Giulia Mangoni

An exuberant garden. It is a concert of flowers, leaves, and stems, and the rhythm beats and sinks in a vertigo of curved lines studded with brush and oil pastel on a stringy linen canvas. But the protagonist of Giulia Mangoni's work in competition, Radius (Measuring) is a man. Inside him, a whole different music reverberates. The man exudes a quiet stillness, a calmness all within. He tinkers in his garden with a seedling, little more than a sprout. The action is minute, gentle, but the pose has a statuesque power, like a St. George in the act of defeating the dragon. “The Christian hero recurs in my works, because he overcomes evil by transcending cultures and religions,” the artist explains. “His energy captures me.” There is always a hint of autobiography in the Italian-Brazilian artist's canvases.
They are compositions built at the confluence of distant worlds. Mangoni knows how to recombine the unstoppable nature of Brazil's forests with the tame landscape of the Ciociaria countryside, where he lives. In a fairy-tale key, a tropicalist aesthetic emerges. The colors are never soothing, rather contrasting, political. The style juxtaposes Magic Realism with a fullness of volume and a certain 1920s linearity close to muralism and early 20th century public art. “It is a meditation on the act of measuring oneself. It is an ode to discipline and concentration. Even when overwhelmed by distractions and stimuli, the protagonist remains focused on his all-inward growth.” The image is powerful, collected and meditative. The creation and the artist are in perfect harmony with the nature around, a symbol of rootedness and inner balance.

Cristiana Campanini