Uro Bannera is the pseudonym of an Italian artist and architect (Giovanni La Fauci, Messina, 1975). As a teenager he began to paint emulating his father, who trained in Milan in 70’s. Until 1996, he studied anatomy and portraiture, dealing with caricatures (A crooked line, periodical of the Architecture Department in Reggio Calabria, 1994). He showed his works in many group exhibitions, created illustrations for publishing projects and advertising plans. From 2001 to 2002 he held a cycle of lessons at the AACM Department of the Faculty of Architecture in Reggio Calabria, on the topic "Graphics and historical avant-garde: from Expressionism to digital graphics". From 2002 to 2004, he lived and worked in Rome. Since 2005, he started a long collaboration with directors, actors, artists and performers of the national network. He deals with sets, costumes and art direction for some pieces and spots, drawing and creating at his own studio costumes, props and stage equipment (The Legend of Colapesce, How Mr. Mockinpott was cured of his Sufferings, Metamorphoseon XI or "The Golden Ass", Cassandra, I Microzoi). In collaboration with A. Celi and S. Minniti, he retrieved the underground rooms of a popular nightclub in the aim of creating an experimental container for performances, forms of visual entertainment and reality shows (Hotel Toupet, Messina, 2005). "Le Ciel perdu du voyeur" is the last homage to the advertising handmade posters and an anachronistic celebration of the desire, even before it carry out the sex act. Instead, "Flags" is the result of a peculiar process of critical revision about the flag, one of the most emblematic icons of masses identity. He’s increasingly interested in digital painting techniques. Just occasionally, he returns to paint with traditional techniques. He often works to define a digital matrix then declined in serial numbered reproductions, printable on various format supports, diverging more and more - and wittingly - from the concept of "single work".
His whole production is focused on a personal iconological analysis, which proceeds through the systematic and extreme reduction of sign and color in an attempt to reach archetypal forms of communication (Urforms + Chronotopes = Urbilders, 2008). Interested in the logical and visual structures of mass communication and empathetic processes in the visual strategies, he is often inspired by the great stars of advertising graphic art in the 20th century: Saul Bass, Eduardo Garcia Benito, Milton Glaser, René Gruau, Hisami Kunitake, Coles Phillips.
In 2010, along with some sociologists of the University of Messina, he forms the CRIM (Research Center on Medial Imaginary) and with them, in 2012, he founded Im@go (journals/index.php/IMAGO/index).
He currently lives and works in Messina.
