Chiesa della Disciplina, Verolanuova
Sept. 11, 2022.
At the Nocivelli Prize finalists’ exhibition in Verolanuova, Brescia, Italy, the work Emilio by Cecilia
Del Gatto was awarded the “Coppa Luigi” prize.
The observation of a dwelling, that of “Emilio” on Giotto Street, becomes the cue for a work created by a young Sangiorgese artist, winner in Brescia at the 14th edition of the contemporary art prize Nocivelli.
Twenty-six-year-old Cecilia Del Gatto was awarded the “Luigi Prize” related to the photography section by the jury. The last Sept. 11 in Verolanuova (Brescia) in the Church of the Discipline took place the award ceremony “for the narrative talent, the ability to synthesize and create an unprecedented structure for images,” the jurors said.
The artist was received by Mayor Valerio Vesprini, who congratulated her on “the brilliant achievement and the idea of having involved a piece of the city’s memory, as has happened in other of his works in the past.”
On Nov. 25, the image and other of her own works will end up on display in the Martinengo Palace (Brescia) along with those of the winners of the other competing sections. Cecilia Del Gatto will receive in 2023 as a prize a period of residence in the “House of Artists” in Milan to continue her work.
“Emilio,” the artist explains, “comes to life from the observation of a dwelling and owes its title to the name of the man who has lived there since his birth. Emilio, from 1954 until his passing in 2020, has noted on the exterior walls, writing directly on the bricks, the events most relevant to him. His was a manifestation of individual memory, the layering of which contributes beyond measure to the memory collective memory of the present moment. On the walls, individual observations of natural phenomena or historical events become substrate of a memory that becomes heritage. An attentive and estranged eye, naive and pure, turns to a reality that flows seemingly equal to itself in the slow flow of the small province: uninterruptedly, for fifty years, it has been able to capture its becoming and its indelible trace, and then hand it back to posterity, choosing for himself the role of silent narrator of his small town.”
