Sergio Rodella, Anchorite in retreat on the volume of marble

There is a silence that weighs like marble but vibrates like a breath. It is the silence of Sergio Rodella, a sculptor from Padua (1949-2022), to whom Padua's Gino Allegri Airport is dedicating an exhibition hosted in the HImmelmann Space. A tribute to the artist who experienced sculpture as prayer and meditation, transforming his work on the material into an inner dialogue with light.
Rodella sculpted like a hermit in retreat, removing weight to free form, searching for a breath, a hidden voice in the stone. His works, both solid and light, seem to emerge from silence, like bodies of light inhabiting the material.

The exhibition brings together studies, models, and works from private collections and the family archive, offering an intimate and intimate glimpse into his research. One section is dedicated to the works of students from the Pietro Selvatico Art School, where Rodella taught for many years, reflecting the dialogue between masters and new generations.
Among the most famous works is the ‘Man of the Shroud’, an extraordinary three-dimensional reconstruction of the body imprinted on the Holy Shroud, now on display at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in the exhibition ‘Art, Science and Faith: the Man of the Shroud and the Cross of Hope’. It is a work that combines faith and knowledge, revealing Rodella's constant striving for transcendence.

The exhibition is part of the Terminal Urbano project, through which the airport management company Heron Air is opening the airport to culture and the city. The Himmelmann Space, suspended between earth and sky, has become a meeting point between art, architecture, and community, where travel is transformed into an aesthetic experience and reflection. With “Anacoreta in ritiro sul volume del marmo” (Anchorite in retreat on the volume of marble), Padua airport confirms its vocation to be not only a place of departures but also of returns: to memory, to form, to light.