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enzo maio - terra acqua (water earth)

From December 5, 2004 through February 20, 2005
Hours: Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 10.00  to 12.00 and from 15.00 to 18.00.
Entrance fees: € 2.60,  cut-rate tickets € 1.60
Catalog text by Rossana Bossaglia

Inauguration: Saturday, December 4, 2004 at 4.00 pm

Press release

Enzo Maio finds his inspiration in landscapes and scenic views that he captures and gives back as suggestive night visions, depicting them as “the approaching darkness swallows their shapes, or when they re-emerge at dawn,” as Rossana Bottaglia puts it, offering us a possible key to the interpretation of the artist’s works. Bossaglia is one of the most important Italian critics and is the author of this exhibit’s catalog.

Civico Museo Parisi Valle’s winter exhibition displays the works by Enzo Maio, one of the most important artists of the last generations. The exhibition’s title is “Terra acqua” (Water earth) and will be open from December 5, 2004 through February 20, 2005 in Maccagno.
 

Natural elements are the main visual ingredients in the paintings of this artist, who was born in carpignano Sesia in 1953 and lives in Ghislarengo, in the province of Vercelli. After his exhibits in Brussels, Paris, Helsinki and Dusseldorf, and after winning the first prize in the 2001/2002 edition of “Città di Lissone,” Maio is now displaying his works on the rivers of Lake Maggiore; here the public will be able to enjoy his paintings that are “…poor in the most basic sense of this word, as they are painted on cardboard with a limited palette of colors,”  to quote Rossana Bossaglia again.

Maio is a painter, but also a graphic artist and a very good etcher who - using paper, inks, and various materials - can find his inspiration by just walking in the woods or any place surrounded by nature, and create a work of art by simply painting a twig, a blade of grass, or a leaf. “His representation of reality,” says Bossaglia, “retains no classic seduction of the art of painting, but in fact it appears as the meeting of the monotone natural shapes and the structures erected by man… The emotion this kind of painting generates is mainly due to our discovering inside of it a modern point of view on landscapes, where nature and technology mix and superimpose on each other, and fade into one another as if they were slowly emerging from a quiet sleep”.
 

Water and earth aren’t just in the title of this exhibition, but are also the natural elements on which the Parisi Valle museum is built. “This museum crosses the Giona River,” says Fabio Passera, mayor of Maccagno, “ and at the same time it has strong roots in a land full of passion and values, representing a unique passage through a deeper and deeper knowledge of ancient as well as new bonds and aware of its role as a cultural reference between Lake Maggiore and Europe. Having Enzo Maio’s works in Maccagno represents all the above, along with the curiosity of those who never tire of meeting people from different paths of life, with the hope for a new direction and the curiosity that belong to those who can accept the challenges of the future”.

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