Martina Cassatella
The works belong to a corpus of recent works, in which light, an essential component of the artist’s research, is objectified in small fireflies that weakly illuminate the vast darkness, while hands try to capture them, but with kindness.
Their disappearance had been used by Pasolini as an image and perfect expedient to express the suffering of the great historical and anthropological change that characterized that time. And then the reappearance of the same represents the invitation to the hope of marveling again thanks to the free and pure game with the fireflies: so the dark is no longer scary. The memory of this, which however always remains, is cheered by the simplicity and uniqueness of the contemplation of the glows of small star insects. If the darkness were not there, we would not be able to see them; that is why it is important to face it. The violence of daylight, on the other hand, makes them disappear.
The fireflies, with their delicacy in illuminating, are the symbol of poetry that lives in the simple, which finally gives us back the amazement. As in the scenes of the great cinematographic masterpiece “A Tomb for the Fireflies” by Isao Takahata, co-founder of the Ghibli studio, to whom there is a timid tribute.
Born in 1996, San Giovanni Rotondo, FG (Italy). She lives and works in Milan.
RECENT SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITION
2025: Il Respiro del Buio, curated by spaghetti Boost, Milan;
2024: Inneres Auge, Gallerie Mazzoli, Berlin;
Ortigiacontemporanea, contemporary art festival, Isola di Ortigia (SR);
2023: Or three ways of putting the same thing, ArtNoble Gallery, London, group exhibition curated by Antonio Grulli; The Shape ofTime, Lindon&Co., London, group exhibition curated by Alice Amati;
2022: Salon Palermo, Rizzuto Gallery, Palermo, group exhibition curated by Antonio Grulli and Francesco De Grandi; Tremodi per dire la stessa cosa, ArtNoble Gallery, Milan, group exhibition curated by Antonio Grulli; Notturno, Palazzo Hercolani, Bologna, Italy, group exhibition curated by Domenico de Chirico
EDUCATION
In 2021 she received her Master’s degree in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
Exhibitions
