Emanuele Fasciani (Rome, 1994) is a visual artist whose work ranges between painting, sculpture, and installation. After international training at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art de Nancy (France) and the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Liège (Belgium), he obtained a specialized diploma in decoration from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 2020. His work is characterized by a strong material and symbolic component and focuses on the use of materials such as waxes and bitumen, tools for the continuous physical and allegorical transformation of matter. His research draws on alchemy, whose concepts he reinterprets in a contemporary language.
Since 2019, he has participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad. His first solo exhibition took place at the Académie Royale in Liège, the same year he won the Art Mogao Caves international sculpture competition in China. In 2021, he founded the independent space CONDOTTO48 in Rome, active on the eastern outskirts of the city, with other artists. He exhibits in institutional contexts and at art fairs, including Materia Nova at GAM in Rome (2022, curated by Massimo Mininni), The Others Art Fair in Turin (2023, with Contemporary Cluster), the two-piece Ombra Lunga at Palazzo Rospigliosi (Zagarolo, 2024), and the Crisopea project, winner of the Lazio Contemporaneo call (2024), with a site-specific installation in Montecelio.
In 2024, he was selected for the "Cave" artist residency at Palazzo Brancaccio in Rome, promoted by the Contemporary Cluster, and in 2025 for the Artistinofficina residency in the village of Montefollonico (SI), where he created a solo exhibition distributed throughout the city.
Among the centuries-old olive trees that dot the terraced hills of Campo di Brenzone, "Forma Fluens"—Fluid Form—stands out, a site-specific installation by Emanuele Fasciani. Conceived in dialogue with nature and the slow passage of time in the Lake Garda landscape, the work is in constant evolution. It unfolds as an ascending network of blackened branches immersed in bitumen, an archaic and primordial material. The leafless olive branches evoke nervous and organic forms: plant skeletons, petrified arteries, living beings searching for a way out of the earth, for liberation. These dark elements connect two striking golden forms, suspended and branched, made of beeswax. Hand-sculpted into irregular and fluid shapes, the wax represents living matter in a moment of transition, inspired by the alchemical processes of transformation. The golden structure is reminiscent of the ribs of a changing organ or the liquid heat of a forming constellation. Its fragility is palpable: the gold shines, but trembles in sunlight, in rain, and with the passage of life.
The two distinct golden elements have a distinct shape and presence: one is associated with the feminine, the other with the masculine aspect. The feminine element, slender and more sinuous, is inspired by the shape of the olive leaf, a symbol of delicacy and lightness. The masculine element, on the other hand, has a more massive and vertical structure, evoking the warlike nature of the olive tree trunk with its resilient and ancient strength. This material and symbolic dualism enriches the narrative of the work and underscores the dialogue between opposing and complementary energies.
The work is accessible, there are no barriers: the viewer is invited to walk among the branches and observe the light filtering through the openings in the golden structure and the black shadows projected onto the ground. The work is experienced as a suspension of time. At sunset, the beeswax exudes a sweet, resinous scent that contrasts with the pungent, lingering aroma of the bitumen: an olfactory contrast that completes the sensory experience.
In Latin, "forma fluens" means "flowing form" or "liquid form." This is only an apparent contradiction: form, by definition, limits, confers identity. Yet when it flows, it opens, denies itself, transforms. The term recalls the Heraclitean idea of panta rhei: everything flows, nothing remains unchanging.
In Neoplatonic philosophy and the alchemical tradition, matter is also understood as constantly changing, never completely fixed. “Forma Fluens” thus becomes the image of an unstable, permeable identity that is permeated by transformations.
