Marco Pio Mucci

Benevento, IT — 1980
Lives and works in Milan, IT.

After moving to Milan, he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he attended Alberto Garutti’s painting course. In those same years, he co-founded the collective Armada with a group of friends, organizing exhibitions and other events, which gave rise to one of the most dynamic and engaging artist-run realities in Italy.

In his work, what can be read as an autobiographical narrative often carries the rhythm of generational experience and of reflections shaped within shared, communal contexts. His drawings recall the “wild materials” of specific artistic productions from the 1970s and 1980s—akin to those described by Pier Vittorio Tondelli, an interpreter of the youth and underground culture of that period.

At the same time, an epic dimension emerges, likely inspired by significant figures from history—emperors, philosophers, saints, and artists—whose biographies he frequently reads. Details within his sculptures function as the objective correlative of a symbolic-aggregation process, achieved through collaborative making in dialogue with the specific environment of the action.

In his recent production, biographical recollections surface in the subjects: seascapes and fishing harbors; reports of UFO sightings at Es Vedrà; vignettes of billiards—games that occupied much of his adolescence; and chance encounters with a magpie circling the communal garden of his former home.

The monochrome tonalities and compositional choices in his works evoke the tradition of ancient painting and reflect philosophical and literary affinities—with Conrad and Melville, for instance—who probe the unknown in vast spaces such as the sea. He symbolically ventures into these expanses by populating his canvases with a boat and a sense of nomadism.

His images explore the perception of space and the attempt to apprehend reality in its temporal and spatial complexity. Every detail stems from an intention rooted in the idealization of forms within memory and nostalgia.

He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions, including Pick Poket (curated by Sarah Lucas and Massimiliano Scuderi, 2023) and Noi Spariamo (curated by Zero…, 2024). His research revolves around the finiteness of the human condition, openness to the Other, and the overcoming of habitual domestic perspectives.