years with a solo show at the Francesco Messina Museum in Milan. The winner is also awarded the cube, the symbol of the prize, this year made by Marini Marmi in Nuvolato di Gré and the fine Muscat wine from the Giacinto Gallina Winery. The other finalists for the award were Elisa Alberti, Maurizio Cariati, Matteo Di Ciommo, Jingge Dong, Clarissa Falco, Stefano Ferrari, Maxim Frank, Miriam Montani, the duo Andrea Sbra Perego & Federica Patera, and Federica Zianni.

The committee that decided on the winner was composed of the 12 internationally renowned artists in the exhibition and out of competition: the duo Bloom&me (Carolina Trabattoni and Valeria Vaselli), Ludovico Bomben, Letizia Cariello, Gianluca Capozzi, Michele De Lucchi, David LaChapelle, Alberto Emiliano Durante, Ingar Krauss, Fulvio Morella, Paola Pezzi, Elena Salmistraro, Carla Tolomeo. In addition to the artists, the prestigious scientific committee composed of well-known gallery owners, journalists, collectors and intellectuals voted: Valentina Ardia, Loredana Barillaro, Giulia Biafore, Paolo Bonacina, Ettore Buganza, Cristiana Campanini, Valeria Cerabolini, Jacqueline Ceresoli, Carolina Conforti, Stefano Contini, Camilla Delpero, Riccardo Fausone, Chiara Ferella Falda, Raffaella Ferrari, Antonio Frassà, Maria Fratelli, Giovanni Gazzaneo, Rosella Ghezzi, Federico Giannini, Pier Luigi Gibelli, Giulia Guzzini, Giuseppe Iannaccone, Alice Ioffrida, Gian Luigi Lenti, Angela Madesani, Achille Mauri, Fiorella Minervino, Fabio Muggia, Annapaola Negri-Clementi, Antonella Palladino, Rischa Paterlini, Francesca Pini, Giovanni Pelloso, Ilenia and Bruno Paneghini, Alessandra Quattordio, Fulvia Ramogida, Iolanda Ratti, Alessandro Remia, Elisabetta Roncati, Livia Savorelli, Massimiliano Tonelli, Patrizia Varone, Nicla Vassallo, Giorgio Zanchetti, Emanuela Zanon.

The award and exhibition are made possible by the collaboration with Fondazione Mirabello Onlus, Confucius Institute of the University of Milan, Associazione Marmisti della Regione Lombardia, Marini Marmi Srl, Studio Museo Francesco Messina, The Art Talk and Ama Nutri Cresci.

Image: Work Honey Box Panel #1420 by Stefano Cescon (2020), winner of the 8th Cramum Prize

Stefano Cescon is the winner of the 8th edition of the Cramum Prize

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