Maria Murgia (1935) - Omaggio a Marilyn Monroe

This work is a unique original photomosaic piece created by Maria Murgia, a worldwide pioneer since 2005 of the digital photomosaic technique transformed into a physical artwork.

Her creations are unique in the world: mounted on special Kapafix and Gatorfoam panels, they are hand-carved. Each photograph is selected individually to create a tactile, three-dimensional, deep effect. The main image is a unique original piece, enriched with manual painted interventions that blend with digital art, giving life to a hybrid, contemporary artistic language.

Maria Murgia is inspired by Pop aesthetics in the use of mass-culture icons, such as the famous compositions dedicated to Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. In reality, the content is much deeper: the woman as an object, her image is mercified just like a consumer product, used and emptied of substance.

GALLERY SELLING PRICE € 900.00
WORK ARCHIVED https://www.mariamurgia.it

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Maria Murgia was born in Ossi, near Sassari, on July 14, 1935. She comes from a family descended from Sardinian noble origins; her father Salvatore Murgia is a wine producer and her mother Gesuina, a dynamic and intelligent woman, a solid and profound image of Sardinian matriarchal history, will play an essential role in her cultural formation and in the most important artistic choices.
Maria Murgia, barely more than a girl, in Sassari at the Gallery “Il Cancello,” had the opportunity to meet the artist Aligi Sassu, who, after seeing the young artist’s early works, encouraged her to continue her artistic studies. With Sassu there were other meetings and, particularly many years later, in Thiesi in 1989, on the occasion of the inauguration of a museum where one of the Maestro’s first murals is exhibited, which, after visiting an exhibition of Murgia, in addition to congratulating her on her career, defined her as “the painter of color” and, prophetically, an artist of the 2000s.
In 1957 she marries Giovanni Fancellu, also from Ossi, and moves to Venice, a city where she lived for ten years, frequenting artistic circles and following lessons by Virgilio Guidi, very meaningful for her formation. An episode from her Venetian years, odd but revealing of the artist’s temperament, is when, during a film festival edition, she is spotted in the audience by Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis and invited to participate in a film: Murgia calmly declines the invitation, arguing that art was her only aspiration.
For four years she returns to Sardinia, to Cagliari and the Maddalena island. In that period she studies at the Art Institute of Sassari. Since 1974 she has resided in La Spezia, and until the late 1970s she teaches at a kindergarten as director. It is precisely in these years that she passionately and convincingly begins her artistic career. Her first solo exhibition was on 8 November 1975, at the “Studio 13” directed by Andrea Occhipinti. The curator of the show and Murgia’s first art critic was, on that occasion, Professor Nicola Rilli, important for his historical studies on the Etruscans and for an interpretative work on the figure of Pinocchio. A Murgia canvas is part of the Pinocchio collection and was donated by Rilli to the municipality of Collodi.
In 1976 she exhibited at the Sagittarius gallery in Terni and, at that time, carried out many exhibitions in Umbria, achieving great success among collectors. It is recalled, in the same years, the association with various artists, including Manuel Campus, and participation in artistic events in Spoleto during the Festival of Two Worlds; the meeting in 1977, on the occasion of a solo show in Terni, with the great artist Renato Guttuso, who greatly admired the colors of Murgia’s works and, in harmony with the artist, commented on the particular richness and splendor of artistic talents in the Italian islands.
Also in 1977 we note the prestigious Marc’Aurelio Award awarded in Rome, received from the hands of actress Silvana Pampanini.
In 1978 we remember the meeting with Pietro Annigoni in the Palazzo Pretorio of Sesto Fiorentino, which hosted a solo show by Murgia organized by Nicola Rilli.
In 1979, during a show at the Palazzo del Podestà in Borgo San Lorenzo (FI), she meets art dealer Franco Cardilicchia who invites her to exhibit in Florence at his famous gallery GAI Galleria d’Arte Internazionale on via de’ Tornabuoni, with a presentation by writer Dante Maffia. Cardilicchia was the first and only dealer who had the artist sign an exclusive contract for her works, but after a few months Murgia refused to work in series and preferred to continue painting for the love of art.
Another important date is 1981, the year she opens in Porto Cervo, for the summer period, the “Studio d’arte Maria Murgia,” active until the early 1990s. Murgia holds the official title of painter of the Costa Smeralda; her works enter collections of important personalities. She is present as a guest of Prince Aga Khan at the awards ceremonies and events of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda. We recall, in 1983, the special invitation to a Maria Carta concert at the Cala di Volpe hotel: both, in song and painting, ambassadors of Sardinian art.
In 1985 she decorates one of the two official rooms of the Italian Navy ship “Zeffiro,” together with artist Remo Squillantini and Fausto Maria Liberatore. In 1987 she opens in La Spezia, under the direction of her daughter Giusy, the art gallery “Athena” also based in Lerici. Subsequently the gallery “Punto Arte” was established, directed by her son Marco.
Since the eighties Murgia participates in numerous fairs in Italy and abroad, and her intense activity continues, never shying away from confronting the broader art scene and opening herself to experimentation with new media and expressive techniques, which has brought her today to be, in digital art, one of the most avant-garde Italian artists. Moreover, throughout her artistic career she has gained experience as a consultant for younger artists who, followed by important art critics such as Giorgio Segato, Pierre Restany, Tommaso Paloscia, etc., have later established themselves in the art world.
October 18, 2010 marks the first broadcast on the Telemarket television channel, with the presentation to the public of digital and traditional works; since then there have been numerous broadcasts and specials on Maria Murgia’s work.

In 2012, from a meeting with the mayor of her hometown of Ossi, Prof. Pasquale Lubinu, the agreement was born to realize, through a donation, a Pinacotheca dedicated to Murgia’s works from the early 1970s to today.
On July 20, 2014, her husband Giovanni passed away after 57 years of marriage, an unequivocal promoter of her artistic activity, to whom she will dedicate the Maria Murgia Pinacotheca created in the municipal rooms of Ossi.
On January 25, 2015, Maria Murgia participates live from the Meeting Arte studios in Vercelli in the presentation of the 30 photomosaic Show/Auction.
On March 19, 2015, she was awarded honorary citizenship of Ossi (SS), which will be delivered on November 26, 2016 with a ceremony at the Baronial Palace.
Also by invitation of Meeting Arte, Murgia is part of the jury of 20 internationally renowned artists for the 39th edition of “The Model for Art 2015,” with the final evening on October 31 at the Grand Hotel Villa Carlotta in Belgirate on Lake Maggiore.
In 2016 there are two national television interviews: March 3 on Rete 7 in the “Contemporary Artists” program and April 14 on Channel Italia 135 at the Portobello studios in Genoa for the presentation of a photomosaic show.
In 2017 the solo exhibition “The Evolution” at the Art Gallery 28/10 in Alessandria; from 2018 she is present on national and international web platforms with digital works that confirm the Pop Art style, not neglecting the message intrinsic to the mosaic tiles, against globalization-driven consumerism, the commodification of women, and oppression of children.
Since 2021, after the Covid period, she has returned to participating in fairs in Italy and abroad. Recent exhibitions with a solo booth at ArteParma and Modena 2024 and ArteGenova 2026.