Rafael Sottolichio is a Montreal-based painter of Chilean origin. After studying at universities in Santiago and Montreal, he has been practicing painting professionally since 1996. Rafael Sottolichio has participated in several exhibitions, including at the Galerie Lacerte Art Contemporain in Montreal and Quebec, the Art-Mûr gallery in Montreal, the Maisons de la culture Frontenac, Plateau-Mont-Royal, and Côte-des-Neiges, the Eyelevel Gallery in Halifax, the Musée Régional de Rimouski, the Expression center in Saint-Hyacinthe, and the Centre National d’Exposition in Jonquière. He also has experience in mural painting and curating.
His painting work is focused on image and representation, creating a play between the various surfaces within his compositions. Mostly figurative, his paintings establish contrasts between figurative areas and work with material, texture, and abstraction. The canvases and murals are always connected to a reflection, to conceptual considerations to which the image responds. Through the tools of representation and narration, the artist engages with these ideas. These reflections and concepts arise from a “dialogue” between philosophical ideas and the creative process. The themes explored in recent years include identity, the individual’s relationship to public space, the violence in human relations, and more recently, issues related to immigration and territoriality.
