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My research investigates how communication with the sacred is mediated through materials. Beeswax, silk, propolis, animal fats and horns are recurring materials in my paintings and sculptures. I seek a ‘correspondence’ with materials, treating them as forms of intelligence to partner with over a long period of time. Mysticism, myth and an archeological longing underpin all my work.
Virginia Russolo (Oderzo, Italy, 1995) lives and works in Crete, Greece, having grown up in Italy, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. She graduated from the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford in 2017. Her research explores how communication with the sacred is mediated through materials such as beeswax, silk, propolis, animal fats, and horns, which frequently appear in her paintings and sculptures. She investigates what anthropologist Tim Ingold terms a ‘correspondence’ with materials, treating them as forms of intelligence. Her work is influenced by elements of mysticism, mythology, and a subtle sense of archaeological nostalgia. Russolo was selected for the artist residency at Fondazione SpinolaBanna in collaboration with GAM, Turin (IT, 2019) and Rupert’s Alternative Education Programme, Vilnius (LT, 2021). In 2023, she was a Visiting Art Scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She has participated in exhibitions at: Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin (DE, 2024); CLC gallery, Beijing (CN, 2023); The Address Gallery, Brescia (IT, 2022); Mediterranea 19 Young Artist Biennal, San Marino (IT, 2021); Rupert, Vilnius (LT, 2021); Podium Gallery, Oslo (NO, 2021); Procida Capital of Culture, Procida (IT, 2022); 7th Thessaloniki Biennal, Thessaloniki (EL, 2020); T293 Gallery, Rome (IT, 2018); Pitt Rivers Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Oxford (UK, 2017); and Modern Art Oxford (UK, 2016).
At the heart of the island, on the Abbasanta plateau, overlooking the picturesque scenery of Lake Omodeo, lies the thousand-year-old village of Sedilo. An agricultural and pastoral centre of the Guilcer area, at the heart of hilly terrain clad with oaks, holm oaks, cork oaks and Mediterranean maquis, it offers itineraries that can be enjoyed on foot, by bicycle or on horseback.
Near Lake Omodeo, the archaeological park of Iloi houses a three-lobed nuraghe, a village and two tombs of Giants dating back to the Bronze Age. However, the territory had been inhabited from even earlier, as shown by the necropolis of Ispiluncas, comprising no less than 33 domus de Janas (literally “witches’ houses”), ten of which can be visited.
Sacred and profane are combined in the archaic rite of s'Ardia, a spectacular horse race at Santu Antine, which commemorates the battle of Ponte Milvio (312 A.D.): according to legend, Constantine won after a cross appeared to him with the inscription “in hoc signo vinces”. At dusk on the 6th and dawn on the 7th July, crowds fill the valley, a natural amphitheatre for the event. At breakneck speed, a hundred or so horse-riders descend the kilometre from the village (from su Frontigheddu) to the sanctuary of Saint Constantine. The latter is of Medieval origin, and was later rebuilt in Gothic-Catalan style in the 1600s.
In addition to the church of Saint Constantine, there is the parish church of St John the Baptist, the church dedicated to St Anthony Abbot with Spanish architecture, and the Church of San Basilio, for which a donkey race is held on 1 September.