Born in 1971 in Ancona, Italy, Manuela Vallicelli lived during her childhood in Nigeria. After her return to Italy at the age of 13, she completed her studies at the Liceo Artistico (Art High School) and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Ravenna, the family’s city of origin, where she specialised in painting. Additionally, she attended courses in theory and practice of pictorial restoration. Moreover, she went to the Facultad de Bellas Artes in Barcellona, Spain for one semester. Graduated as Master of Arts cum laude the young artist moved to Milan, where she confirmed her abilities by solo exhibitions and participations in group shows.
Since the beginning of her career, Manuela experimented in different techniques. In addition to painting, she expressed herself in photography, sculpture and theatre, even though she always maintained her first media. First, she focussed on figures, who became more and more transparent, until they completely vanished into nature. While creating natural ambiences, she also tried to eliminate the line of the horizon. In doing so, she never made abstract pictures. Her images constantly have something organic. However, she changed her point of view. Instead of being inspired by the existing, she concentrated on her inner eye. The artist wants to make visible what seemingly isn’t.
With this approach, Manuela paints pictures, which often remind landscapes, natural phenomena like cloudy skies or cavities. Contemplators frequently think to recognise environments, even though they arise from the artist’s mind. Her forms and colours are painted with natural powder pigments. These colours of the Earth are an additional approach to nature. Memories from her African childhood, places where she travelled to, or images of a certain collective memory might enter. With her inner intuition she conceives her ideas about a painting and executes this on the canvas.
Since her return to Ravenna, Manuela also makes short videos. Recurrently she pics up historical subjects related to the history of her hometown like “Builder of the past. Ravenna.” or “Sister Beatrice Alighieri, Dante’s daughter” on occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death. Another approach is more personal. For “Into the Garden” she filmed her own garden. For “African Rising”, she integrated family photos of her childhood which are overlapped by recordings of trees and leaves, accompanied by bird’s twittering. She applied this technique of coalesces also to other films creating many new images and allowing the contemplator to immerse into her universe.
Besides many personal and group exhibitions in Milan and Ravenna, Manuela’s works were also presented in other Italian cities; Nice, France; Monte Carlo, Monaco; London, Great Britain and Beijing, China. Her most recent show “Altrove” (Elsewhere) was in April 2025 at the gallery BoA Spazio Arte in Bologna.
Manuela lives and works in Ravenna.