Bottega d’Arte San Vio (San Vio Art Workshop)

Gregorio Bacci Giagan was born in Venice in 1970. His father Giorgio Bacci Baik and his uncle Edmondo were both well known artists from the second half of the last century. When he was a university student, Gregorio started to work in his father's gallery/workshop Bottega d'Arte San Vio in the Dorsoduro district, next to the Guggenheim museum. Here he cultivated his passion for painting and learned the main artistic techniques. After completing his studies, he started to manage the family business and he devoted himself entirely to painting. He assumed the pseudonym Giagan, as his father did with Baik, to distinguish himself from his teachers and at the same time to follow the family tradition.

His works on canvas signed Giagan depict views of Venice in quite a different way compared to conventional representations of the city: the vivid colours and dynamic shapes make the work of this artist completely original.

Parallel to this activity, where the Venetian landscape prevails, Gregorio experiments with painting techniques and diverse materials, from traditional gilding and oil painting to modern photo printing and digital processing. The artist in this case signs his works as G. Bacci, in order to emphasize the independence and diversity of the different stages of his creative path.

For Giagan there is another Venice. A city that is a maze of streets called calli. The artist takes the viewer by the hand and accompanies him along these small streets, with their junctions and intersections, straight or unexpectedly bent as they may be. "Most of the time", says the artist, "they are narrow and dark, but sometimes they are hit by unexpected flashes of light. Often they do not lead anywhere, other times they open on a little sunny square with trees or lead to a crooked bridge. The buildings rising high around us stretch, bend and incline until they suck us into a dizzying vortex that is the pulsating heart of my city. We can find ourselves walking along a quiet hidden canal, where the water reflects the ancient stones like silk, or going through a dark underpass that smells mouldy and damp, but in the end we always return to the light where the colour shines bright".