Mirco Marchelli is fascinated by the poetry of memory. He re-examines the forgotten objects that were once part of our daily routine as though taking them down from the attic of life, dusting them off, and allowing them to speak to us about their past and to inquire into our present. Once these objects have been dis-placed, they are put back into context, manipulated, and denied their useful functions. And in this way they spark off a new relationship with reality.

But what is most captivating is that this attention to the past is in no way gloomy, nor is it ponderous and heavy-going. His interest leads to a refined approach to the re-ordering and re-composition of humble materials, generally without any painted additions. These materials are almost always items that have been discarded: sheets of paper, fabric, cardboard, gauze, and photographs together with other objects of all kinds. Dusty paper and gauze are laid down and remodelled, superimposed, and retouched with a musical sense of balance; tiny houses are made from old waxed books whose covers are turned up to become roofs; other books are immersed in wax and reshaped into strange packages. And then there are faded flags, stools, foot-rests, benches, suitcases, boxes – all transformed into an array of forms that, by reliving the past, transforms it utterly.