NARCISO BRESSANELLO

First published: Winter 2024/2025

In his old boat workshop by a Venice canal, Narciso Bressanello conjured net-like images from a reservoir of memories and archaic consciousness

Far away from the narrow streets through which streams of tourists squeeze every day, in a quiet area of the Dorsoduro district of Venice, was Narciso Bressanello’s workshop where he used to repair boats. A few drawings hung from a barred window on the outside wall, fluttering in the breeze. Inside, Bressanello had removed the workbenches and tools of his former work. Instead, the gloomy, damp room was completely lined with his drawings, taped to boards, fixed with clothes pegs, alongside newspaper clippings, pamphlets, photographs, and pictures of saints, no empty spaces remaining. A small, improvised desk could fit one of the sheets of paper that the artist used.

Bressanello at work in his studio in 1986; photo: Elmar R Gruber

A stout man, with curious eyes behind thick glasses, Bressanello was born in 1915 on the island of Burano, off the coast of Venice, the third of ten children. He had to leave primary school after just two years to help his father make wooden shoes for fishermen and to run errands for his mother, a lace-maker like almost all the women on the island. At 23, he married and the couple went on to have six children. Bressanello worked as a labourer, boatman and boat repairer, and a 14-hour day was the norm. For years, the family lived in a single room in a warehouse.

Untitled, 1986; courtesy: Collection of Mediumistic Art

The hard daily routine ended when, at the age of 61, shortly before he was due to retire, Bressanello suffered a life-threatening intestinal problem. After leaving hospital, he was condemned to enforced rest and inactivity at home, something that was completely alien to him. Even stranger to him was the sudden urge that overcame him at this time – he had to draw.