Archivio Conz

Sergio Cena (1948, Turin, Italy) is an Italian artist whose practice bridges painting and visual poetry, combining image and text in ways that challenge conventional distinctions between writing and drawing. His work reflects a long-standing engagement with experimentation, materiality, and the poetic potential of visual language. Cena began his artistic journey in the early 1970s, exploring the intersections of abstraction, sign-making, and poetic symbolism. Over the decades, his work has evolved through a variety of media and approaches, always maintaining a commitment to ambiguity, rhythm, and the act of mark-making. Since the mid-1990s, Cena has been based in Vaucluse, France, where he continues to produce paintings, artist books, and mixed-media works. His compositions often feature minimal yet expressive gestures—letters, glyphs, or fragments—that suggest writing without delivering fixed meaning. This subtle play between legibility and abstraction places his work in dialogue with movements such as Visual Poetry, Lettrism, and Concrete Art. Cena has participated in exhibitions across Italy and France and is represented in a number of private collections. His works have also appeared in auction contexts, and he maintains a presence online, sharing new creations and engaging with audiences through digital platforms. A poetic thinker as much as a visual artist, Sergio Cena continues to explore the space where language and form dissolve into each other—offering a body of work that is contemplative, open-ended, and deeply attuned to the nuances of gesture and silence.