The land art of Peter Randall-Page at Villa Panza

FAI – Italian Environmental Fund is pleased to present Saturday, 23rd May 2015 at 6pm in Villa Panza, Varese the third act of the three-year project Art in Nature, in collaboration with Arte Sella, the international contemporary art exhibition that takes place in the open air in Val di Sella (TN).

The project Art in Nature, created in 2013 by the artistic director of Arte Sella, Emanuele Montibeller, and the director of Villa Panza, Anna Bernardini, has enriched the eighteenth century park of the Villa with site-specific works by Ian Stuart Frost (2013) and Bob Verschueren (2014), made entirely from natural materials and in perfect symbiosis with the vegetation, tree species and the geometry of the garden.

Art in Nature this year sees the direct involvement of Arte Sella which will open at Villa Panza their exhibition season. The project in fact stars the British sculptor Peter Randall-Page engaged in an exhibition “spread” between Villa Panza and Arte Sella (Trento). His imposing sculptures are in fact hosted simultaneously until next Spring in the park of the villa in Varese and Val di Sella in a single exposure shared between the two institutions. In Varese will be installed the work Cupressus I, built in 2008 with granite carved from a glacial erratic boulder in Finland and characterized by deep incisions with pentagonal and hexagonal shapes that recall the geometry of nature, and which will become part of the permanent patrimony of the Villa.

In addition, until the Spring of 2016, there will be exhibited three more impressive sculptures, always by Peter Randall-Page, of the series Shapes in the Clouds, red marble Luana and weighing about 5 tons each to be positioned next to the Salone Impero.

The research of the artist is always inspired by the study of natural phenomena and the impact these have on our emotions: the shape, the colour, the quality of the stone and the processing of engraving are all part of the signature style of Peter Randall-Page that places nature at the centre on his sculptures and drawings. In recent years his work has increasingly turned to the hidden principles that determine the growth of nature and the forms that it produces, to use his own words: “Geometry is the theme on which nature plays her infinite variations, fundamental mathematical principle become a kind of pattern book from which nature constructs the most complex and sophisticated structures” With the patronage of Milan Expo 2015, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, the Lombardy Region, the Province of Varese and the Commune of Varese.

The exhibition is part of the project “Grand Tour EXPO in the prestigious location of the land of the lakes”. FAI thank JTI (Japan Tobacco International), institutional partner of Villa Panza, with which the Foundation has launched a multi-year partnership aimed at enhancing and promoting the cultural activities of this extraordinary property, ensuring accessibility to a wide audience.