NICOLA EVANGELISTI

“The use of neon, projectors, laser, LED lights inside metallic, plastic or vitreous structures is always addressed to the creation of light signs in the space. Signs of light similar to lightnings are a distinctive feature of my work, whose main feature has always been to open up forms to space, creating complex installations of multiple elements.

As a sculptor, in 1999 I started a process of dematerialization which led me to the approach of various technologies oriented to the realization of light sculptures .

My work on holography has started in 2006 as a result of the collaboration with Mauro Melotti. The use of holography is a natural prosecution of my work on light within contemporary art.  The use of dramatic lights and sounds helped me creating truly immersive environments in which the viewer could experience holograms and light sculptures.

The holographic installation YOU ARE NOT SAFE created in 2006 for an exhibition at Paci Arte Contemporary Brescia  was also exhibited at the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna 2011 and in 2012 at MACRO for the ADD festival in Rome.

Among the most significant works there is “YOU – ARE – NOT – SAFE” (2006) in which seven holograms interface on four steel bases. The installation is an advancement sequence of a bullet thorough the space growing from the left to the right. Later, I created ” TEMPORARY ILLUSIONS ” (2013), a self-illuminating column for laser transmitted holograms. When the laser applied to the right corner of the inside of the column hits the film inside the plexiglass, it projects a holographic gun sight in the space between viewer and sculpture. Behind the hologram depicting the gun sight, a second hologram of a bullet is visible. Another variance of this type of work is a double euro coin represented entirely and split”.

Holy Knife is a cycle of works developed starting from 2015 within the beWARe project.

The installations consist of a knife whose blade has been replaced by a hologram on glass.

The hologram is the simulacrum of an object that is not physically there, but whose presence is generated by an optical illusion.

Created to symbolize the immateriality of terrorist propaganda, they now take on a wider meaning by representing any type of invisible threat that grips the world population such as the recent pandemic crisis developed by COVID19.