Garusolo

In this painting, I wanted to depict a common spiny lobster, known as “Garusolo” in the Venetian dialect. It is an edible mollusk with a distinctive flavor, but that’s not all: The murice is a humble scavenger of the seabed, feeding on the carcasses of fish, crustaceans, and other mollusks. However, a pigment was extracted from the murice to dye silks and fabrics purple—the color that adorned the robes of kings and popes. This is how even a humble mollusk became indispensable for celebrating human vanity.

68.5 x 25.5 cm

Rice paper