Biography
From typographic origins to international contemporary art
CHriZ in his studio, working on aluminum panels
CHriZ was born in 1970 and grew up surrounded by the language and materiality of typography. In his family's traditional print shop, he encountered wooden frames, lead type and the smell of ink from an early age. It was there that he began to perceive the written sign not simply as a carrier of meaning, but as something physical: form, matter and identity.
Over time, this relationship with typography developed into a need to move beyond the traditional function of the written word and explore the letter as a visual element.
Around ten years ago, this research found its first complete expression in WORDS – Invisible Codes, a body of work in which language, figuration and matter began to converge.
In the years that followed, the research shifted progressively from the presence of language within the image to the letter itself as a generative unit of form. The word gave way to the individual letter; meaning gave way to relation, accumulation and structure.
From this evolution emerged Genomism: a visual language in which letters retain their alphabetic identity while suspending the necessity of being read. Through repetition, density and stratification, they participate in the generation of bodies, faces and human presences.
The alphabet thus becomes a form of visual DNA: a finite system of elements capable of generating potentially infinite configurations.
Since 2025, CHriZ's work has entered an increasingly international exhibition context, with presentations in Dubai, Berlin, London, Paris and Italy. In 2026, this path continued with a solo exhibition at Galleria SanGiorgio Arte in Bari, an exhibition at Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana in Turin, and participation in 8. NOVECENTO & Contemporary in Modena.