MANI’s practice begins with the solid idea that an experience can exist beyond language and representation. Rather than depicting a specific place, memory, or sensation, she attempts to give physical form to what remains after an encounter has taken place: an atmosphere, a movement, a trace. Her paintings develop through a process of building and transformation. Layers are added, interrupted, covered, and exposed again, allowing the image to emerge gradually rather than being predetermined. What appears on the surface is therefore not a representation of something seen, but the visible result of a process — an accumulation of gestures, decisions, accidents, and revisions. Place enters her work through the body. Encounters with different environments become physical experiences that alter the rhythm, scale, colour, and movement of the painting. Landscape is therefore not reproduced as an image; it is translated into a bodily and material language. This approach extends into sculpture, where painting moves beyond the surface and becomes an object occupying space. The relationship between material, body, and architecture becomes part of the work itself, requiring the viewer to experience it through proximity and movement. Performance pushes this process into real time. Through Live Painting, MANI allows the work to develop in response to music, space, audience, and atmosphere. The painting becomes both an autonomous object and the physical trace of an encounter that could not be repeated in exactly the same way. Across painting, sculpture, and performance, MANI is interested in the moment when something intangible becomes something that would otherwise remain unseen.

ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES & PARTICIPATIONS

MANI’s research has developed through artistic residencies, international projects, exhibitions, and collaborations. In September 2022, she undertook an artistic residency with gallerist and collector Sergio Casoli at Studio Casoli in Pecorini, Filicudi Island, Sicily. The residency became an important moment in the development of her research into place, perception, and abstraction. In August–September 2016, she participated in the III International Workcamp: Terra Cota Heritage, organised by Oficinas do Convento in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal, with a focus on sculpture and traditional ceramic practices.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Her solo exhibitions include Till Now at Soho House, Rome (2022); ECO, curated by Giada Mussini and Tomàs Ayerbe, at Galleria Konforme, Rome (2022); ECO – Risonanze oniriche at Studio San Lorenzo and Soho House, Rome (2022); Plasma at Frissòn, Rome (2023); and a solo exhibition at Galleria Spazio Art & People, Sansepolcro, Arezzo (2024). Earlier solo presentations include exhibitions at Caffè Letterario, Rome (2016), and Via Margutta, Rome (2015).

Her group exhibitions include Quinto Elemento, organised by Visionarte, Inside Art, and Orto Botanico Corsini, at Forte Stella, Porto Ercole, Monte Argentario (2024); Lavrus at Studio Geddes Franchetti & Archivio di Monserrato, Rome (2024); Art is Young at ADI Design Museum, Milan (2023); Morfogenesi at Struttura, Rome (2022); Utopia & Dystopia at Fellini Gallery, Berlin (2017); and Vissi D’arte, curated by Laura Monachesi, at Villa Mondragone, Monte Porzio Catone, Rome (2015).

Her recent performances include Geminus at FloraCult – Casali del Pino (Fendi), Rome (2024); In the Fire, a Live Painting performance with Michele Mazzetti at Teatro Arciliuto, Rome (2024); and Human Form at Soho House Mexico City (2024). In 2023, she presented Sotto Scoperta, curated by Fyah at Studio1, Soho House Rome, and IAM 006 with InsideArt Music at Fondamenta Gallery, Rome. In January 2023, she collaborated with InsideArt Magazine and KeeponGrooving on a Live Painting performance at BASE Milano, subsequently featured in the March 2023 print edition of InsideArt Magazine. Earlier projects include Liberation, created with Arianna Tiberi at Extra Space, Rome (2019), and Art Meets Music, an artistic performance developed with live music at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, Rome (2016).

MANI’s work has been featured in InsideArt Magazine Italy, with an article by Sabrina Lame documenting her Live Painting collaboration with InsideArt Music at BASE Milano (2023). In 2020, her personal project Let’s Breathe Again was published in Vogue Italia as part of Imagining the Future in Fashion. The project was reviewed by Sara Sozzani Maino, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Italia and Head of Vogue Talents, and Emanuele Farneti, then Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Italia.

MANI’s background in fashion remains connected to her broader artistic research, particularly in her approach to materials, the body, and visual composition. In June 2023, she designed and realised stage outfits for The Shakes_live_band for the opening performance of the Bulgari Hotel in Rome. In July 2021, she worked as assistant stylist to Lorenzo Posocco for Asia Argento’s official music video Broken, produced at Lumina Sense Art Lab in Rome. In 2020, she participated in an industry project with Moncler at the Accademia di Costume & Moda, developing a capsule collection for menswear and womenswear. Between March and October 2018, she worked as wardrobe assistant for Morfosis’ F/W 18/19 and S/S 19 collections at Palazzo del Gallo, Rome.