ARTIST BIO

Ophélie Napoli’s work explores the tension between human impulse and the systems we impose on ourselves and others. This conflict manifests in physical and emotional space, and the artist seeks to reconcile it through elemental materials and repetitive gestures.

 

As she reflect on belonging and my multicultural background, she draws connections between the micro and macro: iron flows through our veins, powers our beating hearts, and arrives on Earth as meteorites. Found in both Scottish and tropical soils, it moves beneath our feet and guides bees across the planet via its magnetic field. These connections remind us that we are part of a larger system; one that moves us in unpredictable directions.

 

As we act as agents of both creation and decay, our expansion is reflected by rust, rot, and consumption. Perhaps our destructive excess is part of a greater ecological cycle. There is a certain ironic poetry in our quest for balance while charging for the stars. Stillness vs. intensity is a paradox she also finds within her and transfers into her work.

 

Through a visceral engagement with materials such as fabric, wax, rope or paint, she repeats gestures of care and violence: stitching, wrapping, binding, smothering, healing and asphyxiating. Her process is an intimate confrontation with matter, disorder, and control.

 

Her references and research are drawn from nature, mythology, post-minimalism, sci-fi and punk. She also collaborates with subcultural music locations; spaces that resist rigid systems and allow her to exist, create, and belong outside of societal structures.

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Ophélie Napoli is an Italian, French and German artist born in 1998 in Bari, Italy. She then grew up across India, Spain, Hong Kong and Switzerland, before moving to Germany for research purposes and obtaining a Masters in Fine Arts and Art History at Edinburgh College of Art. Her work has been exhibited at Waking Life Festival (2024 and 2025 in Crato, Portugal), at Keller in Zeughausstrasse in Zürich with her solo Show "My Guts on Your Table" (2023) as well as on the March 2023 flyer of Berghain, Berlin. She is now a selected artist on Sunend.org and is based in Brussels, Belgium.