Displayed
STELLAR, 2 April 2024
Physical - Lume Studios, New York, USA
⚜Physical - Lume Studios, New York, USA
ARTCRUSH grallery , 1-31 March 2024
Physical - Melbourne, Australia
⚜Physical - Melbourne, Australia
ARTCRUSH Project , 13-19 February 2024
Physical - Gare du Midi Brussels, Belgium
⚜Physical - Gare du Midi Brussels, Belgium
Blue11art exhibition, October 2023
Physical - Time Square NYC, USA
⚜Physical - Time Square NYC, USA
WEGIL 14 - 17 September 2023
Physical - Largo Ascianghi, 5 (Trastevere) Roma
⚜Physical - Largo Ascianghi, 5 (Trastevere) Roma
Medici 1563 Genesis exhibition, November - December 2022
Physical - Miami, USA Miami Art Week
⚜Physical - Miami, USA Miami Art Week
London exhibition, November 2022
Physical — Shoreditch, London ARTCRUSH Project
⚜Physical — Shoreditch, London ARTCRUSH Project
Ghent exhibition, October 2022
Physical — Ghent, Belgium ARTCRUSH Project
⚜Physical — Ghent, Belgium ARTCRUSH Project
Disruption, October 2022
Physical W1 Curates in collaboration with 33 NFT & The Medici Collection - Flannels London
⚜Physical W1 Curates in collaboration with 33 NFT & The Medici Collection - Flannels London
Time Square, June 2022
Physical - The Medici Collections NFT NYC 2022
⚜Physical - The Medici Collections NFT NYC 2022
35x35, January 2017
Physical - Permanent collection of the Copelouzos Family Art Museum
⚜Physical - Permanent collection of the Copelouzos Family Art Museum
Sæsonåbning, udpluk af udstillingen, April 2014
Physical - Gallery Tornby - Bindslev - Denmark
⚜Physical - Gallery Tornby - Bindslev - Denmark
AR[t]CEVIA - International Art Festival , September 2012
Physical - Palazzo dei Priori - Ancona
⚜Physical - Palazzo dei Priori - Ancona
Tutto Quadra, November 2011
Physical - curated by Ilaria Miccoli - Bari
⚜Physical - curated by Ilaria Miccoli - Bari
SpazioTempo, August 2011
Physical - Acaya Castle - Lecce
⚜Physical - Acaya Castle - Lecce
Le Visioni, November 2010
Physical - Literary Cafe - Roma
⚜Physical - Literary Cafe - Roma
BrainProject.eu - Attraction, November 2007
Physical - Finalist of the international contest - Trieste
Physical - Finalist of the international contest - Trieste
Michele Petrelli contemporary italian artist,
was keening about painting from when he was very young and he graduated from the Art School in 1991. He says about himself:“I am an encephalon in a glass vial. I am a visual-auditory-tactile artist. I don't despise the thought that wanders into the spirit of things.”. During the early part of his life he drew horrific figures that seemed to come from his emotional states. They were monochromatic drawings with a strong presence of black.
When I was younger, after a carefree childhood and adolescence, I arrived without realizing it, on the threshold of an abyss. I felt that I could never go back but that the only way was through it. In doing so, however, I lacked the courage to keep my eyes open. Defeated then, I tried to turn back with a great dread inside me that I was running out of time. This terror became so great that I could no longer sleep and it amplified all my sensations. Everything brought me suffering. The beautiful things I saw and heard made me think of all that I had lost. While the bad ones described exactly where I ended up. I was trapped as some kind of ghost still wrapped in bone and flesh. Over the years, this fear of mine has grown weaker and weaker. However, the dark times still come back from time to time bringing me back to that otherworldly dimension. When they arrive, I can only wait for them to dissolve.
This dark side of him is still present today and is collected in the gallery entitled "Shadowy".
From 2008, Petrelli lives happily with his partner away from the city. He has painted a lot in these years.
Petrelli's style
"First, I have to quote the words of the artist himself revealing what he is set on doing : " The message is to destroy the beauty of deceptive appearances. Penetrating the unfinished. Getting to the origin of all things ". In so doing, his exacerbated sensitivity will dissect his subjects , and, although obviously in love with Beauty, he will try not to succumb to it but give his new version of it...In the mean time, and whether intentional or not Beauty has become an underlying , endemic characteristic in his work.We can feel some kind of latent clash between his brain and his instinct (something he himself proclaims). Effectively, you can easily perceive , while studying his work, that he just wished he could let himself go...Paint them just as they are. But then, his brain will not allow him this luxury. His private demon will make him dig up a new way to uncover, to search , to judge and then reveal his discovery. He will always add a very soft quality to his touches , making us more susceptible and more responding to his message.
All of his portraits bear a dreamlike aura, not forgetting though that nightmares are also dreams...The eyes being his main concern, he very successfully reaches, and depicts the innermost hidden, intricate meanders of the human mind."
Layla Ibrahim
Eclectic and visionary artist, Petrelli demonstrates an intuitive instinct for handling his pencil and paintbrush, and a palpable fascination with the human form and physiognomy. Some of his subjects often lose their contours, with details engulfed by colour and expressive brushstrokes.
"I was maybe five years old. My father, a professor of literature, showed me photographs of paintings in some Art History texts. Among them the ones that struck me the most were Botticelli's Venus and paintings inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, specifically the scene set in Giudecca with Lucifer and the damned. The more I showed interest, the more my father showed me other beautiful pictures. In those years when the child's mind is fervent, all these paintings probably began to work within me. I gave myself this explanation, A few years later I started going to school. First grade. On the first day of school I drew Botticelli's Venus emerging from the waters, completely from memory. They said I had gotten the gift. But I know it was thanks to my father."
He painting impressions of the mind accurately imprinted and conserved on canvas. Drawing is a key element of his work and often dominates his compositions. The subjects of his later paintings are mysterious and disturbing characters, humorous transfigurations of common people, deities or monsters.
In the "Shadowy" collection the subjects hover in the void, at other times they sink into marine abysses, or emerge from a web of shapes and lines that dissolve into the abstract. Infinite perspectives of powerful architecture or very fragile structures, which can be moved by a gust of wind, are the background of an intense oneiric scheme. Petrelli depicts the infinite impotence of the human being in front of the occult, the "non-manifest". The artist acquires the gift of a prophetic power, an intuition coming from the fall of all mental schemes. A means of revealing to the common man something happening in one of the three times (present, past or future). Sometimes the subjects look pure and free, sometimes ugly and gloomy. The dynamism of the lines highlights this unstoppable succession of states in continuous evolution.
