Matermània/Matermanìa: Six Artists Explore Motherhood as Resistance

At Atipografia in Arzignano, Italy, a former late-19th-century structure converted into a gallery by Studio AMAA, directors Elena Dal Molin and Marco Mioli present Matermània/Matermanìa, the first chapter of a trilogy examining human transcendence through motherhood. The exhibition features six artists—Marta Allegri (Bologna, 1961), Mats Bergquist (Stockholm, 1960), Gregorio Botta (Naples, 1953), Diego Soldà (Arzignano, 1981), Željana Vidović (Mali Lošinj, Croatia, 1982), and Stefano Mario Zatti—who offer diverse male and female perspectives. Botta's installation uses milk in a secular altar, while Allegri evokes sensory memories of broth and female lineage. Soldà's layered tempera works create fractal-like ammonite forms, described by critic Renato Barilli as "fertile ambiguity." Zatti has traced his son Efrem's body contours on the same canvas each full moon since 2017. Vidović's ceramic pieces (Amare, 2023–2024) embody human and artistic motherhood, paired with Bergquist's encaustic Venus forms. Dal Molin states that in a "two-dimensional world" where superstition has erased ecstasy and the sacred, giving birth is the first act of resistance. The second chapter, L'ombra delle lucciole, will address the light of being, and the third will explore the daimon, the inner flame between divine and human.