Marcello Aversa

Marcello Aversa is a Sorrento-based sacred art sculptor who specializes in transforming one of the Earth’s most ordinary and seemingly unremarkable resources, clay, into magnificent Baroque works of Sacred Art depicting the Nativity, and many other scenes from the Old and New Testaments. 

Far from the art world, Marcello’s professional career as an artisan began as a mattonaio, or brick maker.  For generations, his family owned a kiln and produced terra-cotta tiles for Neapolitan pizza ovens by hand, the traditional way.  It was humbling work that demanded long hours of manual labor that, as a child, Marcello resented: it seemed far less glamorous than the more conventional jobs held by his classmates’ parents.  As Marcello matured, so did his appreciation for the craft he inherited from his ancestors, and he proudly carried on the family tradition.

Over time, though, Marcello felt an impulse to express his creativity through his craft. During his free time, he applied his skills as a mattonaio to create terra-cotta renderings of Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Three Kings. Gradually, his technique became more nuanced until he developed a distinctive personal style considered to be historically unique in the landscape of Neapolitan presepisti (Nativity sculptors): he sculpted small terra-cotta blocks, upon which he would place figures no larger than 2 cm.  In this way, Marcello managed to condense the drama of a scene that would otherwise fill a room onto a sculpture that rarely measured more than 2ft x 1ft x 3ft. 

It has now been 20 years since Marcello opened his own art gallery at the Marcello Aversa Studio d’Arte in the historic center of Sorrento. In that time, he has taken part in prestigious exhibits throughout the world, and in 2015, he was even invited to present his sculpture entitled Lux Familiae to Pope Francis at the Vatican. 

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