Tarcisio Merati

Tarcisio Merati was born in 1934 in Bonate Sopra, near Bergamo. He rebels very soon against his own family life conditions of extreme poverty. He loses his father when he is a little child. His mother remarries with an uncouth man who often beats him. After elementary school and professional training, Tarcisio works first in a bakery then as a bricklayer. When he is 25 years old he goes through a very intense psychiatric collapse: the misery, the frequent quarrels with his family and a job he doesnt like, all that makes him very vulnerable. In a sort of omnipotence delirious, he reacts choosing a new social role.

In 1959 he is hospitalized for the first time into Bergamo psychiatric hospital and he goes back and forth from the madhouse with diagnosis of psychosis and mentally handicap”. In 1970 he discovered painting and until 1983 his production was enormous. He attends the art studio from morning to evening and he has no other interest than painting. His world is filled with images, with his own personal alphabet, made of wonder and amazement, in an explosion of colors. And the drawings, from the graphic sign, become “small birds”, “small machines”, “small airplanes”. He died in 1995.

Selected exhibitions

2022 – Tarcisio Merati”, solo exhibition, Ceribelli gallery, Bergamo

2020 – “Fall back. New works at Cavin Morris”, Cavin Morris Gallery, New York

2019 – “The Doors of perception”, curated by Javier Téllez, Frieze, New York

2018 – Outsider Art Fair, represented by Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Paris

2017 – Tarcisio Merati. Feast of colours”, solo exhibition, Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Milano

2015 – “Furtive and wild like a deer”, Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Milan

2012 – Banditi dellArte”, Halle Saint Pierre, Paris

2007 – “Beautés insensées. Figures, histoires et maitres de l’art irrégulier”, curated by Bianca Tosatti, Monaco

2006 – “Oltre la Ragione. Le figure, i maestri, le storie dell’arte irregolare”, curated by Bianca Tosatti, Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo

1999 – “Arte necessaria”, Cantieri culturali alla Zisa, Palermo

1993 – “Tarcisio Merati. Opere 1975 – 1991”, solo exhibition, Teatro Sociale, Bergamo