Deli | Digging up | Feb 26

Von Buren Contemporary presents

Digging up

solo exhibition of

ALESSIO DELI

Von Buren Contemporary is pleased to present DIGGING UP, the exciting new solo show of noted Italian sculptor Alessio Deli.

In Digging up, Deli looks back to ancient Greek and Roman art for inspiration with a series of works ranging from sculpture and ceramics to painted wall panels and drawings. In particular, the Rome-born artist sets out to evoke the spirit of Pompeii, with creations dominated by the rich palette of reds, yellows and blues of the ruined city’s wall decorations.

The artist unearths ancient art forms which at first glance seem familiar to the eye but on closer examination reveal contemporary twists through their shape and composition. Visitors will recognise Deli’s paintings, for example, as reinterpretations of the colourful Ancient Roman wall paintings known as grotesques, while his Gradiva sculptures hark back to a 1903 novella by the German writer Wilhelm Jensen whose hero falls in love with a Roman bas-relief of a walking woman.

This exhibition also allows Deli to ‘excavate’ his own artistic roots, digging up classical influences which first touched him as a child on a school visit to Pompeii and the archaeological museums of Naples and set him on the path to becoming the artist he is today.

Alessio Deli was born in Marino near Rome in 1981. After studying at the Art Institute of Marino, he went on to graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara where he specialized in sculpture.

Sculptures by Deli are to be found in many permanent collections including the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome; the MacS (Sicily’s Museum of Contemporary Art), Catania; the Civic Collection of Contemporary Art at Palazzo Simoni Fè, Bienno; the Roberto Bilotti Ruggi d’Aragona Museum in Rende, Cosenza; the National Gallery of Calabria, Cosenza; the Municipal Palace of San Quirico d’Orcia, Siena; the Antico Collegio Martino Filetico, Ferentino; the New Church of St. Peter the Apostle, Cosenza; the S. Bonaventura Cloister in Rome and the Porporati Park in Turin.