“La Biscia” by Nunzio Di Stefano

Carrara marble on a pool. In profile it is a water snake, head on a sea monster, from a distance a pair of suspended lips.

The story

Presented at the fifth “Arte e Natura” biennial (2005-2006), the work by Nunzio Di Stefano, carved in Carrara marble, stands in the artificial pool of the Serranella Oasis nature reserve, in the municipality of Altino.

Known as “La Biscia”, the water snake, it takes on a different shape according to where the viewer stands: seen in profile it reads as a water snake, while head on it seems to take the form of a sea monster.

The lakeside vegetation and the reflections of the marble on the water change the way the shape is read: it is not one shape but many, depending on the point of view, the light and the weather. The sculpture quivers, giving the illusion of a sinuous movement helped by its reflection on the surface of the lake, yet it can also look still, standing against the current. Seen from a distance, the mass of the sculpture doubles its shape in the reflection and turns into a pair of lips suspended between earth and sky.

Nunzio Di Stefano

Nunzio Di Stefano was born at Cagnano Amiterno, in the province of L'Aquila, in 1954. He studied under Toti Scialoja at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1973 he opened his studio in the former Cerere pasta factory, in the San Lorenzo district. He held his first exhibition in 1981 at the Galleria Spatia in Bolzano; in 1984 he showed large plaster sculptures at the Galleria L'Attico in Rome. His first American exhibition, in 1985 at the Annina Nosei Gallery in New York, helped spread his language internationally. In 1995 he received an honourable mention after being invited to show at the Venice Biennale with a room of his own.