The art of Marco Vargiu, sculptor and artist | Ogliastra

Born in 1967, from Sassari, artist and pastry chef: Marco Vargiu boasts a very vast curriculum made up of masterpieces both to eat and to observe, heart and mind. «In Sassari, in the countryside in an area called Caniga, I live and have my laboratory» explains the artist. «When I was sixteen, something happened that changed everything: I went with my father to Carrara to visit my aunt, my mother’s sister who was a painter at the time. That week there was a very important event for Carrara, the Marble Sculpture Symposium: I was fascinated to see the artists intent on sculpting marble.»

Vargiu is stunned to hear Pietro Cascella, an internationally renowned sculptor and painter. This is certainly a watershed in his life, even if a teacher, Mario Leggeri, makes a difference in the artist’s life during compulsory school.

«He told us to bring a piece of olive wood from home to teach us how to carve it. There I realized that something was shining inside me: while everyone was asking how to do it, I told them: “Tell me how to do it, but I want to try it myself.” Perhaps precisely because of this gesture of mine, he was concerned with transmitting more and more passion towards art to me.” Every opportunity is a good one for young Marco, who always returns home with pieces of wood to carve and buys his first tools. Mostly, in this period he carves Sardinian faces.

His aunt, in Carrara, then made him a proposal: «She said to me: “Do you want to participate in a painting competition?” and I accepted. I participated with an ink drawing, drawing the Sardinian walls. I won first prize in graphics and was rewarded with a bronze sculpture. My aunt, happy with her, proposed that I stay in Carrara to study at the marble school. At the same time another family, they were friends of my parents, she told me that she would host me in our house. They showed me my future bedroom…”

But Marco Vargiu’s dream doesn’t come true: for his parents he is still too young to live alone outside the home, so the boy returns. «From that moment, I had an emotional block in every sense. I still don’t know how I received a letter in 2006 asking me if I wanted to participate in a collective exhibition of painting and sculpture. It was my wife who encouraged me to participate and I did so with a work that allowed me to win a sculpture recommendation.»

Here the old flame of passion was rekindled: «My artistic streak lit up again.» From that moment on, she distanced herself from Sardinian carvings and approached human canons, always in wood. «One day they told me that there was a granite sculpture symposium in Buddusò and I went alone, asking for a day off. I sat down in front of a very good Sardinian artist, Pinuccio Derosas, and I remained for eight hours observing him, almost hypnotized.»

A few days later, Vargiu went to talk to the Mayor of Sassari, Giacomo Spissu at the time. «I told him: “I have the image of the fire that occurred in Tempio Gurraggia on 28 July 1983, where a victim was trapped in the fence”. So I told him I wanted to create a work that remembered those losses.” Vargiu had never used the stone, but he was so amazed and fascinated by Derosas that he wanted to try and take the plunge. The mayor accepts, he procures the stone in Fordongianus in Giuseppe Frau’s quarry and takes care of the work which is now located in via Rockefeller in Sassari. Only regret? «It was never inaugurated» he explains.

«My works have little in common, they are from different periods and made based on my state of mind. One thing is certain: I often include a book.» But let’s remember that Vargiu is also a pastry chef: «Honestly, it’s not easy to have a free mind if a good part of the day is spent in the pastry shop, getting up almost every day at 4.30.» Every now and then he inserts his art into the world of pastry making, but it’s not easy, as he says.

«My most important works? All because they are always part of myself. However, if we want to talk about prestige, it is rightly the one I created for the Sassari Brigade, 45th department. The one that has the most meaning for my artistic vein is the one I created for Buddusò: it inaugurated the beginning of my career with marble.»

During the lockdown period, Vargiu then reinvents himself – not being able to leave the house, except for work – and creates works with mannequins. «It’s an article that has always fascinated me, imagining him talking to us about what he saw in the shop windows… Here, I give another chance to life, transforming them into works of art.

And then comes another work, “The past within the past”: an old telephone booth transformed into a museum. An idea that came to Vargiu by chance, precisely when thinking about mannequins. Vargiu shows up at the relevant office, explains his project and, after some time, receives a response. «He gave me the OK, so I started looking for people who wanted to support me in carrying out my project, giving me a part of their past. That’s exactly how my idea was born.”

There was a lot of interest on the web, but “The past within the past” is only part of Vargiu’s project: «Then it will be the communication part, I know that the letterboxes will have to be abandoned so I will do the same thing. I also recovered about ten large aquariums, inside each aquarium there will be an exhibition with a vintage theme: for example, the radio period, video recorders with their cassettes, the DVD period, the entire line of Kinder toys and a lot of modeling that I had as a kid. The most important challenge of my art gallery and museum is to manage to have a scheduled bus, but I’m having a lot of difficulty: it will be transformed on the outside so that it looks like a rock while inside an exhibition of works of art will be set up small, within everyone’s reach.”

But there is an important gem for the future. «The 5th command of the Sassari brigade summoned me months ago for the creation of a new monument to place alongside that of the 152nd, also the Sassari Brigade. The monument will be made, if the sketch passes, in Orosei marble, and will be 300x120x120 high. I’ve already created the draft, complete with renderings to give a more real image of what it will look like once finished!” In short, a lot is cooking for the artist. After all, those who have art in their blood will always create.

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