Nino Ruju was born in Vomero in 1923. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples with Vincenzo Ciardo, Manlio Giarrizzo and Antonio Bresciani. Stylistically, his work ventured through impressionism, naturalism and the European avant-garde before hitting upon a pivotal turning point in his career: videographic digital painting.

A figurative painter for many years, Ruju’s technological breakthrough saw him embrace video graphics and later coding. He replaced the brush with the mouse, the brush stroke with the pixel, the canvas with the screen. The artist explains his technological baptism as follows: ‘After many pictorial experiences ranging from figurative to informal, to objective and abstract art, as with other pictorial expressions I was fascinated by digital art. […]. My work focuses on videographic digital painting, as it is through this new technology that I’m able to push myself towards a creative product that produces great emotion without ever lapsing into the banal’.

By digitalising the gesture, it was somewhat ironic that Ruju settled upon the human hand as a subject of cultural interest, as its own geographical language that differs from place to place and exists in its own right.

Nino Ruju passed away in 2015.