Biography

August 27, 1945 Born in Bogotá, Colombia

1946 Trip to Europe on an aircraft carrier

1947-49 Trinidad

1950-57 Persia

1966 Junior Art Director with the GGK advertising company, Basel weds a fashion model; they separate after one year

1970 Beginning of several stays in the US and Mexico: Gets to know the cultures of the Maya and the Aztecs

1971 Brief visit to London
Morocco sojourn with film maker Danny de Ritis and Jean-Luc Lardelli

1972 India and Nepal: During many weeks on the road from Bombay to Katmandu with a Sadhu (Hindu itinerant monk living a strictly ascetic life)
Bhutan: With the permission of the royal family, stay in a Tibetan monastery
With Jean-Luc Lardelli in Fiesole, Tuscany: Encounter with Giovanni Ragusa and Raffaele Bueno, son of a famous family of artists, friendship of many years

1973 Trip to Israel: Meeting the artist Ruth Schloss
Ticino: Founding of the Comunità Scairolo; the commune becomes the bus-stop of the «Magic-Bus», travelling on the «Hippie Trail» from Amsterdam to Kathmandu. Peter White Rabbit of the famous US-commune Hog Farm also stops here. Trip to the USA with the commune; Continuation to Mexico: Meets the future mother of his son.
Joint trip to Canada; continuation of the trip to Amsterdam, Sicily, Tunisia, Morocco.

1974 Birth of son Sambo in Lugano

1974-79 Living and working in the commune «Ristolli», Toscana

1975 Sambo’s mother leaves her son

1980-1981 Luca travels with Sambo to Central America. Joint sailing trip with a friend and his son from Mexico via Costa Rica to Panama. At the Lago de Atitlán in Guatemala first encounter with Gabi, Luca’s future wife. Two further, coincidental meetings happen in
Guatemala, and after that, a concerted reunion in Lima.

1981 First trip to Australia to Luca’s sister Manuela Darling and family who are living there

1982 Sambo’s first school day in Lugano

1982-86 Painter and stage designer for the theatre and film in Lugano
Art and creative teacher at the anthroposophical Rudolf Steiner school in Lugano

1984 Gabi moves to Lugano.
In the following years, the house in Lugano becomes the pivotal point and hub for Swiss and foreign artists.

1985 Campaigns in Lugano for the victims of the earthquake in Mexico as well as against the Gösgen nuclear power plant

1986 Action in Basel on the occasion of the pollution of the Rhine caused by Sandoz

1987 Honeymoon trip to Soweto and contact to artists for the forthcoming North-South campaign of the European Council in Lugano
More than 100 participants at the «Festival Speciale Africa», honoured by the presence of the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature

1988 Trip to Moscow: making contact with local artists concerning the future cultural interchange «Mosca Ticino»; here, as with later projects, close cooperation with Luca’s sister, photographer Ursula Markus
Encounter with the painter Vycheslav Tokarev in Odessa
Organisation and participation in exhibitions of Swiss and African artists; Luca shares his studio with South African artists and actors
Stage designer for the film «Sax» by Danny de Ritis
Stage designer for the play «Goree» in cooperation with the South African author
and playwrite Matsemela Manaka

1989 Workshops in Soweto
Trip to Mozambique and exhibition upon the invitation of a state gallery
Trips to Australia, Uluru and Kakadu: Encounter with and learning about the culture of the Aborigines

1990 Cultural exchange between Swiss and Russian artists; work in Moscow

1990 Autobahn Art, mural painting with Sergeji Basilev and Matsemela Manaka

1991 Stage designer for the movie «Kiba – The Beat Between» by Danny de Ritis
Work in the highlands and on the coast of Australia

1992 Painting in Soweto, workshops in the «Ekhaya Neighbourhood Museum», combined with a MatseLuca exhibition in the «Funda Arts Center»
Participating in the cultural exchange «Berlin-Zürich grenzenlos»

1993 Further visits to Australia with exhibitions

1994 Trip to Australia and Thailand
Facsimiles of travel diaries with the Florentine painters Raffaele Bueno, Maria
Lola Bueno, and Giovanni Ragusa

1995 Studio with Mexican artists in Lugano

1996 Stage designer for the movie «Bestseller» by Danny de Ritis
Work in Australia
Trip to Indonesia, meets the artist Didier Dhaimeler, Director of the Duta Fine Art Gallery and Museum
Visit of Tana Toraja on Sulawesi

1996-97 South Thailand: Gabi and Luca «spend the winter» there with Luca’s parents
Expeditions with the sea nomads, the Moken people, illustrations for the books of the anthropologist Jacques Ivanoff: «Rings of Coral: Moken Folktales», «Moken Boat, Symbolic Technology» as well as «A Journey through the Mergui Archipelago»
Cambodia: Studies of Angkor Wat
Exhbition in Bangkok: «Angkor Mio and Works in Khuk-Khak»

1998 Matsemela dies in a car accident in South Africa

1998-99 Founding member of the Mergui Archipelago Project (MAP), an international research project on the Moken people and their environment
Further visits to Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar

2000 Work in South Thailand
Sojourn in Indonesia and exhibition in the gallery of the Duta Fine Art Foundation, Jakarta

2001 Sixth and last expedition to the Mergui archipelago
Exhibition in Rangoon of the Mergui archipelago on the sea nomads with items from their daily life
Exhibition in Singapore

2002 Visit of Timor, at the time the youngest nation of the world
Decision to establish a school for talented youngsters living on the streets to offer them a perspective for the future
Exhibition with paintings of the previous ten years and the «floater» –sculptures in the «Kulturschiene» in Herrliberg/ZH; proceeds for the benefit of implementing plans in Timor-Leste

2003-09 Establishment of «Arte Moris», the first art school of East Timor. Exhibitions, study sojourns of the juveniles in Australia and Switzerland, thanks to lots of generous sponsors

2010 Return to Lugano, taking care of the father

2013 Move to Viterbo, Italy

June 22, 2019 Passing away in his home in Viterbo