MATtam 87
Manto Arte Temporanea | Temporary Art Manto
short exhibitions in found spaces
Sala Attilio Regolo del Giardino Segreto | Palazzo Te | Mantua
Giuliana Natali
Ierofanie
Sunday May 24th 2026
only between 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM
During the MATtam there will be a musical intervetion by Michele Segala e Alessandro Minto who will transform the electrical impulses of plants into sounds.
When, before our eyes, the reality around us appears completely different from what we commonly know—not in its outward appearance, but in its intrinsic value—and it strikes and enchants us, as if seeing it for the first time, our thoughts turn to the transcendent, the divine. Mircea Eliade called these manifestations of the sacred Hierophanies.
As when an object we know suddenly strikes us with its mysteriousness, with something that goes beyond the physical. It seems to want to reveal a secret, a truth unknown to us.
The forest, in the majesty of its centuries-old trees, witnesses to an archaic, primordial world, seems to want to reveal who knows what secrets, which only the creative force of nature can preserve. Mystery and revelation pervade the natural landscape. Discovering the forest is like recalling the origins of life. It's not about recounting the details, but about uncovering its secrets, the most hidden aspects that the undergrowth in particular holds. And it is precisely this undergrowth that I have sought to capture in my paintings, which I have called "Hierophanies." In these works, I want to express the sense of the sacred present in small things, which to the distracted eye appear insignificant.
In the woods, I felt the presence of the divine, the magical, the transcendent. In the woods, I sensed the rhythm of nature, slow and constant, punctual to each season. In the woods, I learned how life and death can coexist naturally, and I felt part of this world, as matter of the same matter.
"Everything is born in the earth, everything disappears in the earth."
Giuliana Natali (1951) has been working as an artist since the 1980s. She made her debut in 1986 with her participation in "Figure dall sfondo 2. Magma 10 anni dopo" at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara.
The artist employs a "feminine" language inspired by myth, in which the impossible and the oxymoron prevail. In the following years, the artist focused on the analysis of space, enacted through three-dimensional forms and performances with strong introspective content. She participated in the group exhibition "Baj e Company" and the "Chandelle Verte" exhibition in Milan, organized by Enrico Baj.
Giuliana Natali's work proceeds from an uninterrupted journey, along the coordinates of an art perceived as a field of instances in which the self encounters the other. The artist gradually drew closer to the natural world, animal and plant, with three-dimensional works and painting.
"Precious and iridescent, the pictorial textures lift the material from the impulse of a precise spatiotemporal belonging and instead open to the romantic vision of nature, eternal friend of beauty." Donata Negrini
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