File:Ugo Bongarzoni - Medusa - 50x60 - bas-relief on canvas - Roma 2003 - 2011.jpg

English: The artist thinks that Medusa's condition represents that of poor lovers, whose feelings are despised by pragmatism and envy. He uses different species of reptiles to obtain chromatic and morphic variety, and well-defined but feminine somatic characters in the face, as if Athena's punishment could not completely erase the beauty of the girl of the myth.

The mass of color, even after years, is mobile: The scales of a snake invade those of another, or oily tears streak the face of the gorgon, while, in other places, the painting dries up and peels off. The artist likes to think that Medusa wants, after years, to attract his attention, ask for care and be restored every time like a neglected lover who reminds his companion, distracted, of her need for affection. The work is an oil bas-relief on canvas obtained by subsequent deposition of color without the use of a desiccant (the subjects were painted at least six times and the realization needed years of work). The painting differs from the classical iconography because of the use of different species of reptiles, all with deadly poison and four constrictors: Medusa symbolizes, in the painting, the unstoppable passion of the human being made "deadly" by the punishment of the goddess and "Forced" by its rationality which, however, fails to erase her beauty. The signature itself is a red cobra with gaping jaws <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_cobra_sign_by_Ugo_Bongarzoni.jpg>. The only materials extraneous to the oil color are the small light gray stones carved by hand in the pupils of the Gorgon, and the artist's biological signature (a hair) inside a reptile. Observing the painting from the bottom left, proceeding clockwise, and also considering the partially reproduced reptiles, we note these different species: Egyptian Cobra, Burrowing Cobra, Eastern Coral Snake, Reticulated Python, Terciopelo, Pyramid Echid, Large Tailed Sea Snake, Mangrove Snake, Anaconda, Australian Plains Copperhead, Mute Rattlesnake, Asian Sunbeam, South African Coral Snake, Pacific Coast Parrot Snake, Boa Constrictor, Wagler's Palm Viper, Cape Cobra, Green Python, South African Coral Snake, Snake of death, Gabon viper, King Cobra, Eyelashed viper, Cascavel. The green snake on the forehead is imaginary. On the face we see on the left, a Boomslang while, on the right, a black Mamba.

                                                  EXHIBITIONS 

2011 - Complesso Monumentale l'Agostiniana in Piazza del Popolo (Roma)

2013 - FIJLKAM museum center in Ostia (Rome)

2014 - Castello Orsini in Soriano nel Cimino (Viterbo)

2015 - Villa Contarini, a Venetian patrician villa in Piazzola sul Brenta Padova built in 1546 by Paolo and Francesco Contarini.

2016 - Salvatore Provino's art studio

2017 - FIJLKAM museum center in Ostia (Rome)

2018 - Lattanzi Palace in Blera (VT) during the Enrico Zarletti Prize and in Santa Croce dei Mercanti di Viterbo

2019 - Lattanzi Palace in Blera (VT)

2021 - Museo del Colle del Duomo di Viterbo

                                                VIDEOS

Medusa Making of Video