Domenica Regazzoni was born in Valsassina in 1953.
She started painting in the early 1970s when attending the Accademia di Brera in Milan.
In the early 1990s she abandoned figurative painting in favour of an informal abstraction. The more poetic songs of Mogol and Lucio Dalla inspired the exhibitions “Colore Incanto” (1996) and “Regazzoni & Dalla” (1998), in which her works sought a meeting point between painting, music and poetry, towards the intimate affinities that link colour and material, sound and word.
In 1997 she was among the artists selected for the Libero blu competition held by the Galleria Blu in Milan to mark its fortieth anniversary. Between 1997 and 2001 she held solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Japan, and numerous Italian cities, including Milan, at the Fondazione Stelline, Rome, at the Complesso del Vittoriano and Bologna in the former church of San Mattia.
In the same period, after the death of her father Dante Regazzoni, a Lombard luthier, she held the exhibition “Dal legno al suono”, curated by Gillo Dorfles, inspired by the art of violin making with exhibitions at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (2003), the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan (2004), Villa Manzoni in Lecco (2005) and the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome (2006). In 2008 a new series of works on the same subject was the object of the exhibition “Scolpire la musica”, curated by Martina Corgnati, with solo shows in prestigious institutions like the Università Bocconi in Milan, the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica in Bologna and the Galerie Miyawaki in Kyoto.
In the same years she moved towards engraving and frequented the historic printing works of Giorgio Upiglio until his death in October 2013. In 2012 she exhibited a series of works inspired by Milan with the photographs of Gabriele Basilico as part of the project “La fabbrica e la città”. In the same year she began working with the Shanghai governmental cultural institutions, presenting solo exhibitions at the Italian Shanghai Center (former Italy Pavilion at Expo 2010) and at Tongji University with its Architecture faculty. In 2015 she held the “Convergenze Parallele” exhibition at the Palazzo della Permanente, as part of Milano Expo in Città, with the Chinese engraver Lu Zhiping in association with the China Pavilion.
In March 2020, she held the exhibition entitled “Domenica Regazzoni & Lucio Dalla a 4 mani” curated by Silvia Evangelisti in the Sala d’Ercole at Palazzo d’Accursio, at the invitation of the Comune di Bologna and the Fondazione Dalla. A large selection of these works was presented again, at a special stand, among the special events at the first Fiera di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Roma Arte in Nuvola in November 2021.
The most significant of the collective exhibitions she has taken part in are the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and the second and third Rome Triennale in 2014 and 2017.
Her publications include the illustrations for the collection of poems by Antonia Pozzi Canto segreto for the All’insegna del Pesce d’Oro series by Vanni Scheiwiller (1992) and a monograph on haiku poetry for Viennepierre Edizioni (2000). She also published a new catalogue on the same subject in 2021 for Silvana Editoriale, edited by Silvia Evangelisti. In 2024, an anthological catalogue of her works was published by Allemandi, edited by Luca Beatrice.
Her large sculpture, Violino spaccato, has been on permanent display in Coltea Park, University Square, Bucharest, since 2009. Other public works are permanently located in Segrate (Milan), in Piazza San Francesco, in Barzio (Lecco), in front of the Comunità Montana building, and in Vieste, in the town hall’s Corte dell’Élite.
Domenica Regazzoni - About My Work
2020 - Milan