Marco Barberio Contemporary Urban Artist

I call myself a realist artist and as such I paint scenes of everyday life, scenes from my time. In any way, I leave a testimony of my passage. The idea is to capture the vital breath of the city through the flow of people's life on the streets. My research starts from the streets of New York, passing through San Francisco and Washington in the United States and continues in Europe to London, Milan and Rome. The cities I choose for my project, are cities I am involved with.

The deep love for the sea is probably to be found in my roots: I was born in the south of Italy, in a land surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. Blue, light blue and emerald green intertwine in an enchanting dance. In this series, large landscapes are found together with small details, where water is the protagonist. Water becomes sea, ocean, river, lake. It placidly reflects the landscape, or ripples impetuously showing all its strength.

There is a fleeting moment each day when light becomes pure emotion. Just before sunset, cities glow with unexpected warmth, the ocean turns to liquid gold, and ordinary places reveal their most poetic side. The Golden Hour Collection brings together my paintings inspired by this magical transition between day and night. From the streets of New York and Chicago to the hills of San Francisco, from the California coast to the shimmering surface of the sea, each work captures the unique atmosphere that exists for only a few minutes before the sun disappears beyond the horizon. As a realist artist, I am fascinated by the way golden light transforms reality. Buildings become monumental, reflections come alive, and familiar landscapes acquire a sense of wonder and nostalgia. Through my distinctive process of color sampling, stencil layering, and hand-painted details, I seek to preserve these unrepeatable moments and transform them into lasting memories. For collectors, these paintings offer more than a view: they evoke the feeling of a journey, a cherished memory, or a place that continues to live in the imagination long after the light has faded. The Golden Hour Collection is a celebration of beauty at its most fleeting—those precious moments when light, color, and emotion come together in perfect harmony.

Product labeling and logos figure. In the course of my life I have drawn from many sources of inspiration, from various artists and at different times that have markedly characterized my artistic production in every period. Starting with the most classic, one of all Michelangelo. From Courbet's realism I borrow the idea of representing the customs, ideas and appearance of my era in my own way. In the early 1980s graffiti there was the culture of rap and hip hop movements, as well as the pop-art of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. In this series I give vent to my pop soul.