Donation by Omar Galliani

From ad idea by Vittorio Sgarbi. Curated by Alessandra Tiddia.

National Landscape Day is an initiative promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture to showcase the nation’s cultural assets through a variety of activities that raise awareness and disseminate knowledge about landscapes. Mart is commemorating the occasion by receiving the donation of artist Omar Galliani, the undisputed heir to the great tradition of Italian drawing whose works offer sensitive interpretations of this artistic genre.

Omar Galliani has generously donated his Riflessi to Mart, which he executed last year. This is a large drawing (300x200 cm) in pencil on a poplar panel. Accompanied by a series of preparatory drawings, it will be displayed in the museum foyer for about a month.

Galliani is known internationally for his monumental drawings, his extraordinarily magnetic female faces and his “anatomies of the universe”. He has always been an intelligent observer of landscapes, which he assimilates and then reproduces in a symbolic and poetic key.

“The origin of this landscape,” he explained, “was a reflection in the water of a mountain lake near Parma, not far from my studio. It is the fruit of a journey marked by pain, in which I felt the need to capture a “Reflection” in silence. With a Faber Castell pencil and a piece of wood, I sought to grasp that instant that precedes everything: birth, life, death, light, shadow and finally rebirth. The process began with a quick shot on my mobile phone. From there the work developed through a long and slow interweaving of fine lines, a millimetre or slightly more in width. The carbon of the pencil lead reflects the light, highlighting the veins of the tree on which I made the drawing. I was therefore able to recover the time of its growth by means of an iridescent overlapping of the subject of the drawing and the natural qualities of the panel on which I worked for many months. This landscape crosses over the representational boundary between the nature of the poplar and the pencil I used to draw on it.”

Source: www.mart.tn.it