Manuel Felisi 1:1

Nature and art come together in a creative embrace in the exhibition hosted at the Carlo Bilotti Museum, in the heart of Villa Borghese. It is a journey into the animal kingdom, a bestiary depicted on large wooden boards that dialogue with the nearby Bioparco, Italy’s oldest zoological garden, where it is possible to observe live some of the animals portrayed by the artist and protected inside.

As the title suggests, 1:1 is a life-size exhibition: 80 full-scale works, each realized with the hybrid painting technique, a stylistic signature of Felisi, who has always mixed techniques and languages, tradition and technological innovation. While Felisi’s previous works centered on arboreal and floral forms, here the artist ventures for the first time into the representation of the animal kingdom. Some works are animated thanks to digital art, while in the two-dimensional works the animals stand out against backgrounds that also recall the elegance of Art Deco, staring at us almost in disbelief.

At a time when our relationship with nature is increasingly crucial, Felisi creates the idea of an enchanted garden that can shelter animals from any pitfall. The obvious reference is with the biblical Noah’s Ark, but there is no shortage of references to the contemporary world, for example to the “Bestiary” drawn by the well-known cartoonist Andrea Pazienza in the 1980s or to the children’s creations designed by Bruno Munari.

In tune with the exhibition at the Bilotti Museum, two works by Manuel Felisi entitled “Vertigine” are on display at Fiumicino Airport. A series of grids composed of small canvases that go on to break down and recompose photographs of trees stretched toward the sky, to bring attention to the beauty and fragility of nature in a place of continuous passage.

Presenting the exhibition ticket at the entrance of the Bioparco di Roma provides a discount of €4.00