A framed A3 piece shows a green snail hugging a person and the text reads ‘Slow down + chill the hell out, you’re doing great!’ The work is by Orfeo Tagiuri, who explains; ‘I like the idea that the characters in my work are not defined, even from a gender perspective. Ideally, they are universal so that people can identify with them.’
London-based Tagiuri was born in America to a psychiatrist mother and an architect father. The 34-year-old has lived and studied in both London and the United States, graduating from London’s Slade School of Fine Art. He has also studied creative writing, which may explain his way with words. ‘I work with a lot of bad puns,’ he confesses when explaining a cartoon with a carrot and a stick.
Portrait of Orfeo Tagiuri
Tagiuri experiments with multiple mediums, and this movement between disciplines is conscious. ‘The mistake I’ve made in the past is perhaps trying to put myself in a box,’ he explains. An exhibition of his wood carvings, Thoughts to Fall Asleep To, was shown at the Sapling Gallery in London in 2021, and other work was presented at the Cooke Latham Gallery as part of a group exhibition in 2024. He recently had one of his illustrations published in The New York Times, and publishes a newspaper called The River. Tagiuri models, too, appearing in special campaigns for Burberry and Dunhill.
When inspiration strikes, the artist is quick to give it form. He has drawn a cartoon heart hugging its full belly, with the words Full Heart written below it on the gallery door. Tagiuri is also methodical, with many drawings arising when he works in an almost meditative state. ‘For my drawings I allot a period of time where I'll take my notebook and divide the pages into grids. I’ll say, okay, I’m going to sit here until I do so and so.’ Tagiuri often draws in a café for a couple of hours, emerging with pages of sketches, and he also works from his west London studio. ‘There’s something about the unique ambience and buoyancy in a café space that works for me,’ he explains. By contrast, his studio is where he takes things slowly and works on specific objects. ‘It’s where I can deposit a lot of half-formed ideas and return to them with a new perspective, and then they reconfigure,’ he says.
At first glance Tagiuri’s work appears to be playful, but on closer inspection themes of pain emerge, alongside a sense of hope. This is seen in a piece where a nail is being hammered into a hand, it bleeds and then a flower grows out of the wound. ‘After the process of creating these pieces I do emerge quite joyful,’ he says. ‘But I’d say that I actively try to practise that feeling of joy and gratitude, as perhaps others might journal.'
Tagiuri’s works will be on display at Mutty in Brescia, a new site that expands on Giulia Giazzoli and Francesco Saviola’s project that began in Castiglione delle Stiviere in Mantova. The couple discovered Orfeo’s work when they came across his book Little Passing Thoughts, published by Chose Commun. They have previously collaborated with artists such as Ruth van Beek, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck and Katsumi Komagata. ‘We were really excited when we spoke to Orfeo about working together as this is something new; most of his work that has been shown has been the wood carvings,’ Giazzoli explains. The showcase offers a glimpse into a section of Tagiuri’s creative thinking, while marking an ambitious new chapter for Mutty as it expands its programme and reach.
Orfeo Tagiuri 'Doing Nothing' until April 4th 2026 at Mutty Gallery, Brescia, Italy