Bowman Sculpture Gallery in Mayfair has announced Metamorfosi, the highly anticipated second UK solo exhibition by contemporary Italian sculptor Massimiliano Pelletti. Opening one week before Frieze London, the exhibition will run from 9th October to 7th November, and will be launched with an invitation only private view on 8th October. Massimiliano Pelletti’s exhibition opening night will also celebrate the unveiling of Bowman Sculpture’s newly expanded and redesigned space.
This reimagined interior marks a new chapter for Bowman Sculpture, continuing the evolution of the gallery under the direction of Mica Bowman, who joined in 2018, and since then has made great strides in her mission to introduce more contemporary sculptors and rising stars of the sculpture world–including acclaimed Italian sculptor Pelletti–to the exhibition programme alongside revered sculptors of history such as Rodin.
The refreshed gallery space will combine a modern aesthetic with a focus on contemporary and historic sculpture, reinforcing Bowman Sculpture’s vision as a dynamic international leader in the field.
Talent
Massimiliano Pelletti (b. 1975, Italy) lives and works in Pietrasanta. He studied at the Stagio Stagi Art School before earning a degree in Philosophy from the University of Pisa. His sculptural career began in 2006 when he won the Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, which led to early international acclaim, including a presentation at the 54th Venice Biennale. In 2021, Pelletti’s work was shown alongside Antonio Canova in the acclaimed exhibition Canova: Between Innocence and Sin at the MART Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Northern Italy.
Since joining Bowman Sculpture in 2023, Pelletti has become a key figure in the gallery’s contemporary programme. He has exhibited with the gallery at Art SG Singapore and TEFAF Maastricht, the most rigorously vetted art fair in the world. In June 2025, he was selected for the Treasure House Fair Sculpture Walk in London, a curated presentation of monumental sculpture in the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea. In January 2026, Bowman Sculpture will present Pelletti’s work at The Winter Show in New York, marking the artist’s US debut with the gallery.
His career got off to a flying start after winning the Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in in 2006, leading to a presentation at the 54th la Biennale di Venezia and international acclaim. Pelletti’s most significant institutional achievement to date is his solo exhibition Versus at the Museo Nazionale Romano – Palazzo Massimo in Rome (2024–2025), where he became the first contemporary artist ever invited to exhibit in the museum’s historic galleries of ancient sculpture. His works were placed in direct dialogue with classical antiquities, exploring duality, myth, and material transformation.
Massimiliano Pelletti is exclusively represented in the UK by Bowman Sculpture. Pelletti’s star continues to ascend and, following a 2021 exhibition alongside Antonio Canova at the MART Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Northern Italy, he went on to have a solo exhibition Versus in 2024-2025 at the Museo Nazionale Romano – Palazzo Massimo in Rome, making him the first contemporary artist invited to exhibit in the museum’s historic galleries of ancient sculpture.
Pelletti joined Bowman Sculpture in 2023 after Director Mica Bowman recognised his outstanding talent, and since joining the gallery’s roster and having a sellout solo exhibition in October 2023, he has exhibited with the gallery at Frieze Masters, Art SG Singapore, TEFAF Maastricht and the 2025 Treasure House Fair.
His unique talent has attracted much critical acclaim, with Jeetendr Sedhev writing in Forbes: “This Italian maestro takes classical statues and cranks up the intensity, celebrating their imperfections while paying a respectful nod to tradition.”
Classical
Pelletti is from a line of talented sculptors – his grandfather famously restored Michelangelo’s Pietà in the Vatican – and many of his sculptures are inspired by a collection of classical models he inherited from his grandfather’s Glypotheque. Pelletti refers to classical antiquity whilst giving his hand-carved sculptures a distinctly contemporary twist.
Following Eredità – Pelletti’s first solo exhibition with Bowman Sculpture in 2023 – which reflected on the artist’s lineage and Italian sculptural heritage, Metamorfosi signals a profound evolution in Massimiliano Pelletti’s practice. In this new body of work, classical forms are fractured and reimagined; mythological figures dissolve and recombine across cultural boundaries; flesh and stone blur into new hybrid deities.
Drawing from Greco-Roman gods, African mythology, pagan symbols, and the inner anatomy of the human form, Pelletti sculpts not inherited icons but newly born ones. These are gods in flux. Metamorfosi is both a transformation of matter and meaning, where myths are not remembered, but rewritten.
Central to the exhibition is African Ares, a powerful hybrid deity combining the Roman god of war with masks and motifs from African deities, carved in richly veined Pink Onyx. With its bold profile and striated surfaces, the sculpture suggests both strength and transformation, a figure shaped by cross-cultural memory and myth. Echoing the artist’s interest in duality and metamorphosis, African Ares stands as a contemporary totem: at once timeless, unfamiliar, and vividly present.
These figures are not mere portraits. They are archetypes. They represent an idea… that has settled over centuries and resurfaces in our present as an echo.” Massimiliano Pelletti
Another key work is Viscere, a striking sculpture that reveals the figure’s inner anatomy. Crafted in crystalline stone, the piece depicts a classical female torso that merges classical beauty with raw untouched natural stone that is reminiscent of human anatomy, flesh becomes stone, stone reveals flesh. The smooth surface gives way to intricate textures and glowing mineral layers, inviting the viewer to look beyond the idealised exterior. With its blend of beauty and rawness, Viscere explores themes of vulnerability, strength, and transformation. It is both anatomical and symbolic, a bold reimagining of the human figure that feels timeless and emotionally immediate.
Pelletti continues to use rare and exotic stones – onyx, fossil-laced black marble, and crystalline minerals – not to polish perfection, but to highlight imperfection. Cracks, faults, and fissures are embraced rather than concealed, speaking to his philosophy of material collaboration, rather than domination. “Each material is selected for its own characteristics, its perfections and imperfections,” Pelletti explains. “In this way, the material becomes a co-author of the work.”
Sculptures in Metamorfosi often appear familiar but defy categorisation. Faces are masked or merged, torsos disrupted, myths retold. Pelletti’s figures do not exist in the past, they are new myths for a shifting present, born not from memory, but from imagination, intuition, and reassembly. “At first glance, my sculptures may evoke the grace of Greco-Roman faces: regular features, harmonious proportions, composed serenity. But are we sure they are simply an homage?”
Exhibition Details:
Massimiliano Pelletti: Metamorfosi
Exhibition Dates: 9th October – 7th November 2025
Private View & Gallery Relaunch: 8th October (Invitation Only)
Gallery address: Bowman Sculpture, 6 Duke Street, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6BN
Phone: +44 (0) 207 930 0277
Opening Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 6 pm; Saturdays by appointment
See also: Littlemill’s Vanguards Collection – a Tapestry of Past and Present
