5337D – un salto mortale – 2019

acrylic on canvas

cm 68×100

Valerio Sarnataro alias Erk 14 was born in 1986 in Carmagnola (To). Artist, art director, designer, he lives and works in Napoli. After eleven years of experience at communication agencies between Napoli, Roma and Milano, he creates his own streetwear brand and starts collaborations as designer with other fashion brands. In 2014 he begins the artistic research stimulated by the need to tell the dynamics of everyday life as result of undeclared inconvenience, thus starting an intense iconographic and iconological research on the symbols of everyday objects associated with accidental impulses and dynamics of daily life.

Without ever providing a univocal vision of his works, but by indicating the infinite possibilities inherent in them, Erk14 leaves the choice to develop a personal vision to the public. Hence the rigorous use of black and white, which allows an impersonal graphic and stylistic rendering without smudging and consequently, a paradoxical greater empathy with the viewer.

After his debut in the world of graffiti where he exhibits in 2004 among the protagonists of ‘Circumwriting’ in Napoli with the presentation of Achille Bonito Oliva, Erk14 continues his career in a more established way. Among the latest exhibitions we mention in 2015 ‘Magna Contemporanea’, a collective exhibition curated by Marco Capasso and Pietro Tatafiore, Complesso di San Domenico Maggiore, Napoli; the personal one ‘Paradossi’, curated by Franco Cipriano, Spazio 011, Torre Annunziata; ‘Inside’, curated by Pietro Tatafiore, 1 Opera Gallery, Napoli.

In 2016 he participates in ‘Black and White’, solo exhibition curated by Marco Sermoneta, Profilexpo, Roma; the collective exhibitions ‘Network’ at Galleria Fidia, Roma, curated by Serena Di Giovanni and ‘Lo cunto del Mediterraneo’, curated by Pietro Tatafiore, Casa della Cultura, Atrani.

In 2017 he exhibits at the two personal shows ‘Erk14’, curated by Beppe Treccia at the Killer Kiccen space in Milano and ‘CAOS experiment n.1’, curated by Bruna La Mura at the Intolab Space in Napoli. In 2018 we mention the great exhibition in Napoli at Palazzo Fondi, with the patronage of the Municipality of Naples and the curatorship of Federica di Lorenzo, focused on the symbols of the daily life. In 2019 he exhibits in ‘Erk14 – In white, in black’ by Raffaella A. Caruso, institutional collateral show within Expoarte, Montichiari, Brescia.