Antonio Werli (French, b. 1980) is a visual artist who works across drawing, collage, engraving, letterpress and calligraphy, combining these traditional techniques with surrealism and generative code.,He worked for two decades as a literary translator and publisher before transitioning to a full-time art career in 2017.Self-taught, he lived for ten years in Buenos Aires before settling in Arles, France.,
Werli entered the NFT space in January 2022, drawn to the energy of the art scene on Tezos, and taught himself to code soon after.Before that shift, his practice centered on ink and paper: the Suite Chronos series, 2019–2022, and The Empire of Strokes monotype series, 2019–2020, part of which was later minted on Solana through Formfunction.,The Queue Structure was conceived through purely analog means, without code, as a 30-day performance piece built from 90 layers.
His long-form generative project Chiaroscuro released on fx(hash) in April 2023, built from p5.js code that layers dots, strokes and lines into fields of light and shadow. He burned 12 of the original 45 editions, leaving a final edition of 33. Ombromanie, released on fx(hash) the previous February, drew on the 19th-century French shadow-puppet art popularized by Félicien Trewey, translating hand-shadow imagery into generative code.In June 2023 Fakewhale included his series Study for the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, developed from Chiaroscuro, in “GENERATIVE”, a curated release alongside artists including Andy Duboc, Bjørn Staal and Eliza SJ.
His translation work has continued alongside his visual practice: a French edition of Stefano D'Arrigo's 1,300-page novel Horcynus Orca, translated with Monique Baccelli over twelve years, was published by Le Nouvel Attila in October 2023.
