Claudio Fantini studied, since 1988, Fine Arts in the Fine Arts School of Costa Rica`s university. His painting has been characterized, since its beginning, by the recurrence to images evocative of states of mind. The meticulous treatment of the backgrounds, he points out a constant concern about the crafty character of the pictorial element. In the beginning, Fantini used pictures-of himself or other people- satirizing the universal and heroic images of the human being; he later focused his interest on icons of the imaginary Western culture. Member of a generation of Costa Rican art, with a clear concern about the conceptual aspects of the work-contrasting with the traditional formalism in the pictorial productions of the last decades -, Fantini has directed his efforst toward a checking of the Western iconography getting attached to illustrations from ancient books of medicine, manuals of mechanic devices and ancient catalogs of objects for sale, as well as images from the Western art`s history and the contemporary photography. His figures are rethought into their structure and relocated in the depressive atmospheres created by the artist, which adquiere an enigmatically demostrative character. In 1994, he carried out one of his first exhibitions, Pinturas", in Joaquin Garcia Monge Gallery in the National Theater, San Jose, Costa Rica and in Jacobo Carpio Gallery. Later,in1999, he exhibited in the Hall of New Values Fausto Pacheco and, in 1990, in the Costa Rican-Northamerican Cultural Center, San Jose, Costa Rica."