Re-Finding Nicola Filia

I met Nicola Filia many years ago in Olbia and followed him to his studio in San Pantaleo behind Porto Cervo. My friend Cinzia had introduced me to him, and I was enchanted by how just a few kilometers from the absolute worldliness there was this small village still deeply Sardinian in which many artists' workshops were opening.

Sardinia is a magical place, the colors of Sardinia are unique: I like it in spring when it is still green and when the brooms are in bloom, I like it in summer when the pink rocks show their harshness. I like Vermentino that hides its strength behind the scents, the opposite of northern wines, and myrtle when it is not too sweet like the commercial ones (I was happily a judge of a competition of artisanal myrtle in Olbia).

And I like Sardinian horses. We had one that had a unique courage and remained in our memories.

So, when I saw Nicola I immediately liked him. At that time, he had concentrated mainly on design with a series of ceramic objects whose delicacy was mitigated by the shades of color and the large dimensions.

I was at Arte in Nuvola in Rome to meet Wang Yongxu and, as often happens to me, I arrived early so I had time to wander around alone. At a certain point I saw a stand with the writing Nicola Filia. Nicola had not yet arrived, the style was that of large art sculptures in bronze and ceramic, but something told me that these works were a natural growth of those I had met years before.

I finish my meetings (very pleasant) and go back to meet him. After a moment of hesitation, we recognize each other and immediately call Cinzia on video call. Then we start chatting as if we had been friends forever.

One of his works recalls his hometown, Carbonia, a city of Mussolini industrial foundation like Colleferro where I was born. Carbonia was foubnded because of the presence of coal mines, as its name suggests, and it has experienced the greatness and decline of its mines.

The work is a sort of huge shapeless ceramic mosaic enclosed by a circle that also looks like planet Earth. The ceramic has a dark, non-uniform color that recalls the embers of a fireplace and expresses strength, but also a weakness in the imperfection of the forms and in their disintegration.

This passing of history between moments of glory and fall is the essence of life and Nicola Filia constantly searches for the meaning of our being: "we build great cities that we then destroy with wars. Why? What is our destiny? In the end, we need to have time to live and investigate our spirituality, we must elevate ourselves to be able to help others".

While we are chatting, Simona, a girl from Genoa who is part of the organization and who was enchanted by his Giants, approaches us, a representation that recalls the famous Giants of Mont'e Prama found in Sardinia, with shapes that are minimalist and essential but highly symbolic. Like a nuraghe.

And speaking of his Sardinia that he loves deeply in a visceral way, he shows me on the site (https://nicolafilia.com) MEGALòPOLIS, a video that he had shot during Covid in which he had positioned a camera in front of some works placed in front of a nuraghe with time-lapse shots that lasted a few months. The idea was to show how everything passes, changes, changes its meaning but this does not make the new meanings less important. The real change is only what we will be able to do in a path of inner growth towards love for life.

“MEGALÒPOLIS is the story of a vision, a reflection on what has been and still lives, on what is present and what, perhaps, will be.

The root of the term refers to the extraordinary dimensions of the elements that constitute the architecture of the Nuragic civilizations, which seem to be composed of the same material as the natural landscape: large stones that mark the territory, which stuck in the earth, or assembled in the great architecture of the nuraghi, are an expression of civilization in harmony, they are relationships with the cosmos and nature, which man accepts as his laws, in a millenary balance”.

The effect is an essential surrealism with which the story of life is brought back to that of the cycle of nature. And we are part of nature.

I don't know when I will see Nicola again, for now I'm enjoying these moments.