NATURAL ART OASIS
Enrico Menegatti
“I’ve always been passionate about art, and for a few years now, I’ve been dedicating myself to sculpture as well as painting.
I create my works in wood, using branches and trunks washed ashore by the sea.
When I walk along the shore and see something that might be useful, I pick it up and take it with me.
Over the years, I have created numerous sculptures. Wood is an ancient, primary resource, and using it this way—shaping what nature offers me—gives me ever-new emotions.
My sculptures are a tribute to the animal world. I try to make everything with recycled materials, even the nails and ropes I use to assemble the figures. It’s my way of thanking nature and turning waste into art.”
Art Installations
Wood like dreams
Among his many accolades, he won the Arte Mondadori prize in 2000. In 2016, he received the Riva1920 special recognition at the Reuse – Nutrition for Planet award during the Cantù Wood Festival, an award dedicated to artworks created with salvaged or recycled materials. In 2017, he was invited to contribute several works to the Guido Monaco Park at the Pomposa Abbey, world-famous for being the birthplace of musical notation; in 2023, he was invited to participate with his work “Saint George and the Dragon” in the “Bologna Montana Art Trail” project—a 100 km open-air gallery dotted with land art works.
He is currently working on a project with the “Kida Organic Forest” organic farm in Ferrara, which will be home to Italy’s largest bamboo plantation. Over the next two years, 40 works are expected to be installed to create an educational trail showcasing plants and sculptures.
For the Natural Art Oasis project, he has brought the pine forest of Waikiki Camping Village to life with a series of water birds typical of this area, made from the wood that the sea washes back onto the beach after traveling for miles, carried by the fresh waters of the river that flows into the sea nearby.