Alessandro Fantini aka AFAN was born in Sangro Valley, Italy. His creative inclination arose during his early childhood when he began drawing comics and writing tales influenced by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Maupassant, Sheridan le Fanu, Lovecraft and Gabriele d'Annunzio. Disliking art school teachings, he learned oil painting techniques by himself and started painting his first canvases in 1993. During the nineties he developed his own visionary style blending the surrealist attitude with hyper-realism and Flemish painting methods. In 2002 he graduated with first class honors in modern literature with a thesis about the relationship between Italian culture and the PreRaphaelism. Since 1998 he wrote, directed and produced movies and music videos digitally, composing also their soundtracks and writing lyrics for songs performed by himself. His short movies "Tiranti Transit", The Road to Shakti", "The Rain Frames" and "Nepente" were broadcast on European Sky Channels. He wrote and illustrated the book "The Night's Veil"(2006) and the dark-fantasy novel "Endometria"(2007) both published by Liberodiscrivere and presented at the International Turin book fair. His self-portrait was published in 2004 inside the Jean Michel Jarre's "Aero" album booklet. His artworks have been shown in several group exhibitions and solo exhibitions in Pescara, Turin, London, Old Pasadena and New York. In 2008 he released his first art book entitled "The Sinovial Gaze" covering more than a decade of painting activity. In 2009 he directed and animated the music video of the international jazz musician Lorenzo Tucci's hit "The Sky". In May he attends the Cannes Film Festival, joining the premiere of the Terry Gilliam's movie "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus". In August he released the novel "Seahorses under sclerotic". In 2010 he wrote and directed the feature sci-fi/mystery movie "EDOnism" filmed in Tokyo and produced by Lorenzo Fantini. In the same year he directed and produced "Epithell", a thriller filmed in the Sangro Valley with a DSLR camera. In 2011 he directed and animated the music video of Lorenzo Tucci's song "Hope". In the same year he released his second art book "Presque-vu, Atlas of Untold". In 2014 he directed and filmed the mystery movie "New York, a venture" between New Jersey and New York City. Among his online projects there are the art web-zine "AFANzine" and the experimental web-series "Iconosfera", "Malorda" and "William Egorgia".