Born in Castel San Pietro Terme in 1994, Zeno Bertozzi attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 2015, where he began developing and experimenting in sculpture. Alongside his studies — completed in 2020 — he started working at the studio Bertozzi & Casoni, where he continues to collaborate.

His early sculptural works engage with classical antiquity, particularly through casts of classical busts. By intervening on these forms, he develops a kind of “plastic tattooing”, creating surfaces that oscillate between bone calcification and various organic encrustations. This process reflects on time as an agent capable of altering even those forms traditionally perceived as eternal, establishing a tension between a perfect outer surface and an interior of a different nature.

Under the sign of metamorphosis, this meticulous intervention — executed with a fine burin — has been extended to ceramic and plaster surfaces. The repetition of the gesture becomes central: a slow, contemplative process that shapes matter, generating craters and forms that act as a measure of the invisible passage of time.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions:
“Con tatto”, Galleria Claudio Poleschi Arte Contemporanea, Dogana, San Marino, 2021
“Intermezzo”, Galleria di Villa Ferrari, Castelnuovo Rangone, 2023
“Trame silenziose”, curated by Raffaele Quattrone, Galleria Studio Cenacchi (Bologna) and Galleria ARTRA (Milan)

Group exhibitions:
“To be going to”, Opentour, P420 Arte Contemporanea, Bologna, 2019
“Verde brillante. O delle probabilità interpretative del divenire forma”, Galleria Antonio Verolino, Modena, 2022
“Per una nuova scultura. Sperimentazioni e traiettorie lungo la Via Emilia”, Modena, 2022
“Legami fragili”, curated by Raffaele Quattrone, Galleria Studio Cenacchi (Bologna), Studio DBF (Rome), Spazio 21 (Lodi), 2024
“Paesaggi accidentali”, curated by Pasquale Fameli, Galleria Studio Cenacchi, Bologna, 2025
“Nature alternative”, curated by Pasquale Fameli, Galleria Studio Cenacchi, Bologna, 2025

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