Guglielmo Castelli – Art Club #38

As part of the Art Club cycle, the exhibition format curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto that since 2016 has opened up the historical spaces of the 16th-century villa on the Pincio Hill to unexpected artistic dialogues, presenting the work of international contemporary artists with installations and site-specific performances, the French Academy - Villa Medici is hosting five works by the Turin-based painter Guglielmo Castelli.

Four oils on canvas, the diptych I Believe in the Nights (2021); Buon Vento (2023); Le Jardin des Refusés, and The Mutiny’s Space (2022), as well as a tapestry made from recycled plastic and natural threads, Dorofoco. Bonotto for a Collection (2020), are on display in the gardens of Villa Medici, in the Atelier Balthus, the Studiolo of Ferdinando de’ Medici, and the Gypsotheque.

The universe developed by Guglielmo Castelli is inspired by literature, theater and art history. Mixing human and animal figures, landscape fragments, natural elements and scenes from everyday life, through a figurative painting, with magmatic flat tints and fluid subjects, the painter sets narratives into perpetual, practically cinematographic, motion. His works take visitors on a chromatic journey, with each piece holding a riddle to be solved.

Image: Guglielmo Castelli, Buon vento, 2023