Sandro Chia paints in an expressionistic, loosely figurative style emphasizing form and color. Along with Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi, Chia was a central figure in the Italian Transvanguardia movement, a Neo-Expressionist group who sought to re-emphasize color and representation in their work in reaction to the Conceptual Art of the 1980s. He uses vigorous brushstrokes and violent gestures with charcoal and oils, treating his large canvases as vital elements to be worked upon. “My task and my mission […] are to try to reanimate the body of the stretched canvas in front of me, as if it was a symbolic white whale found on a beach,” Chia has said. His subjects range from the everyday to the classical tradition embedded in Italian history.