Mutations Art Exhibition Schio 2024

Our tiny town of Schio in the north-east of Italy has an active art & culture scene. One of the annual events is the Mutations (Mutazioni) exhibition, held usually around the end of the year, held recently from 30 Nov. to 29 Dec. 2024 at Spazio Shed in the city centre.

I want to present 12 artists whose works I liked. I start with 4 sculptures and installations, and follow them by 8 paintings. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.

1. Sculpture by Paolo Ceola: It had a white jacket standing up in the air and asking "Where is the man?" Made of ceramic and oxide combination, it had a shining smooth finish.

With this sculpture, Paolo expresses his fear that we humans are losing our identity.

He defines himself as a experimenter and researcher, looking for innovation, and working with different art-languages including photography, painting, sculpture, videos and films. You can check Paolo Ceola's other works on his Instagram page.

2. The Playful Installations of Roberto Marconato: There were two installations by Roberto in the exhibition. Both had the bust of a young woman, both with headphones listening to music, one in a pink t-shirt placed over a tower of balls and books, and the other with a pink knitted cap, connected to her computer-monitor by a cord.

The installations seem to be talking about a future world, which is partially already there in our lives, where our work and free-time lives, both revolve around technology and even our human relations are mediated by it.

Roberto is a self-taught artist and he defines his art as "surrealistic", with a preference of using recycled materials in his works. You check his other works at his Instagram page.

3. The Colourful & Playful Animal Sculptures of Giorgio Nalon:  Giorgio's animals seem straight out of mythologies and fairy-tales with bright colours. There was a cut head of a zebra resting over a Rubik's cube, vaguely similar to the bronze horse-head sculpture by Nic Fiddian-Green at Mable Arch in London, also reminds me of Mario Puzo's Godfather where the horse-breeder wakes up with the bloody head of his favourite horse in his bed.

Then there was a colourful chameleon, again clutching a Rubik's cube in his front legs. Finally there was a blue frog with a crown on his head, the frog-prince, waiting for someone to kiss him. You can check his Facebook page to see his works of art.

4. The Ceramic Dress by Daria Tasca & Vania Sartori: I was intrigued by this installation created jointly by 2 women artists - a fashion designer and a ceramic-maker.

It had a cream-coloured dress in silk-twill with a front-armour similar to a bullet-vest made of ceramic, out of which shining golden plates come out to surround the neck, while the hands-gloves have blue Sardinian wool gathering in 2 ceramic cups near the feet.

Daria started as a fashion designer and has been experimenting with painting on clothe, mixed techniques with photography and painting, and frescoes on wood. 

While, Vania studied to be an architect and then started to work in her family's ceramic workshop. To see their other works, you can check the facebook page of Daria and Vania.

After the sculptures and installations, lets now move to the works of painters.

5. The Pentatych by Luciano Gasparin: Luciano had put together five canvasses to create a combined rectangle, dominated by shades of reds.

His work was titled La Vita, the life, and had a quote by Seneca, saying, "No one would give you back years, no one would give you back to you; the time of your life will pass on the path you have undertaken and would never come back or to stop passing ..."

The painting combined a few figures - a head, a photograph and a church, while the remaining spaces were filled by abstract colours. It touched me deeply and I spent a long time standing there to look at it. You check his Instagram page to look at his other works.

6. The Immense Blue Ocean of Salvatore D'Oria: Salvatore is originally from Reggio Calabria in south Italy. His initial work was with oil paintings. In the recent years, he has starting doing more work with acrylic colours, which he uses to express motion and movement.

His painting in this exhibition was titled L'Immenso, the Immensity. The blue and whites of this work expressed communications and how the modernity with rushing time takes away our individuality and identity.

7. Suspended Horizons by Paolo Pallara: Paolo had 2 canvasses in the exhibition, both titled "Suspended Horizons", one of which is presented here.

He uses acrylics, tar, oil-pastels and ash to create the dirty yellow backgrounds with a tiny black sun and dark splotches of the horizon, from which black threads reach downwards. He describes these as, "In these suspended horizons, the becoming of days becomes the space where you find refuge ..."

The two paintings make me think of our polluted towns, as the evening falls and the skies turn yellow, both ugly and beautiful, at the same time.

You can check Paolo's Instagram page to look at his other works.

8. Urban Landscape of Claudio dal Pra: Claudio's landscape was located in Chiuppano, a tiny mountain town, not very far from Schio. It was an urban landscape, located clearly at the fringes of the rural-natural and is made ethereal by shades of yellow, old medieval buildings, and a complete contrast to Paolo Pallara's canvas-world above.

In fact, Claudio's colours were lighter and brighter, his buildings seemed wrapped in the mountain mist, almost a dreamland.

You can check Claudio's Facebook page for his other works.

These two artists, Paolo Pallara & Claudio dal Pra, made me think about the aesthetic pleasures of the two completely contrasting styles, and how we can appreciate beauty in so many diverse forms.

9. The Masked Animal by Sergio Polli: Sergio had a gothic looking canvas in the exhibition, with dark colours and a portrait of someone with a hybrid animal face - the face looks like that of a horse, but it also has two big horns - perhaps it is a male deer?

Animal masks have been used by the shamans of ancient people, they represent the capacity to visit the spirit worlds and to talk to the spirits. At first glance, Sergio's work looks like that. However, he has titled it the "masked animal", thus, it is an animal with a mask, probably referring to the animal instincts of certain persons who wear masks to seem civilised?

Sergio had recycled the wood from that used for making boxes, to make his canvas for this painting. His Instagram page defines his work as "recycling for painting, painting for recycling" and likes to use his art to express things for which there are no words.

You also check Sergio's Facebook page to see his other works.

10. AI Art of Annabella Dugo: Annabella had the prints of two very striking works, one titled "Meditation" and the other, "Sin of lust". These have been made with the help of AI.

At one level, it was impossible, not to be fascinated by the two works, for their surrealistic hyperrealism and their choice of subjects & colours. At another, it raised the question about manual artistic skills.

I think that in the past, artists needed to have both, imagination and manual skills to create art. But with AI, it combines imagination with software skills, while the manual skills become unimportant. How is that going to influence our ideas about art? Annabella is a renowned and award-winning artist from Naples, so she has manual artistic skills, yet here she chose to use AI to create these works. How does that affect our views about her art?

You can check Annabella's Instagram page to look at her other works.

11. Painted Glass Works of Loria Orsato: Loria, based in Vicenza, uses glass in her works. In the two works presented in Mutations 2024, she had hand-painted glass on canvas to represent the "Family of long-necked queens".

North-east of Italy, including the famous Murano island in Venice, are known for their glass related works and workshops. Perhaps Loria is a part of this tradition. She defines herself as an art designer and colour-researcher, and she hand-paints on glass.

At the same time, over the past decade, she has been active in dance-therapy, the Dancing Hands, inspired by the works of Argentine dancer Maria Fux. I had heard of Maria Fux from my friend Pio Campo and once gone with him to see him use dance-therapy for persons with mental health problems in Goias, Brazil. I feel that this combination of artist and dance-therapy, makes for an interesting person.

You can check Loria's Facebook page and her Instagram page to see more examplesof her works.

12. The Contrasts in Paintings of Daniela Toniolo: The 12th and last artists for this post is Daniela with 2 acrylic on canvas paintings titled "Rebirth" and "Opposites".

Against a background of grey and purple, the two artworks had geometric spaces, like floating windows and glasses, which seemed to be reflecting into each other, making me feel as if I was getting lost inside a mirror room, which reminded me of the final scenes of Bruce Lee's film "Enter the Dragon".

Daniela is from Schio. About her works, she says, "It can be defined as fluid-ordered, with inexistent brush-strokes, highlighting the diluted and transparent colours, with counterpoints of bright white ..." You can check her work on Instagram.

Conclusions

I felt that this year, Mutations exhibition had fewer sculptures and installations, and fewer works with a strong visual-aesthetic impact.

Let me conclude this post with a close-up image of cubes titled "Eva's Garden" by my friend Eva Trentin from the Mutations exhibition. Eva makes beautiful works by bringing together nature and its organic imprints on different surfaces. Her works are like labyrinths, the more minutely you look at them, the more facets you can discover. You can check more of her works on her Instagram page.

*****

Insito - Inherent Art Exhibition Part 2

Insito art exhibition, involving 5 artists, four British and one Italian, was organised in Schio (VI), Italy, from 22 Nov to 22 Dec. 2024, and was curated by Monica Pirani. My first post on this exhibition looked at the works of the 4 British artists.

This second post on this exhibition, focuses on the Italian artist (Marta Martino) and on the curator, Monica Pirani. (Below, details from an installation by Marta Martino - You can click on images for a bigger view)

Insito - In Situs - Inherent

Monica explained that 'Insito' comes from the Latin, 'In Situs', or 'rooted and anchored in the context'. She saw this exhibition as a journey which inter-connects the works of different artists. For organising it, she closely followed the creative processes of the five artists, visiting them and observing them create their works.

About her work as an art-curator, she said, "Their shared approach led me to reflect on the existential core from which we draw and into which we pour our knowledge, understanding, and perceptions. I wanted it to stimulate reflections and dialogues in the persons visiting and experiencing this exhibition."

Marta Martino

Marta was the only Italian artist in this exhibition. She works with different media.

One of her works in this exhibition titled "They-Them" was an installation of 24 paintings, on which words from her poetry were projected. For her, it symbolised the creation and destruction of inter-personal relationships and journeys through different identities and personalities. The words and phrases from her poems had their own rhythm, used in a random way, sometimes they were contrasting and contradictory, intending to provoke feelings and emotions. (image below showing part of this installation).

Her second installation was in a room which turned red in the evening-darkness (however, I saw it in the morning light, so could not see this red-light effect). It was a complex installation with different components.

It included the videos of a performance held some months ago in the nearby town of Thiene, in which she was accompanied by 2 performers and a sound artist. During it, for about six hours, she had designed figures on some big canvases, while being immersed in a red light.(The red screen in the image below) In this video seemed to be looking straight at the audience, representing an eye observing us, a kind of ever-present social-media eye.

There was another group of 24 figures painted in red, that could be interpreted as representing different identifies or different emotional states, of a person or of different persons. There were also some ink designs along that wall, from her ebook, where she writes as well, similar to the work done by Anne Grabby.

She also represented the concept of movement and walk, through her walking shoes, placed inside a white net near the window in the image above.

Monica Pirani Exhibition Curator

Monica has been curating art & culture projects and art exhibitions for about ten years. Her work often focuses on inter-connections between different cultures and countries, especially with British artists. Earlier, she was collaborating with a British organisation, organising exhibitions and events in both Italy and UK. She has also worked with artists from Argentina, Japan and China and other countries.

For her, inter-connections also mean bringing together different artistic languages. She looks for new and innovative experiences, instead of repeating what has already been done. Thus, she does not puts up exhibitions paintings or sculptures, instead her exhibitions and events are about different ideas of concept art. She likes to work together with artists to create something in relation to the structures which will host the event, so that there is a dialogue between the space and the exhibits.

Before becoming an art curator, she worked in marketing, as a part of a business management unit for a company. Originally from Turin, Monica has lived for a period in UK and now lives in Thiene for the past thirty years.

In recent years, she has done some interesting work, such as a project called Transparency (in 2019 with Belinda Guerriero) in collaboration with a company from Thiene in 2019, and another, Anima Mundi in 2017, with artists from different countries, held in Villa Fabbri in Thiene. You can read more about her at her webpage.

Conclusions

For a long time, for me "art" meant paintings and sculptures. I was unable to appreciate installations, especially video and sound installations, as an art. I was also dismissive of the whole idea of concept art.

The exhibition Insito brings together different ways of artistic expression, some of which were easier to appreciate for me, while for others, I could see glimpses of what the artist wants to express. For example, I found it easier to see Anne Grebby's idea of extending herself, creating a circle and writing in it as art, compared to Kara Lyons idea of reflecting the water movement on wet-clay as a temporary sculpture.

In the end, like everything else in life, art is about feelings and a connection with something deeper inside us and also around us. Different kind of art can touch us deeply, some of us may be more open to a wider significance of art. IMO, it is important to be open to new and different artistic experiences.

*****

You can also check out the first part of this post about the works of 4 British artists (Emma Critchley, Anne Grebby, Kara Lyons & Maryanne Royale)

Contemporary Art Exhibition "Insito" (Inherent)

Schio (VI) is an Italian town with an important industrial history linked to the wool-mills. The contemporary site-specific art event "Insito" was organised at an old wool mill in Schio from 22 Nov. to 22 Dec. 2024, which was inspired from its industrial history.

Image below shows the story board of an installation by Anne Grebby from this exhibition (you can click on images for a bigger view).

Insito exhibition brought together 5 artists - 4 British (Emma Critchley, Anne Grebby, Kara Lyons & Maryanne Royale) and an Italian (Marta Martino).

The exhibition was curated by Monica Pirani, with whom I had a long and interesting conversation about the contributions of all these 5 artists and this event. For this post, I must thank her for taking the time to accompany me through the whole exhibition and explain at length the different facets of the artists' works.

I am planning to write two posts about this exhibition. This first post is about the four British artists, while the second post will focus on the Italian artist and the work of the curator.

Let me start this post with some information about the exhibition site, The Conte Wool Mills building, which provided the background to this exhibition.

The Conte Wool Mills Building

This mill building is located next to the old city centre and its main water-canal, Roggia Maestra, which passes through it. The mill first started operating around 1757. Its buildings were renovated in 1886 and its roof still carries the bell which used to mark the work-shifts of the mill workers. It was one of the first buildings in Italy to use electric light. The building is now used for holding cultural events. Insito was organised in the mezzanine floor of the old mill.

Now lets talk about the works of the 4 British artists.

Kara Lyons

Kara had two art-works in the exhibition. The first was a temporary sculpture  called Arteria created near the window underneath which the main water-canal, the Roggia Maestra, passes, which was used to power the Conte Wool mill. When the exhibition was being inaugurated, Kara looked at the water rushing below, and reflected its movements with her feet on a wet-clay surface, walking for about 2 hours, leaving her imprints on it. As the exhibition came to an end, that wet-surface slowly dried, creating fractures and breaking down into pieces.

Kara explained, "Arteria is performative sculpture, a durational installation made in situ at the Lanificio Conte. The window exposes the water below, revealing the force of its flow, serving as a testament to its essential importance in the development of the textile industry around which it was founded." 

The second work by Kara was a long rectangular artwork, 10 metres long and one-and-half metre wide, over which she walked for days, her feet wet with graphite and clay, looking at the the water passing below the factory in Manchester, which is very similar to the canal passing underneath the factory in Schio, reflecting its movements in her walk and creating a map of her foot-prints.

She had presented a similar work at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023.

Kara Lyons & Maryanne Royale

Maryanne, a sound artist, drew inspiration from old historical ties between Schio & Manchester to develop a sound installation in collaboration with Kara Lyons. She collected recordings from Kara's interactions with wet-clay in Manchester. By changing the speed and tones of the sound recordings, she created a soundscape, which formed the background of the exhibition.

Maryanne Royale

The artist was also present in this exhibition with a video installation titled “The Tension That Holds” which was previously commissioned for an exhibition at Leeds Industrial Museum. It was made at an old abandoned industrial building in Manchester, very similar to the Conte Wool Mills building in Schio.

While making this video, she interviewed some of its old retired workers and recorded their voices.

Personally, I feel that sound-installations are a tricky area. Most of the time, we are hardly aware of the background sounds including music (unless we like a specific piece of work, when we may become aware of it). Soundscapes are also background noise-music, they can't be too intrusive. This means that we might not even notice them. I also wonder if among us, there may be some who are attuned t sounds and perhaps sound-installations make more sense to them? 

Emma Critchley

Emma Critchley is an artist who uses a combination of photography, film, sound and installation to explore the human relationship with the underwater environment. Her work Sirens was a triptych of 3 short films in which a dancer performed in front of a screen showing videos of ocean-creatures. The videos of the sea-creatures were from an American research centre and seemed to be bi-chromatic. For example, the video in the image below was in blue and white.

About this installation, Emma said, "Sirens is a triptych of short films where we witness an encounter between a dancer and three creatures of the deep sea. The music and performer's movements offer the audience a portal for connection."

Anne Grebby

Anne's work in the exhibition is titled Fluid Body and is a complex opera composed of different parts. It included an art performance lasting 3 days creating a word-map on the floor.

For this performance she first created a story-board (first image at the top above). She started by marking and creating a circular space around herself. Standing at the centre, she designed a circle exploring the limits with words written with a chalk, and the words expressed her ideas about concepts like culture, emotions, intuitions, and psychology. 

During the performance, she kept writing those words with a chalk fixed on a stick, new words over old words, again and again, creating a kind of web of knowledge and beliefs, that represent our inner worlds.

About this installation, Anne explained, "I write the words on the ground till I lose awareness of my own presence. I write towards the centre of the circle, defined by my own extended body, and then I turn and trace my path towards the outside."

In the exhibition, she also had an installation of archive photos showing 2 of her old projects and performances (image above). One was a work done in Germany where she had used red-clay to cover room surfaces, which would dry and fall down and then the next day she had to reapply it. Another, was a work realised in Oregon, USA, which ended in a fire destroying everything she had created.

Finally, she had prints of her designs and images from her ebook on a transparent paper, which were placed on the window-panes in the exhibition hall, where the water from the canal running behind, was being reflected and creating patterns.

Conclusions

Insito was composed of different multi-sensorial installations. It was an opportunity to see the works of these four very different British artists and to experience a special soundscape.

Such exhibitions, introduce you to a different idea of art - art as an immersion in different sensations and sensory experiences, helping to focus your mind in the present and now. As we increasingly spend more time in virtual cyber-worlds and AI, such art experiences can reconnect us to our deeper physical and emotional cores.

I think that these are developing forms of concept art, which are more about the inner worlds, thoughts and emotions of individual artists. Creating a connection with them and finding meanings which make sense to the audience is very subjective.

*****

Check part 2 of this post about the works of Marta Martino and the exhibition curator, Monica Pirani