As the founder of Spiritual Expressionism, my work seeks to investigate the profound and intimate correlations between the spiritual and material worlds.
For me, everything that manifests in the material reality is a mirror of events and energies from the spiritual realm, and my art strives to uncover these connections.
I see my art as an evolution from Neo-Expressionism: instead of expressing raw feelings, my work explores and expresses raw spiritual energies. And, more importantly, it embarks on a process of discovery and understanding: by decoding the hidden connections between the material and spiritual realms, I give meaning to the reality that surrounds me—and to my life itself.
When I paint, I enter a state of light trance. This allows me to step beyond rationality, accessing spiritual energies and engaging in a dialogue with them. The symbols in my works are not random marks but a spiritual alphabet—a direct form of communication between the unseen energies and myself.
These symbols represent the messages I receive from the spiritual world, and through them, I document my journey and expand my understanding of the spiritual-material connection.
My process of creating art is divided into two essential steps. The first is raw, spontaneous, and unfiltered. As I paint, I am merely a channel through which spiritual energies flow. My brushstrokes and marks are immediate reflections of the energies I encounter—bold, unrestrained, and raw. These moments expand my consciousness, revealing new perspectives about reality and the world I inhabit.
The second step is the interpretation of these experiences. This rational reflection serves to assimilate the knowledge gained during my trance and bring it into the material world, allowing me to grow closer to my true, unfiltered identity—shedding layers of societal conditioning in the process.
This duality of raw creation and rational interpretation is central to my practice. There is often a conflict between the two, as the spiritual experience challenges long-held beliefs about myself and the world around me. However, I welcome this tension, as it is through embracing and resolving these conflicts that I break free from societal constraints and move closer to my essence.
For the viewer, my work offers a similar dual experience. On a conscious level, my interpretation invites them to widen their own perspective, to explore universal themes of identity, the meaning of reality, and life itself. At a more subconscious level, the spiritual symbols in my paintings can speak directly to the viewer's soul. In this sense, my art is a two-way dialogue, offering not only my journey but also an energetic and spiritual connection for those open to it.
Emanuele “Renton” Fortunati is the founder and pioneer of Spiritual Expressionism, an art movement that explores the connections between the spiritual and material worlds.
His work, which shares with traditional expressionism a raw and unfiltered expressiveness, is characterized by spontaneous and instinctive gestures, and enriched by a deep spiritual involvement.
Inspired by the ancient practices of shamans, Emanuele creates his works in a trance-like state, where he channels the spiritual energies that flow through him and dialogues with them, bringing back these conversations in the form of esoteric symbols, a true spiritual alphabet that characterizes the artist's production.
His creative process is divided into two distinct phases: the raw, uninhibited creation, in which spiritual energies flow through him, and the subsequent rational interpretation, which decodes these experiences and the symbols embedded in his works.
It is thanks to this duality that the artist can gain a deeper understanding of himself and of reality: artistic practice thus becomes a mystical experience, allowing him to free himself from social and cultural conditioning, and to rediscover a more authentic individual identity.
Through his works, whose symbols touch the chords of the unconscious and create an energetic connection with the viewer, Emanuele shares with viewers this journey in search of an unfiltered identity, and invites them to challenge their perceptions in order to expand their understanding of who they really are.
Part of the international catalog Alfabeto Astratto, several of Emanuele's works are exhibited at the Palazzo dell'Emiciclo in L'Aquila, the Museo Bellini in Florence, and the AAIEE Gallery Center in Rome, alongside artists of international scope such as Alfred 'Milot' Mirashi and under the artistic direction of Miguel Gomez, artistic director of the Bibart Biennale D'Arte.
