Giuseppe Ferlito started to paint in 2010 in Los Angeles while he was writing the first draft of the script of the movie “88”. Between making one film and another, he has some breaks, and often these periods are frustrating because he is unable to give vent to his creativity. “I started to paint as a remedy to this kind of frustration, and to this day I believe that painting for me is therapeutic because it allows me to discharge all the emotions that I am feeling onto the painting, to face my fears and to confront myself and my insecurities”.
Ferlito paints on different surfaces: canvas, cardboard, plywood and walls. Many of his works are nowadays untraceable as they were done on non-transportable surfaces such as walls in some of his friend’s houses, tables, shutters and many other surfaces. He finds that his biggest fulfilment is in carrying out the work and not in possessing it. “I don’t use a precise technique. When I direct a movie I mainly try to recreate emotions in various ways, but there I have a film crew and actors to guide. In painting somehow it’s easier because I only have to direct my creativity using colours as a vehicle”.
As in the cinema, he believes that it is not important to respect rules which are made in advance, but only to ensure that the choice of not following them does not compromise the final result, which, both in painting and in directing is that of transmitting emotions. “According to me an artwork, with all its expressivity, doesn’t derive from a set of rules and a frame of mind. I believe instead that submitting and being faithful to rules and rationality will make you end up tarnishing your work”.
He exhibited for the first time his artworks in 2013 in Miami, taking advantage of a prestigious showcase such as ART BASEL. “I feel lucky, because I am aware that for many, BASEL is a goal, and I had the opportunity to show my artwork there, my being in colour, next to great artists”. Later, he exhibited in Mexico on two different occasions, first during the famous MACO fair and then during the ceremony of Global Gift of Eva Longoria, as well as in London, New York and Los Angeles, where for the first time he exhibited bags painted like canvases.
“People closest to me, urged me for several years to show my works, but I didn’t feel ready, not because I was insecure, but because I am discreet, there’s so much about me in every artwork that I paint, that I felt like I was disclosing too much, and I am a discreet person even if it doesn’t seem so because my job puts me in the limelight”.
According to Freud the artistic inspiration originates directly from the subconscious and that is why surrealists wrote about their dreams and their moment of inspiration in diaries. Since his childhood. Ferlito has impulsively followed this instinct, driven by the fear of losing something that originates in his most unconscious imagination, in his dreams, he was afraid of wasting something precious, to which his creative side gave life.
“That is the reason why when I paint it’s like I am doing a theraupeutic session, it helps me dispel the difficulties that I am living in that moment. This is a feature that I can’t experience in cinema”. His artworks have been appreciated from the start, and they have been purchased both by collectors and movie stars. “It is a strange feeling to send your artwork to the opposite side of the world especially when you are sending it to actors who are cinema icons, who have made me fall in love with this job and who, today take pleasure from an emotion that one of my artwork communicates”.
In painting he identifies himself with powerful images, loaded with emotional strength, sometimes risky, which make him obey the feelings of the moment and make him paint in such a way as to express his real emotions. “When I’m thinking about how to shoot a scene, the most standard framing initially comes to my mind,more glorified and less risky for sure, but when I look into the film camera, where you have the real perception of what you are about to shoot, it is in that precise moment that I compare myself to my artistic conscience and I ask myself if I want to transform my script like that. I don’t accept cowardice in art I prefer to be misunderstood or misconceived as long as I don’t have to make compromises with my creativity which would’t forgive me”.
Since 2013, Ferlito has exhibited his artworks in various cities, including New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Morelia, Paris, London, Venice, Rome, Madrid, Ibiza, Dubai, Tbilisi, and Santo Domingo.
Ferlito has always been socially conscious and has participated in significant international charity events. For example, he donated artworks for the charity auction organized by the Institution Nationale de Invalides in Paris for the victims of the terrorist attack on November 13, 2015. In 2017, he donated artworks to the Childhood Cancer Project in Miami to support pediatric cancer research. In 2018, he contributed a painting to a charity auction in Vatican City organized by the Scholas Occurrentes association, founded by Pope Francis. At this event, Ferlito's artwork depicting Salvador Dali was auctioned for over 30,000 euros. During the auction, he met His Holiness and presented him with an artwork featuring the Pope, which is now part of his private collection.
In 2023, Ferlito donated a painting depicting Audrey Hepburn to the Mexican organization Arte Vivo in support of sexual health and education. His artwork was exhibited and auctioned in Mexico at the Museo de Arte Moderno, one of the world's most prestigious museums.
