Luisa Rota Sperti

LUISA ROTA SPERTI

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Walking through her Works

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Luisa Rota Sperti is an Italian artist born in Lecco (Italy).
She lives and draws in Somana, a hamlet of Mandello del Lario, at the foot of the high walls of the Grigne. Active since 1972, her expressive tool is the pencil and her works are divided into cycles, rich of inner and outer references, to history, to the great sagas, to mythology.

ARIA ACQUA FUOCO TERRA - AUTORITRATTO - (72X51) 1987

Her main theme is the Mountain: the physical ascent, the spiritual ascent.
It is the mountain of the initiation, of the magic proof, the conclusive shape of the great cycle
Signore degli Anelli (Lord of the Rings) (1979-1982, 33 plates);

SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI - BARBALBERO - (50X70)

SIGNORE DEGLI ANELLI - CAVALIERI DI ROHAN - (50X70)

It is the spiritual ascent strongly evident in the Buddhacärita (1986-1989, 21 plates).
Here, the mountain does not have rock appearance but it is expressed on a metaphysical plan.

BUDDHACÄRITA - IL BODHISATTVA VA A SCUOLA. IL MAESTRO CONFUSO

BUDDHACÄRITA - LA VITTORIA SU MÂRA (Central panel of the Triptych)

Luigi De Anna, in one of his 1997 essays on Buzzati and the mountain, writes:
" it'd be possible to say that only a mystic like San Francesco, or Milarepa (Tibetan wise man, XI century) could reach to fully explain the secret of the mountain".
It is between 1989 and 1991 that are created first the cross-shaped polyptyc in ten plates Francesco e gli uccelli (Francesco and the birds) inspired by a poem of Gregory Corso, where the mount Verna, the soul mount, receives and protects creatures, then the triptych Milarepa (his crimes, his evidences and his liberation); here the silence of the ice mountain circles the hermit silence. In 1993, Franco Maria Ricci in Milan exposed some plates of the Francesco.

FRANCESCO E GLI UCCELLI - (50X50)

MILAREPA - (52X52)

LE TENTAZIONI DI SANT'ANTONIO EREMITA, Central panel of the Triptych - (51X35)

In the cycle Sacre Montagne (Sacred Mountains) (1992-1993, 24 plates) there are together the most famous sacred mountains of the world, with those of her own roots.

SACRE MONTAGNE - MONTAGNE ROCCIOSE - (50X70)

SACRE MONTAGNE -
MONTE MOREGALLO CON I CORNI DI CANZO E IL CORNIZZOLO DAL LUNGO LAGO - (72X52)

SACRE MONTAGNE -
IL MONTE MAGNODENO CON SULLO SFONDO IL RESEGONE DALLA CASCINA "BINDUN"- (35X72)

In 1994 she fell in love with one of the most singular Dolomites peak, the Pelmo, in eight very intimate plates. Between these "Monte Pelmo parete nord" that Luisa thinks is her best work made.

MONTE PELMO PARETE NORD - (72X60)

The return to the spirit places is clear in the cycle dedicated to the Monasteri delle Meteore (19 plates, 1995) and in Dieci Tori (Ten Bulls). In these ten plates (1995-1996) Luisa makes an abstract of her life through "her" mountains (Grigne, Kailãsh, Dolomites...).

MONASTERI DELLE METEORE - MONASTERO DELLA SANTA TRINITA' - (50X46)

MONASTERI DELLE METEORE - MONASTERO DELLA METAMORFOSI- (59X72)

DIECI TORI - IL TORO TRASCESO - (51X51)

The year 1997 is dedicated to a moment of deep concentration:
In the Vitae Patrum (polyptych in 7 plates) it is the heart of the rock to speak with the voice of the hermits.
In the same year the Racconto di un pellegrino russo (4 plates) with an homage to Allen Ginsberg. These works have been exhibited in Rome in the Chiesa di Santa Lucia del Gonfalone in 2003, the guide to the reading of the works is by Carlo Ghielmetti.

ROCAMADOUR - (72X51)

In 1998, mountains come back under the spot, with the great Dolomites panning
(5 plates) and the symbolic pilgrimage of the Viaggiatori incantati e pellegrini (Enchanted Travellers and Pilgrims). With 10 plates, Luisa travels ancient Tibet on the tracks of explorers, alpinists, "missionaries" that there have lived parts of life rich of meaning. The cycle is closed with an homage to Reinhold Messner.

In 2000 is born the cycle most beloved: Pino, la morte e il Pelmo (Pino, the Death and the Pelmo Mountain), that during the making of the drawings, became a written tale. In eleven plates, it is developed a personal pilgrimage round the Pelmo ("My own Kailãs", as the author says) done with her own boots, and with the senses of a "magic child". This work is deeply liked to the activity that, since 1989, Luisa does inside the mental health department at the Hospital "A. Manzoni" of Lecco, drawing, painting, modelling with the patients. A smaller version of the "tale" (by Francesca De Giacomina) is selected for the fourth edition of "Le montagne incantate: Leggende ed Immagini - Verzauberte Berge: Sagen und Bilder" (Città di Bolzano - Stadt Bozen) and published in catalog.

In the same year 2000, with the collaboration of the councillor culture officer of the Comune di Lecco, the Galleria Bellinzona (Lecco-Milano) which has followed and helped Luisa's artistic path organized a very important anthological exhibition with a refined catalog with a foreword by Alfredo Chiappori.

In 2002 the same gallery, in collaboration with the Galleria Due Emme and with L'Osteria del Viaggiatore publishes a Calendario della montagna (in Italian and English): Grigne: dodici guide e un poeta (Grigne: 12 Guides and a Poet) in which the great guides of the Dolomites are mixed with the shelters of her house.

After the trip round the mount by Pino and the Pelmo, returns the desire to celebrate the physical ascent , with the spiritual ascent, through the protagonists of the great classic alpinism. So are born the thirty-two plates of the ambitious cycle Dalle cattedrali della terra ai sentieri del cielo (From Earth Cathedrals to the Sky Paths) (2000-2002) in which it is embraced one century of great alpinism, by lyrically telling the protagonists, through a parallelism with death and the mountains inspired also by Dino Buzzati's writings, perhaps the deepest intermediary between classic alpinism and big public.

In 2003 the social themes are the bases for the creation of a Mappa del mondo - World Map (12 plates) that becomes a perpetual calendar, with the purpose to make know and finance Fair commerce projects. It is accompanied by a folder, (dated and signed in 100 copies) with the reproduction of the 12 sheets, with a moving text by Don Angelo Casati. This initiative is presented during the Immagimondo 2005.

Then she goes back to her mountains and, during 2004, takes part to the Lecco celebrations for the 30th anniversary of the ascent of the Western wall of the Cerro Torre.

The "Ragni": Giuliano Maresi, Walter Bonatti, Carlos E. Comesaña, Giuseppe Lafranconi, e Sergio Ghiraldini
In front of the Fitz Roy scene-painting

CERRO TORRE

Inspired by the reading of the drafts of the Casimiro Ferrari biography by Alberto Benini, she created a polyptych called: Nessun uomo è un'isola (No Man is an Island). In this work, around Miro, there are the faces of Riccardo Cassin, Carlo Mauri, Walter Bonatti, Giuseppe (Det) Alippi, Pino Negri and Lorenzo Mazzoleni. With the portraits, she makes big acrylic showing some important Patagonian peaks. For the same initiative and for once in her life (so she says) engraves a Cerro Torre, in 100 copies. (with thanks to Giancarlo Vitali...)

CERRO TORRE

Between the works in the recent years, there is a fairy-portrait inspired to the tragedy of the Vajont, written and drawn in five plates: the portrait is one of Mauro Corona.

Simultaneously she plays carving the wood creating Pezzi di luna (Pieces of Moon)

GRANDE LUNA

By continuing a path between mountains and legends, she "falls in love" of the Sasso cavallo (in the Grigne) and she works a lot about it joining legends to histories, but it is not polite speaking of things still unfinished.
Her works (and herself..) remain a little mysterious and stay, sometimes, hidden for years before coming outside at the light. Is it destiny or choice?
Some little works may be found in the "high" Grigne shelters: Elisa, Bietti, Rosalba, Brioschi e Bogani.

In the summer of 2005 Pino, la morte e il Pelmo (Pino, the Death and the Pelmo Mountain) became Camminarte: a walk between shelters, inside which the eleven plates will be permanently exposed.

CAMMINARTE

CAMMINARTE

In October 2005 at "Oltre le vette" (metaphors, men, places of the mountain)
It was presented the great cycle Dalle cattedrali della terra ai sentieri del cielo (From Earth Cathedrals to the Sky Paths).
On the magazine "La buona neve", Rolly Marchi writes about it with enthusiasm.

OLTRE LE VETTE

In 2006 spring the same cycle was exhibited in Valmadrera with the partnership of the alpinism school Attilio and Piero Piacco, and offered the starting for a few moments to reflect about going over the mountains and about alpinism tales, centred on the figure and activity of Dino Buzzati (with readings of chosen texts), Claudio Corti and Ivo Rabanser.

VALMADRERA - ALBERTO BENINI, CLAUDIO CORTI AND CARLO CACCIA.

In 2006 the same arrives at the prestigious Messner Mountain Museum "Dolomites", the "Museo nelle Nuvole" on Monte Rite (2181 m). The exhibition is in particular dedicated to Dino Buzzati after 100 years of his birth.
Remembering Dino Buzzati, a moving reading of Loris Tormen at the inauguration. Reinhold Messner, during the press conference defined the paintings "... of great delicacy and value". The special preparation of the hall was made by the museum director, Elettra Monico.

LUISA ROTA SPERTI E REINHOLD MESSNER - MUSEO NELLE NUVOLE

LUISA ROTA SPERTI E REINHOLD MESSNER - MUSEO NELLE NUVOLE

LUISA E FABIO AL MUSEO NELLE NUVOLE
(Photo by Giancarlo Mauri)

It is there, in front of the beloved Pelmo that was born the idea of the new cycle to which she is working (for a long time, she says).
There was born the new walk Ai confini del cielo (At the boundaries of the Sky).
Recreating and slowly finding again the colour, Luisa turns back and, armed with imaginary maps, (and her own dreams), she goes into the valleys, finds again her own paths and walks again through a deep research on the Dolomites legends. Here, no more alpinists, climbers or singers of the mountain with her to celebrate it, but little figures of women: salvages of the woods, "Viviane", "gane", "anguane" and water nymphs and "trude", and "bergostane"; princesses and shepherdess.
So goes down and hidden in the world she likes best, and that protects her (so she says).

From April 22nd to 4 May 2008 Luisa exhibited an Anthological of the Dolomites at the Trento Film Festival.

This exhibition included some of her works from:
Intorno al Pelmo (Around the Pelmo)
Dalle Cattedrali della Terra ai Sentieri del Cielo (From Earth Cathedrals to the Sky Paths), dedicated to Dino Buzzati
My land Tibet
...Ai confini del Cielo (...At the Sky Boundaries) Legends in the Dolomites, homage to Karl Felix Wolff

Inside the exhibition, the movie-documentary Tre cavalli e un pezzo di luna (Three horses and a piece of moon), a symphony of rocks, signs and dreams, by Ferruccio Ferrario and Ruggero Meles.
From an idea of Alberto Benini, works portrayals of Mario Spreafico (photographer).

Luisa at the exibition with art director Maurizio Nichetti (Photos: Ruggero Ferrari).

Luisa and the president of the Trento Film Festival, Italo Zandonella Callegher.

Video: Tre cavalli e un pezzo di luna. Sinfonia di sassi, segni e sogni.

Luisa shows a "sample" of her "Antologia Dolomitica" in Milan, from Saturday 31st May 2008
at the bookshop "Libri di Vetta" in via Stradella 1 - Phone/Fax +39 02 29518815 - www.libridivetta.it
in parallel of the best 56° Trento Film Festival projections at the Apollo cinema.

Poster: Camminarte ai Piani Resinelli, summer 2008.