Born in Vicenza in 1974 and based in Udine, Maria Elisabetta Novello trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and graduated in painting. However, since the very beginning Novello has been experimenting with installation and performance, also approaching the most traditional genres of art history, such as landscape.
Her work is realized by using ephemeral materials, like ashes or dust, which are tangible symbols of the passage of time and its transience – elements that recall an “old” and assume a renewed meaning. In fact, her investigation aims at catching the clues of an anthropological, social, public and private memory. It also highlights the precariousness of existence and history, by fixing their time and space in the work of art. Her gesture, therefore, involves those fleeting elements that carry the fragility of contemporary times and the beauty and fickleness of existence itself. Maria Elisabetta Novello’s research manifests in different groups of works: with ashes she creates the “Paesaggi” and “Orizzonti” (where the material is kept under a display case), and ground installations (writings or figures). With the “Archivi di polveri”, made of dust and other urban remains that she collects in the streets, the artist displays contemporary finds of investigated spaces. With the project “Sursum Corda” Novello records life rhythm – breath, heartbeat, emotions – through which she opens the boundaries of her own intimate world, starting with the awareness of being and its fundamental actions.

Maria Elisabetta Novello has presented solo shows in institutions, such as: MANIBUS, Ex Deposito Carburanti, Monopoli (2022); GNAM, Rome (2020); Castello, San Vito al Tagliamento, Pordenone (2018); Casa Cavazzini Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Udine (2015). In collective exhibitions in institutions: Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio, Perugia (2022); Opendream, Treviso (2021); Magazzini del Sale, Venice (2020); Castello Svevo, Bari (2019); Biennale di Disegno – Palazzo Gambalunga, Rimini (2018); Collateral event of the 57 Venice Biennale, Palazzo Ca’ Faccanon (2017); Torre Pallavicina, Bergamo (2017); Rome Quadriennale (2016); Museo CAMUSAC, Cassino, Frosinone (2016); Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Monfalcone, Gorizia (2015, 2009); Italian Embassy, Brussels (2013); Museo Civico G. Fattori, Livorno (2012); Fabbrica del vapore, Milan (2010); Villa Manin, Udine (2007); Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza (2004).

Her oeuvre is exhibited in private and public collections: VAF Stiftung Collection; MART, Rovereto; Collezione d’Arte Contemporanea San Vito al Tagliamento, Pordenone. She also won the 12° “Premio Segno Donna” (2018); “Premio Amarene Fabbri” (2015); “Premio acquisto per la nuova collezione d’arte contemporanea del Credito Cooperativo di Udine” (2015); “Premio Fondazione VAF” (2014); “Blumm Prize” (2013); “Premio Combat” (2012); “Premio Arti Visive San Fedele” (2010); “Premio Borsista 83° Bevilacqua La Masa” (1999).
Maria Elisabetta Novello started her collaboration with Galleria Fumagalli in 2012, when the gallery housed her first solo show “Liridi”. In 2017 the second one, “Sursum Corda”, was presented in the new venue in Milan. In 2021 Novello’s works was selected by critic Lóránd Hegyi to be included in the fourth and the seventh group exhibitions of the exhibition program “MY30YEARS – Coherency in Diversity”.

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Millennium

February 2022
“Maria Elisabetta Novello. I miei mandala di cenere e polvere”

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espoarte.net

11 November, 2013
“Blumm Prize Art in Progress | U40. La prima edizione vinta da Maria Elisabetta Novello”

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Segno

April/May 2020
“Gregorio Botta e Maria Elisabetta Novello”

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

MARIA ELISABETTA NOVELLO
Sursum Corda

Opening and performance 19, 20, 21 January 2017
24 January to 16 February 2017

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MARIA ELISABETTA NOVELLO
Liridi

Opening 21 April 2012
24 April to 20 June 2012

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GROUP EXHIBITION

Concretezza dell’essenzialità

Opening 16 February, 2022
17 February to 29 April, 2022

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