Malafonte is an exhibition of minerals: It is a mine of precious stones, sand, lime and earth.

In Chi è senza ossa non lascia traccia, a white Carrara marble high relief, the human figures take on the form of a tangle of snakes themselves.

In other works, the snake is trying to penetrate the void of the stone. Expelled from the centre of the fresco, the snake slithers from one work of the exhibition to the other: In the black Carrara marble sculpture facing the fresco, the snake has become the tail attached to a coccyx ascending the figure's body up to the tongue. The serpentine figure of the human body, a characteristic of Mannerism, is a consistent subject of the works: Valle Umana (Malafonte), the large-scale fresco covering the entire back wall of the gallery visualizes this in the battle between the snake and the human body. The influence by Mannerism in Malafonte is not only restricted to a state of mind. To Samorì, we are living in Manneristic times again.It is a new point of view the artist is taking – until now, he has been known for his intense analysis of the Baroque. Works like Il serpente di bronzo by the Fiorentine artist Agnolo Bronzino were influenced by the pain the artist experienced. Between 15, the artists of Mannerism directly coped with tragedies such as Sacco di Roma, a violent depredation of the city of Rome. Malafonte, Nicola Samorì's first solo exhibition at Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin, is influenced by an artistic period during which the emotional expression of fear has been ubiquitous. It is a mental composition, Samorì's works rely on: The feeling that fear is dominating our lives. The 'mala fonte' is an unknown disaster, an erosion, a tragedy that can't be explained, something intangible. A tempest appears to have dissolved them. Framing the cavity, the figures are stricken with dismay, their translucent bodies are festered. Their faces are darkened by a large abstract segment, a sinister source, a 'poisoned well' coming from within the centreof the works: the 'mala fonte'. Nicola Samorì's human figures are frozen in fear.

Nicolas samori art