Conduit Gallery is honored to announce Deep fried chianti, an exhibition of new textile works by Italian artist Marco Querin. The exhibition features the first body of work created by the artist since relocating to Tuscany, Italy from the US in 2023. Additional work by Querin will be presented at the 2026 Dallas Art Fair, April 16–19, Booth F3.

Deep fried chianti reflects on what it means to return somewhere familiar and find it foreign. After 15 years living in Indianapolis, Indiana, Querin has come back to Italy and finds himself caught between two worlds, longing equally for what surrounds him and what he left behind. He describes his current state as one of "relaxed cultural confusion," a native land culture shock softened, as he puts it, by food. For Querin, food has always been the anchor of identity, and his studio has always been the kitchen.

Working with tightly stretched threads and carefully constructed fiber systems, Querin transforms textile materials into compositions that exist between painting, sculpture, and architecture. The works in this exhibition are intentionally wide in range of execution, meant to introduce himself to a new audience as fully and honestly as possible. What you encounter on these walls is the work of someone navigating incoherence with precision, an artist sipping Chianti in Tuscany while missing the people who consider fried butter a legitimate food option.

Finding himself in a life of constant change and adaptation, Querin is drawn to all that can be controlled. This impulse is manifest in the fragility, tension, elasticity, and equilibrium of his fiber-based work, compositions with a clear beginning and a clear end, built by hand with exacting care.