MILAN.- Mazzoleni is presenting Watermark, a solo exhibition by Melissa McGill in Milan, bringing together a group of recent and previously unseen works developed around one of the central themes of her practice: water as a living presence, a relational force, and an active participant in the creative process. Through recently produced watercolours, works created with natural pigments, photographs, and reworked maps, the exhibition reveals the more intimate dimension of a practice that for over thirty years has evolved between the studio, field research, and public intervention.
The common thread running through this body of work is water, understood as a medium capable of establishing relationships between bodies, places, and memories. In this perspective, the experience of water is not separate from human experience but constitutes a profound continuity with it. As McGill affirms, we are ourselves bodies of water, in constant resonance with other bodies of water.
At the core of her practice lies a redefinition of the idea of mapping and representation, conceived as acts of collaboration between living beings and the environment. The works emerge from a process of listening to the ways in which water manifests itself through flows, rhythms, sedimentations, and memories, suggesting authentic forms of relationship with rivers, lagoons, and watersheds. These systems appear not as mere resources but as dynamic and interconnected entities, capable of linking different geographies, histories, and identities. A central aspect of this process is the direct use of water gathered by the artist from the places involved and incorporated into the works, allowing the landscape itself to participate actively in the making of the artwork.
Venetian Lagoon Studies, a series of watercolours, is dedicated to the ever-changing colours of the Venetian lagoon. Born from deep observation of its tonalities, atmospheric phenomena, and the luminous qualities of the water, these works constitute a fundamental stage in the research that subsequently informed Marea, the independent and collaborative project presented in Venice during the current Venice Biennale. Rather than describing a place, these works record chromatic and perceptual transformations.
Alongside the watercolours are works on Yupo paper created with natural pigments, including organic indigo and chlorophyll derived from mulberry leaves. In these works, water acts as a generative element, guiding the diffusion and transformation of colour across the surface. Slowly and in layers, McGill invites configurations to emerge that evoke the traces of water, currents, sedimentation, and the forms of the landscape. The paintings emerge from a collaboration between artistic gesture and the creative intelligence of water itself.
The exhibition also includes a series of photographs taken of paintings by Canaletto, onto which McGill has added waves and movements of water. Created in 2022, these works anticipate a number of ideas that would later be further developed in the Marea project. The artist introduces a fluid and unpredictable dimension into the celebrated Venetian views, opening a broader reflection on the environmental transformations currently affecting aquatic ecosystems on a global scale. The waves engage with the historical image, evoking the increasingly evident effects of climate change and rising sea levels affecting lagoons, rivers, and coastlines around the world. From this perspective, water emerges as both a fragile and powerful presence: a force that sustains life, connects territories and communities, and simultaneously reminds us of the urgent need to restore more conscious forms of relationship with planet.
An important body of work within the exhibition is represented by the Eridanus series, developed from research conducted around the River Po. The myth of Eridanus, associated over the centuries both with an ancestral river and with a constellation, becomes for the artist a means of reflecting on the multiple dimensions of water. It connects cosmos and earth, past and present, individual experience and collective history.
New watercolours inspired by the colours of the waters of Venice and Lake Ontario complete the exhibition, linked to the artist’s most recent collaborations with the Venetian Lagoon. In this constant movement between lagoon, river, and lake, between the observation of landscape and imagination, Watermark reveals a practice that does not merely depict water, but lets its language emerge. Through colour, gesture, and the direct participation of places in the creative process, Melissa McGill invites us to recognise water as a vital and connective force, capable of traversing territories, communities, and memories.
The works on view suggest an alternative way of inhabiting the world: one founded on listening, reciprocity, and the awareness of belonging to a single, fragile, and essential network of moving waters.
