Ojas Michele Azzaro

Ojas Michele Azzaro is an Italian artist based in Milan. He studied Set Design at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan.  As a teenager, he dreamt to become a movie director and, later on, his degree dissertation consisted in the script for a movie of which he also created costumes and settings. The plot was centered around the love between a rich man and a cafe chantant singer, set in the early twentieth century.

His creative search arises from his profound need to reveal the unknown and finds its expression interpreting the shape of the circle as a way to awareness.

In 1994, when he finished the Academy, he began his artistic research inspired by the Mandala, a spiritual symbol of the Buddhist tradition. He explored the symbol of the circle by initially using sand as in the Tibetan tradition, then he developed his own technique creating more abstract organic shapes.

His artistic experience gradually came to include his meditative experience, so much so that the two overlapped. In 2003, while he was attending university and studying for an exam on the composer Riuchy Sakamoto, he found the book that would greatly affect his life: Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic by Osho.

In 2007 he travelled to Asia, where he visited India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Japan and China and dived into the artistic and spiritual realities of those countries.

For several years his search turned inwards and he dealt with art forms such as videos, editorials, etc. rather than painting. However, New York was calling: after a trip there, he decided to go back to painting and created new works with which he participated in the New York ArtExpo 2013 just to see the visitors’ reaction, and it was amazing! That experience gave him the trust to go on.

His paintings are matter-based and made on canvas with modeling paste and acrylic colors, golden leaves and often according to the golden section ratio; he also exhibited some installations at the Arsenale in Venice and at MUSE Museum of Science in Trento – Italy.

In his artworks – unique ad elegant pieces of art – you can feel the vibrant search for the harmony of an inner center.  To him, they are not only a creative object, but also a ritual where forms and symbols become the gateway to awareness and evoke atmospheres and sensations of parallel worlds.

This is the power and the charm of the shapes that characterize his works, a way to return to one’s center and at the same time go beyond it. His works show different influences, most of all the richness of the Baroque deriving from his Sicilian origins and the Zen style resulting from his exploration of Eastern philosophies and practices, which grant a touch of elegance and meditative energy to the space where they are displayed.

Since 2010 he has been leading creative awareness courses where the participants can experience the connection between creativity and meditation, with the support of different methods like yoga and breathing, all very useful to free people’s creative potential not only to make art, but also to express it in everyday life.

Solo Exhibitions:

2013 – 21 / 24 March – ArtExpo New York – New York City  – Usa

1997 – 29 June / 4 July – Ritorno al Centro – Cascina Roma – San Donato Milanese – Italy

1997 – 31 May / 6 June – Ritorno al Centro – Centro Culturale – Ragusa – Italy

Group Exhibitions:

2014 – 26 / 27 July – The Sacred Circle – Installation – Pre-opening MUSE Museum of Science, Spazio 14 – Trento- Italy

2014 –  22 March / 6 April – There is a message for you…  – Installation – Art Laguna Prize – Arsenale – Venice – Italy

2000 – 10 January / 10 February – Visibile al Tatto – BPM D’Ars Agency – Parma – Italy 

1999 – 19 January / 1 February – Il Cerchio Interpretato – D’Ars – Milan – Italy

1998 – October – Periscopio – Cascina Roma – San Donato Milanese – Italy

1998 – 6 / 7 June – Mandala – Chiaravalle’s Abbey – Milan – Italy

Industrial and Educational Video:

2009 – Colors and Numbers – TV program: Good Education – Lao TV – Laos