Maria Cristina Mazza exhibits her works that tell the relationship of gratitude towards the plant world. Works to make visible the love for nature.
Plants silently nourish us with dignity. With their discreet presence, they give life, balance and beauty without asking anything in return. Watercolor, with its lightness and transparency, becomes the perfect expressive medium to give them a voice, to reveal their essence and return through the vividness of drawing and color the reciprocity that binds us to them. Maria Cristina Mazza’s exhibition, aka Macrì, “THE PERFUME OF COLORS” was born precisely from this awareness: recognizing the relationship of gratitude towards the plant world and making it visible through the artistic gesture. Every brushstroke is a sign of listening, every nuance is enhancement of their existence. Plants not only offer oxygen and nourishment, but represent a model of connection and interdependence, concepts that Macrì explores in his visual research.
“In giving and receiving, in seeking and being sought, in caring and feeling protected, there is reciprocity,” writes Fabrizio Caramagna. A principle that runs through the very conception of the exhibition, not only as a central theme, but also in the motivations of the socio-cultural agencies sponsoring it. Macrì’s works go beyond botanical representation: they are portraits that seek to restore dignity to these living beings. “If you look at me I exist” is another thought of Caramagna’s that fits well with the artist’s intent. Giving visibility to plants means removing them from anonymity, telling their complexity and uniqueness through the attentive gaze of those who observe and portray them.
But setting up an exhibition is not just an artistic act: it is a concrete commitment, an act of responsibility. “It is actions that count. Our thoughts, however good they may be, are false pearls until they are transformed into actions,” Mahatma Gandhi said. To exhibit means to enter into a relationship with the audience, to create a bridge between emotion and reflection, between individuality and collectivity. One does not transform oneself, just as one does not grow in isolation.
And precisely in order to avoid being paralyzed in rigid and preconstituted patterns, Macrì’s artistic research is nourished by openness and experimentation. As the poet Rumi reminds us, “Your hand opens and closes; if it were always clenched into a fist or opened, it would be paralyzed.” In the gesture of painting, in the mark that expands on the paper, the very movement of life is reflected: a continuous learning, letting go, grasping new perspectives. Just as plants adapt and grow in harmony with the environment, so too are we called to revise our view of the world, to rediscover our relationship with nature, to rediscover a sense of our being part of a greater balance. Macrì, with his painterly sensitivity and attentive gaze, invites us to this reflection. An invitation that is not only aesthetic, but deeply ethical: the awareness that in reciprocity with the natural world lies an essential key to our future.
Exhibition presented by the association “Donne per Bergamo/Bergamo per le Donne” as part of the project to “enhance the talents of Bergamo women” in collaboration with the Department of Equal Opportunities of the City of Bergamo.
Opening: Tuesday, May 6, 2025, 5:30 p.m.
Meeting with the artist: Saturday, May 10, 2025, 10 a.m.
Pictured is the work, “Yellow hibiscus the flower of friendship.”