British-Italian contemporary artist. Born in London in 1961, Jonathan Guaitamacchi graduated in painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Milan is the city where he continued to work as a designer and consultant on several architecture and design projects in his formative years. In the late ‘90s, he decided to devote himself entirely to painting, producing mainly urban landscapes in black and white, whose unique and evocative bird’s eye views are a hallmark of his work in the eyes of the public.In 1997, AEM (Azienda Energetica Municipale Gas) offered him an artistic residency in its disused gas plants of Milan Bovisa, and then organized and sponsored within that disused industrial area his first solo exhibition -a successful show that allowed him to become known to the world of contemporary art.From the end of the 90’s, Jonathan Guaitamacchi has explored the uncontainable expansion of the urban landscape, with a rigorous formal research, immediately recognizable for its use of monochromatic mixed media and a strongly defined mark-making with writings. His research is also strongly autobiographical, recalling cities that he has a special affinity to. Milan, London, Cape Town and Johannesburg thus turn into those cinematic topographies so well known to the contemporary art audience.In 1999, his large works on Milan formal industrial areas are part of the exhibition Triennale /Progetto Bovisa, a project on Milan urban developments in the view of Expo at Palazzo della Triennale.

From there, he continued to exhibit in Italy, but also in South Africa, a country whose urban landscapes became the protagonists of his suggestive views with their unique perspective cut. In South Africa, he firstly showed his work at Christian Barnard Gallery in Cape Town, took part in Johannesburg Art Fair, had a solo show, Locations, at Smac Gallery Cape Town, and completed a residency at NIROX Project In Johannesburg, where he produced a huge work inspired by innercity Johannesburg, The Mother City Transfer.

His work has also been exhibited in China in the Beijing Biennale and in the Hangzhou West Lake International Art Festival, in London at the Barbican Centre for the Olympic London Fine Arts 2012, in London for the Amy Winehouse Foundation, as well as in Lubiana, Strasburg, Berlin, Bruxelles, Budapest, Vilnius, Miami, New York.Jonathan Guaitamacchi’s work is well established in Italy and well represented in public and private collections. His work has appeared also in public exhibitions on Modern and Contemporary Italian Art,such as Urban Sceneries at Villa Olmo in Como, focusing on urban landscapes from Boccioni to Mario Mertz and Landscapes at Villa Giulia, Lake Maggiore.

Important brands and bank institutions have sponsored his work and his exhibitions. He has beencalled for the presentation of the Reem Koolhaas International Masterplan for Bovisa, for a performance with the actor Giancarlo Giannini. 

Accenture Milan has opened its new building in the Isola Financial District with his solo exhibition of urban views. Azimut has exhibited his photographic and mixed media work on glaciers at Palazzo Serbelloni in Milan and BPS has sponsored his solo exhibition My Home Glacier in Lugano.

Ice Sources, a solo exhibition in The Exilless Fortress in the Alps, an extensive display of his work on ice structures and glaciers.

In 2018, Milan Polytechnic dedicates to Jonathan Guaitamacchi an exhibition covering two decades of his work on urban landscapes: Jonathan Guaitamacchi – Bovisa – From ’97 to ’17, recognizing the value of his artistic vision in the urban evolution of the city. The artist is currently working on an installation of his mixed media black and white works to be placed permanently in one of the buildings of Milan Polythecnic in Bovisa.

The titles of Jonathan Guaitamacchi’s works are an open view on the strong autobiographical approach in his artistic vision: British Black—-Battersea—-Bovisa—- M-TwentyFive—-Greater London—-UpTown—- DownTown—-Isola—-The Mother City—-Egoli—- Oxford Street—-Milano—-Johannesburg Transfer—-East End London... Other titles: Mono—-Estensione—-View—- Verticale——Target—-Visione Circolare—-Sequenza—- Centralmente—-Zooming in... give an insight into the formal rigor of his artistic project, where the uniqueness of his formal vision combines with the autobiographical concept. The titles of his works on glaciers offer a similar perspective: Morteratsch—— Fortezza——Boval——Palù——My Home Glacier——A Rapper’s Glacier——My Extinction——Mono Genesi—— White Blocks——Structures... They highlight his research on the morphological patterns in glaciers and his autobiographical commitment to the places captured in photo and then painted, drawn and mark- maked.