Luigi Sergi

Luigi Sergi was born in Presicce (LE) in 1952 and lives and works in Novara. His Salento origins deeply mark his work: the broad, diffused light of the southern landscape, the colours of his land and the pigments settled into his painting — never passively figurative.

He began his artistic activity in 1970, the year of his first solo show, working in painting and sculpture at once. He attended the Art Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, graduating in sculpture in 1975. He then moved to Rome until 1978, starting research into the modular and the psychology of form and drawing close to the work of Rocco Coronese and Corrado Cagli. From 1980 he settled permanently in Novara, teaching artistic subjects and meeting the critic Giovanni Quaglino, who would follow his career.

From 1982 his exhibition activity has been continuous. His research pushes past the canonical limits of the painting, letting real space enter the work and the work enter real space, up to the polychrome sculpto-paintings and the introduction of relief into the picture. From 1983 he develops the poetics of the “package” — a metaphor for life as mystery and enigma — which from 1998 takes the form of parcels actually sent by post. Recurring motifs are the sphere, a body without beginning or end, and the window, a metaphor for the courage to look beyond.

In 1997 he received the “Città di Presicce” prize. In recent years his interest has turned to large-scale installations such as “Il volo delle anime” (2023) in the municipal cemetery of Gagliano del Capo. The path culminates on 28 July 2024 with the opening of the Casa dell’Arte di Luigi Sergi in Presicce, in the oldest part of the village.