Self-taught, Enzo Cucchi initially explored conceptual art before moving toward figuration, becoming one of the main figures of the historic core of the Italian Transavanguardia, as theorized by Achille Bonito Oliva. In his canvas works, often accompanied by numerous drawings and sometimes introduced by poetic texts written by the artist himself, he reclaims myth, art history, and literature with a visionary gaze (e.g., Cani con lingua a spasso, 1980; Eroe senza testa, 1981; Sia per mare che per terra, 1980), creating compositions of great symbolic intensity, in which the world is frequently depicted as a battlefield between opposing principles.

After creating large compositions using charcoal and collage, he experimented with various materials, including earth, burned wood, neon tubes, and iron (in the Vitebsk-Harar series dedicated to Arthur Rimbaud and Kazimir Severinovič Malevič), while simultaneously embracing an almost Caravaggesque use of light, allowing for remarkable spatial depth effects.

In 1986, he responded to the call of Neapolitan gallerist Lucio Amelio, who, following the 1980 Irpinia earthquake, asked leading contemporary artists of the time to create a work on the theme of the earthquake for the Terrae Motus collection. Cucchi’s work Untitled consists of four aged and rusted iron panels, evoking the violence of time’s wear, with a circular motif of a ship at the center, a symbolic image dear to the artist. He has also created several sculptures and contributed to the decoration of the Monte Tamaro chapel near Lugano (1992–94, architect Mario Botta). In 2016, he collaborated on the project for the Church of San Giacomo Apostolo in Ferrara, opened in 2021, where a cycle of black ceramic works depicting biblical episodes is installed.