Antonio Murgia

Antonio Murgia was born in Sarroch in the province of Cagliari in 1956. He grew up in sixties-seventies Sardinia, far from the centers where the different Italian artistic movements were developing. Looking at the big cities, the colors and the activity of these places, Murgia is immediately fascinated by Pop Art, an artistic movement that he feels close to him and that allows him to express that innate artistic talent that had accompanied him since his early age and that he had cultivated in his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera.

Like the artists of pop-art, Murgia begins to isolate the objects and figures of everyday life, decontextualizing them and reworking their meaning, mixing their graphic characteristics to synthesize an unmistakable irony, subtle yet decisive, that traces his canvases to this day. A wide production and the strong visual impact of his work soon leads him to exhibit both in Italy and abroad, such as in Spain and Germany, but also in China at the Yi Xing Art Museum in Beijing and Shanghai.

Murgia's aesthetic is grounded in a cosmology of opposites: chaos and order. A dualism of opposing concepts that, as in the real world, mingle on the canvas in a harmonic menage, a balance that remains unexplained while being undeniable.

In his most recent cycle of works "Passion," we see the artist's maturity, at first glance manifested in the exceptional expressive intensity he gives to the faces, and later, as we move closer to the painting, by the detail within the whole, the pleasing harmony between the industrial repetitions, the perfectionistic materiality of stickers, reflectors, and beads, against the pure instinctive and irrational gesturality of the brushstrokes. Order and chaos, but also man-force-expansion and woman-intelligence-contraction, not as opposing and separate realities, but as two sides of the same coin, of the same portrayed figure and thus, of a human being itself.

In his latest works, made on a reflective surface, the artist takes an extra step, making the viewer and his consciousness part of the work itself, supporting a collective thought, made of exchanges and looks.. "With Antonio Murgia color annihilates the conscious personality of his figures, thus making predominate the unconscious one made of feelings and thoughts." - Mattea Micello. The artist performs an act of decomposition and reconstruction of figures, a form of re-elaboration of reality that in his painting gives life to a complex set of elements. The colors, often in contrast with each other, become an element of joy and wonder in his work but at the same time they allow to reconstruct the initial design. The result is a fusion of the components of mass culture reassembled in a spatial and figurative order that has the features of human faces, the ultimate synthesis of chaos in order, in the balance and harmony of the face that becomes the container of the chaotic world of the language of modern society.  

Coming soon:

2025 - Fondazione Majid, Ascona (CH)

2025 - Museo Del Sale, Cervia

2024 - Art Night with Antonio Murgia & Roberto Meloni, Nuar Gallery Capo Boi

In progress:

2024 - Trio of Art - The Stross Gallery, Graz (Austria)

2024 - Vernissage - Yvonne Art Gallery, Barletta

Main exhibitions and awards:

2024 - YouNique - Deep Gallery, Lugano

2023 - Autumn/Changing of Colors _ The Stross Gallery, Graz (Austria)

2023 - Best Contemporary Pop Art Artist 2023, International Arts Awards Lugano

2023 - Sguardi - Nuar Gallery Sardegna

2018 - Sentieri - Galleria Ess&rre, Ostia (Roma)

2018 - La Vespa nella storia e nell’Arte - M.A.C.I.S.T. Museo, Biella

2018 - La grande bellezza - Kunsthaus Burg Obernberg, Austria. Galleria Expart

2018 - Summer Art 2018 - Porto Cervo (Sardinia) Fondazione Mazzoleni

2018 - Old House, New Art - International Art Symposium, Istanbul, Turchia

2018 - Delicious opposition - Marini Fine Art, Lausanne, Svizzera

2017 - Sospiri di Saggezza - Villa Scheibler, Milano

2017 - Affordable Art Fair - Per Capita Contemporary Art Gallery, Milano

2017 - Our Paths Cross with Art - A.C. Art Hotel Museum, Beijing (FYR Gallery)

2017 - Antonio Murgia - Violarte Galleria d'Arte Contemporanea, Galliate (NO)

2017 - Internationales Künstlersymposium - Kunsthaus Schwabmünchen, Germania

2017 - Duende - Villa le Maschere, Barberino di Mugello (Florence). Per Capita Galleria Arte Contemporanea

2016 - Venezia e l’arte, Venezia. Mazzoleni Foundation

2016 - Italian Art from Classic to Pop, 1 +1 Art Centre, Beijing. FYR Gallery

2016 - Idee per una collezione, Palazzo della Cancelleria, Roma. Acca Edizioni

2016 - Summer Art, S. Margherita di Pula (Cagliari). Mazzoleni Foundation

2016 - Tango, tarante, assenzio e recenti oblii, Per Capita Arte Contemporanea Gallery, Carpi

2015 - Il tempo nel tempio, SS Giacomo e Filippo’s Church, Andora (Savona)

2015 - Art Store, JW Marriott, Venezia. Mazzoleni Foundation

2015 - La bellezza nonostante…, Villa le Maschere, Barberino di Mugello (Firenze). Per Capita Arte Contemporanea

2015 - Journey to hope, International Art Symposium, Yagcilar (Izmir), Turchia

2014 - Pretaporter, Olbiapulse/spazioarte, Olbia, Italia

2014 - Between Earth & Sky, The Gallery Steiner, Wien, Austria

2014 - Vision of italy, Beijing Art Center 1+1, Beijing (FYR Shanghai), Cina

2014 - Un tuffo nell’arte, Art Events Mazzoleni, Alzano Lombardo, (BG), Italia

2014 - Contrasts & Similarities, A.C. Art Museum, Beijing (FYR Shanghai), Cina

2014 - Marilyn Monroe – Grandi opere, Contemporary Arte Pancaldi, Roma, Italia

2014 - Summer Art 2014, by Art Events Mazzoleni, Forte Village Resort – Sardegna, Santa Margherita di Pula (Ca), Italia

2014 - Marilyn Monroe – I just want to be wonderful, by Contemporary Arte Pancaldi, Teatro Comunale di Pergine (TN), Italia

2014 - Artour-o, Merida, Spagna