Picchio (pronounced: pikkio) is my artist name. Here in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland, some people named me with a wink “Picchio” or “Signor Picchio”, since Picchio means in German Specht - my family name. (in English: woodpecker). Since 1987 I live and work in Ticino, one of the nicest and most pleasant places in the world.

I was born in 1936, in Remscheid/Germany. Following a career at the helm of an international corporation which I co-founded and expanded on a global scale and went public in 1997. Then I focused on art.

In fact, I was extremely passionate about art and won already a scholarship for studying art when I was 17, but at that time I was unable to pursue it as a career. Today, painting and art are the center of my life, and I spend around 60 hours a week in my new studio and I am extremely successful.

My abstract creations are tailored chiefly to companies and modern premises. I have already sold approximately 30% of the 230 pieces created, the main target group being enterprises operating within the industrial sector. Provided I am given free rein, I am also happy to create customized pieces. In embracing my new lifestyle, I have been able to combine my experience in senior management with my artistic skills...

When I apply my paints, I do so pragmatically. Nothing must be left to chance. I do not follow "isms" and I do not model myself on anything in particular - the picture which I envisage down to the last detail is all that matters. I never lose sight of the final result. My style is like my temperament, quick. I developed a very unique painting style, which I use in all my works. I call it “Segment Art”, because I divide all my works consequently into segments. So this became my brand, which is easy to remember and to recognize. Then I went with my art into a third dimension, in which I combined a group of painted elements and beams of wood of the same size together in order to create sculptures and painted installations.

I also achieved a really new impact with my revealed, exposed paintings, in which segments - reinforced by epoxy resin - are turned down or up and get out the beauty underneath.

The variety of new color-combinations and forms makes me happy and swinging and I like to pass this feeling of happiness and this quality of life also to others.

My art keeps me healthy and fit.

I exposed in many countries and I am constantly creating new fabulous examples of contemporary art – as now these new works with “light-art”, for which I found intellectual metaphor titles.