SETAREH is pleased to announce Rome-based artist Emiliano Maggi's solo exhibition under the title Splendour in the Grass.
'As I see the world with the eyes of a child, these new works follow the romantic ideas of natural imagery' states Emiliano Maggi about the idea of the works for his upcoming solo exhibition at SETAREH.
His new series of ceramic sculptures and paintings reflect on life and death, the loss of innocence and youth, and the apocalyptic vision only unlocked in maturity. Precious bronze jewels adorn some of the sculptures as sleeping creatures, while flowers painted on the wall set the scene of a Midsummer Night's Dream.
Maggi explores the constitution and disintegration of the self. The artist produces sculptures that expand the range of figurative representation, conjuring abstract regions beyond the realm of recognisability. His work is centred on the human form, which in Maggi's vision includes not only body but mind, imagination, and soul, as well as the ways in which the material world is perceived and experienced through them.
A multi-faceted sphere of fairy tales, horror and science-fiction movies, mixed with erotic literature and rural iconography, where human and animal bodies merge into numberless, genderless corporealities, resisting the performative power dynamics of figuration. Each of Emiliano Maggi's works arises from an ongoing intuitive relationship with the large array of techniques and mediums: from sculpture to performance, from painting to dance, from the highly acclaimed musical project Estasy to pictorial works. And, above all, ceramics, the material of which the artist has made his privileged medium.
Emiliano Maggi reveals a world-making ethos across the surfaces of his works and in its details, where countless moments of invention and curiosity reflect ever-unfolding mysteries of consciousness. Maggi's recent body of work focuses on the beauty of life and death seen in everything: Grass and flowers bloom with pride, arousing a sense of nostalgia present within each of us; symbols of veritas whose mortality have been captured in their very moment.
'What is more ordinary than grass? Grass is not supposed to be splendid, but if you see it with the right eyes ... The answer is there.' –Emiliano Maggi
Emiliano Maggi (b. Rome, IT, 1977; lives and works in Rome, IT) studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti and Costume Design at the National Film School in Rome, Italy.
Press release courtesy SETAREH.
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