Livio De Marchi was born in Venice where, still a child, he worked on ornamental sculpture in the Venetian tradition in the workshop of a craftsman and in the meantime he studied art and drawing at the “Accademia di Belle Arti” in Venice. His activity starts there, displaying at once an astounding skill in moulding materials, transforming them with wit and panache and creating sculptures with perfection of detail, spontaneity and essence. During his artistic evolution he worked first in marble, then bronze, and eventually in wood. However wood has always been his favourite material because it affords him a vitality, which other materials do not.
Since opening his own studio, Livio De Marchi has allowed his fantasy to take wing, declaring his way of being, his interior world. After a deep inner evolution, his ironical ability to “see” life got the upper hand, letting him carve his own, unique sculpture. His artworks have been shown in cities all over the world including Milan, Florence, London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Zürich, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo.
Wooden car’s story
When Livio’s son, Mattia was an 8 year-old-schoolboy, Livio had been teaching art at an elementary school. He loved teaching art to them and working in his pleasurable way with them. He made a boat like a floating hat in origami style in 1985, and he let his son and some of his son’s friends row. After having seen it, the other schoolchildren told him that they also wanted to row the hat-boat, asking why Mattia and his friends could and they couldn’t. Livio was thinking of making a big boat to hold all the children. The idea was born. In fact, the next year he realized a huge floating woman’s shoe, so that he granted the children’s request to let all 16, 9-year-old-schoolchildren row. But the story was not so easy; the children had to learn rowing for three months. He participated in the Regata Storica of Venice. This experience will always remain a wonderful memory for the children. Now the children have already grown up to be adults, so they have been transformed. They always stop to say hello to Livio, when they see him anywhere. Livio sometimes has to ask them who they are. He wants to meet all the former children to have a party at the Book House in the mountains one day. Having continued carving some large floating works, in 1988 he realized his first car a “Jaguar 1937 model”. There was another story behind this creation…
Livio is a Venetian, so he is also someone who loves rowing, like many Venetians do. One day he and his son Mattia set out for the Canal Grande in his small row-boat; when they reached the mouth of the Canal Grande, they saw a traffic jam-there was too much traffic on the Canal- a lot of water taxies, water buses, motorboats and transport-boats coming and going- Waves washed over his small boat. He thought; “This is not Canal, it’s a highway. We need a car, not a boat.” Thus his first car was born. He continued making other cars such a Fiat Topolino, a floating pumpkin coach with 4 horses and a floating Mercedes Seagull, and then he made a convertible VW Beetle (1964 model). The Beetle has been exhibited several places, in Venice, Amsterdam, Essen and Frankfurt. It has been broadcasted on many television networks.
