Not a Wonderful World is born of the evils of our century. It is neither a nihilistic look, nor an act of condemnation for the people involved, but for the actions. The look is good-natured, that of a man among men, aware that no one is totally innocent, no one without hope. And that despite the title, the world IS wonderful.

There is something wonderful that visits us every day: the possibility of becoming good. To look at the world with the innocent eyes of a child. This chance to change direction in Life is not denied to anyone, at any time of their existence. It just requires a lot of effort sometimes.
This group of works is dedicated to all those people and all those personal choices of ours that bring Beauty on Earth.

Murequal is an artistic project, based in Rome, and it is focused on integrated work, that is the kind of work that aims to obtain a quality production that has an intrinsic value on the market.

The field in which Murequal operates is that of artistic production, from street art to painting, through graphics, video and the creation of furniture-sculpture. The association aims to give visibility and increase the value of the works created by its artists also through collaboration with important partners.

The project is aimed at any person in a state of difficulty certifiable social, economic, psychophysical, etc.). A second prerequisite to join the projects of Murequal is the passion for artistic production (not necessarily a practical ability).

In my artistic research I have undertaken various studies to further refine my technique. In particular, I was interested in investigating the possibility of reproducing a three-dimensional sensation on a flat surface. Using the studies of Biomedical Engineering undertaken at the University I developed with the help of Prof. Melis an algorithm that can give a greater appearance of three-dimensional images just starting from the characteristics of the physiology of the human eye.

 Urbs Mirabilis was born from my natural passion for artisans, their professions and testimonies. In the last three decades the center of Rome has been depopulated by the historic stores that here found the natural point of aggragation. The works in this series are all oil paintings on linen or board. The supports are prepared in the Renaissance manner, with techniques already known at the end of the fifteenth century, which I learned from the copyist painter Guido Venanzoni. The purpose of these modalities is to collect is celebratory: it serves to render just memory to those artistic-craftsmen who succumb to the advancement of technique. In these paintings I begin a study on the physiology of sight, in particular on what happens at the periphery of the human eye.

Stop-motion clips

‘Verso i Mari del Sud’ and ‘Progetti Contratti’ are stop-motion video clips, commissioned by the association ‘Come un Albero’, a pioneer in integrated work projects, and made for the song of the same name by ‘Disabilié’, a musical band composed of people with and without disabilities. The work was carried out by me and Pietro Ciani, who in 2016 I followed as a home assistant, with a division of tasks: Pietro took care of the creation of the puppets and the drawings of the set design, I took care of the direction. I involved two other people for post-production and frame shooting. The collective work was signed as PiGiMi Giù. In the credits I used only the pseudonym Gi for the first time. The video ‘Verso i Mari del Sud’ was a finalist in the Gianni Rodari Award, Video Fiabe section. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8lGVX2-MM4 The video ‘Progetti Contratti’ was published on Repubblica.it in the Emergenze Sonore section. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Tth7Pa9Lo

Inarea phisical mock-ups

I have worked on different graphic projects. Currently, I work with the company Inarea Identity and Design Network (www.inarea.com). For them this year I realized some concepts for the 2019 calendar “Shocking bags”.

A church in Sichuan

In 2013, the architect Lorenzo Berna commissioned me to design the stained glass windows of a church, named after St Vincent de Paul, which he was then designing and would be built in Sichuan, China. The sketches were the object of intense study for me; I wanted to recreate, in agreement with Lorenzo, the sensation of being under the golden vault of a forest. There were three orders of stained-glass windows: those at the bottom, almost square in shape, those of the gallery that ran all around the church at half height, and those at the top, narrow and long. The first would represent the trunks of the trees, the second the green and gold foliage, and the third the sky. To get the colors, I photographed a forest and sampled the colors; I then resubmitted in the same percentages, but in a tile map, the colors in random order. The glass tiles were to be rectangular for the bottom – of two sizes, smaller and larger, to make the idea of receding – trapezoidal and triangular in the sky to increase the feeling of depth. All the stained glass windows were to have a more saturated central section and a grayer peripheral section, predisposing the viewer’s attention toward the center. As we proceeded towards the altar, the percentage of light and bright tiles in each group of stained glass windows (low, middle and high) was to increase, thus emphasizing the idea of the Sacred.

Painting with the last of Scuola Romana

In 2012 I was lucky enough to meet two of Ziveri’s students, Antonio Laglia and Gianluca Tedaldi. Since then, a custom began: meeting to paint a model or a model live. The sessions are almost always hosted by Antonio Laglia, who opens his studio and allows us to enjoy a truly exceptional visual, auditory (there is often excellent music) and gustatory atmosphere. The paintings composed in this context are the result of an exclusive analogue process and are signed simply JOE.