Nicola Evangelisti (Bologna,1972)

Graduated in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Nicola Evangelisti made his debut with a solo exhibition in Chicago, entitled Cosmic Fragments. In 2000 he won the Guglielmo Marconi International Prize. In 2002 his work Big Bang became part of the Tar-getti Light Art Collection and was exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, the MAK in Vienna and the MUAR in Moscow.
Evangelisti’s artistic career is divided into three thematic areas, united by the use of light, understood both as a medium and as an object of theoretical reflection. In an initial neo-spatialist phase, Evangelisti’s research is focused on scientific themes inspired by the phe-nomenology of light in the context of Einstein’s General Relativity.
The cycles of the Spatial Structures take shape, installations made with flat or curved mir-rors, engraved and back-lit. In 2017, following the black light art exhibition at the Palazzo Ducale in Spoleto, he investigated the use of phosphorus and photosensitive paints.
The urban installation Light Blade (2009) is exhibited in the courtyard of Villa Reale in Milan, becoming part of the collection of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan. Other large-scale light installations will follow, both part of artistic events such as Art City in Bologna at the courtyard of the Archaeological Museum in Bologna curated by Julia Draganovich (2010) and part of permanent collections such as the park of Villa la Vedetta in Florence.
Since 2011 he has accompanied a path of social and political reflection that will lead him to define new cy-cles of installations in cartridge cases and bullets that will give rise to solo exhibitions and monographs such as beWARe.
The installation in cartridge cases YOU ARE NOT SAFE is now part of the private museum Galila’s P.O.C. in Brussels.
Since 2013 he has inaugurated a path of in-depth study of the sacred theme with refer-ences to the metaphysics of medieval light. As part of this project, he realizes a cycle of multimedia events in places of worship in collaboration with the musician of the same name, Nicola Evangelisti. “Lux Inaccessibilis”, in the cloister of the Basilica of San Domeni-co in Bologna, “Speculum Solis” for the Bologna Design Week, “Genus Lucis” inside the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca in Bologna, are examples of this series of works.
In this period he inaugurated two impressive environmental works for the Light Art Biennale in Mantua in the outdoor spaces of the Doge’s Palace focused on sacred geometry and re-curring symbols in ancient religions.
In 2017, following the exhibition curated by Gisella Gellini of black light art at the Palazzo Ducale in Spoleto, he investigated the use of phosphorus and photosensitive paints that would lead him to define the New Quantum cycle.
In the summer of 2021 he presented the light installation “The Temple of Light” in the park of the Grand Hotel Timeo in Taormina as part of a light art exhibition curated by Vittorio Erlindo, general director of the six exhibitions of the Mantua Light Art Biennial in which Evangelisti has always participated.
In 2023, the PACi contemporay gallery dedicates its fourth solo exhibition to him in its spaces in Brescia and Portocervo, maintaining works permanently in the Brescia venue. In 2024 he created the Evangelisti-Serenari duo by developing a new cycle of digital works and videos that sees a new balance and synthesis between science and spirituality.