When Mathematics Becomes Art: The Circle as the Alphabet of the Universe

Elisa Cella (Genoa, 1974) is an artist who has found her expressive language in the encounter between mathematics and biology. After studying Mathematics at the Università Statale di Milano, she developed a rigorous and persevering artistic research, building a twenty-year journey that explores the hidden beauty in the microscopic structures of life.

Her distinctive mark is the circle, traced rigorously freehand: an obsessive module, an archetypal form that evokes the atom, the cell, the egg from which we are generated, the spherical planet on which we live. Every work is born from the infinite repetition of this gesture — circle after circle, like a visual meditation — composing structures that translate the biological complexity of the invisible world into visual language.

The Research: Beauty, Mystery and Science

Elisa Cella’s research unfolds along two main directions, both rooted in her Sensory Topology: on one side, works inspired by neuroscience (neural networks, synapses, the philosophical question “what is consciousness?”); on the other, series dedicated to the microorganisms that inhabit and generate our world.

Sensory Topology (2000–2021)

In her early works, the human body and its parts become topographies of emotions. The artist proceeds from the conviction that emotion coincides with the physical location of emotion itself: the body engages in dialogue with itself through sensations that sometimes jam, mystify, and generate crisis. Works such as Desiderio (2021), Pesantezza (2002), Ultimo Bacio (2000), Depersonalizzazione (2006), Ansia (2003), and Orgasmo (2008) translate into visual language — surface tensions, circles that pierce the skin like pins, chromatic explosions — the violent or tender physicality of human emotions.

Microbiota: Viruses, Bacteria, Diatoms (2020–2025)

The turning point arrives with the pandemic. Elisa Cella is struck by the formal beauty of SARS-CoV-2 as seen under a microscope: from this comes the Microbiota series, which investigates the simultaneity of the horror of disease and the beauty of pathogens. Viruses (Dengue, SARS-CoV-2), bacteria (Treponema Pallidum), and protozoa are reproduced with scientific rigour but in arbitrary, purely aesthetic colours. The result is a universe of hypnotic organic forms: laser-cut iron installations, paintings on canvas, drawings on paper.

The series expands to encompass diatoms — unicellular algae that produce more than one fifth of the Earth’s oxygen — threatened by ocean acidification caused by CO₂. Works such as Lyrella Lyra (2022, painted iron, 85×170 cm), Triceratium Pentacrinus and Triceratium Dubium (2025, oil on canvas) are masterpieces of biological geometry that draw attention to urgent environmental concerns: the fragility of the microscopic ecosystems upon which life on the planet depends.

Technique and Process: Imperfection as Creative Tension

Elisa Cella’s working method is characterised by mathematical rigour and obsessive craftsmanship. Every circle is drawn freehand — never with a compass or stencil — and this controlled imperfection becomes a fundamental quality of the work. The tension between control and freedom of gesture generates new energies. Her works are developed across several media:

• ink drawings on paper (historical series, from 2000);
• paintings on canvas in oil and acrylic, often white on white;
• laser-cut and painted iron wall sculptures; plexiglass and methacrylate installations;
• limited edition artist’s books (with Chippendale Studio).

Time is a fundamental element: the long duration of the process — circle after circle, layer upon layer — becomes a metaphor for organic growth, cellular duplication, and the mystery of life replicating itself.

Recognition and Exhibitions

Elisa Cella’s works are held in the permanent collections of the MAC in Lissone, the Museo di Villa Croce (Genoa), the Museo Butti (Viggiù), the Civica Raccolta del Disegno in Salò, the Rocca di Umbertide, and the Castello Chiaramontano in Racalmuto.

She won the Master Artist 2021 award and has been a finalist in national prizes (Exibart Prize, Candiani, Arteam Cup). Recent exhibitions include: C’est la mer allée / Avec le soleil (Galleria Contempo, Pergine Valsugana, 2025, critical text by Ilaria Bignotti); Microbiota. An Expansion of Sensory Experience (Villa Contemporanea, Monza, 2022, text by Luca Panaro); This Is The End (Villa Reale di Monza, 2024, with texts by Simona Bartolena and Giorgio Bonomi).

She is featured in the Studio Visits of the Quadriennale di Roma (2022, curated by Francesca Guerisoli) and took part in the Venus In Furs project (2024), exhibited in public spaces and galleries in Milan and Genoa.

Philosophy: In the Semiocene, Beyond the Separation of Nature and Culture

In 2024, with the exhibition Nel Semiocene (BACS, Leffe), Elisa Cella addressed directly the theme of the separation between nature and culture, drawing inspiration from the semiotician Gianfranco Marrone. Nature, the artist argues, is not something external to the human: “Whoever tries, deluded, to step outside the Semiocene is surrounded by phantoms of uncontaminated purities. The intertwining of world and meaning, nature and culture, alludes instead to a planet populated by hybrids of the everyday — not monsters but teachers.”

Her works do not duplicate reality but amplify it, creating forms without parallel. They are neither pure abstractions nor scientific reproductions: they are objects that contain philosophical reflection, mystery, wonder, and ethical questions. As Luca Panaro writes, the work does not coincide with what the artist or the viewer sees; its cultural significance lies in the process of growth, corresponding to an expansion of sensory experience.

Elisa Cella Today

She lives and works in Monza, in her studio at via Parravicini 17. Her research continues to explore the invisible: from the neural networks that constitute consciousness to the diatoms that oxygenate the planet, from cells that duplicate to viruses that threaten and fascinate us. Every work is an organic poem, an invitation to look with new eyes at the complexity of living things, to recognise beauty in the most unexpected places, and to respect the fragility of the systems upon which our existence depends.

As Giorgio Bonomi writes, Cella, using the tools of art, renders the sciences beautiful — in particular biology, chemistry, and mathematics; the latter not for its calculations but for its representative and constructive capacity.