There are plenty of surfaces upon which visual art can unfold, whether it be a canvas, a piece of paper, or even the land itself. In Martina Billi’s case, though, creativity emerges in some more unexpected places, including wood. For years, the Italian artist has approached the material with both precision and whimsy, all while exploring the relationship between humans, animals, and nature.
“Animals occupy a central place in my works, not only as independent beings, but as metaphors for our internal emotions, instincts, and processes,” Billi remarked in a 2025 interview with Plataforma de Arte Contemporáneo. “Often, my compositions develop in a dreamlike and timeless space, where the human body and nature merge.”
Perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than Seguimos, which Billi recently created using ballpoint pen and India ink on wood. Measuring 1.80 meters by 2.50 meters (about 6 feet by 8.2 feet), the monumental work centers upon a girl in an elegant dress, her expression listless despite the circle of tigers surrounding her. The animals bat at one another, their teeth bared and ears flattened, and yet the girl is spared from their fighting. Whether these tigers are protecting or simply ignoring this central figure is beside the point—her very presence, as well as her resigned and almost exasperated attitude, seems to point at another thematic interest.
“Perhaps the tameable doesn’t exist and it’s an illusion,” Billi writes in an Instagram post sharing the work. “As long as the wild remains intact, the untamed forces us to recognize the limit of our own authority.”
Throughout history, the natural world has often been subsumed and ultimately controlled by human desire, and that fact echoes across much of Billi’s artwork. Eros y Thanatos, for instance, revisits Freud’s 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in which the renowned psychoanalyst identified love and death drives as fundamental to determining human behavior and acts of self-preservation. In this composition, an enormous bear cradles a naked woman, whose body can effectively be split in half by sliding apart the work’s wooden panels. When opened, a skeleton is revealed, its ribcage overflowing with flowers. The imagery may be overt, but, when considered within the artist’s wider practice, the piece questions how our psychological impulses may exert authority over nature and how, in so doing, we contribute to our own downfalls.
Stylistically, Billi often veers toward striking, black-and-white forms, complete with meticulous linework, stippling, and cross-hatching. These high-contrast visuals seamlessly translate into the artist’s tattoo practice, which also revolves around organic themes. Some tattoos are fierce and menacing, while others lean into the adorable, such as her pet portraits. Either way, in her careful treatment of animals and her command over texture, it’s clear that Billi maintains a deep reverence for the world around her—and the creatures that inhabit it.
“I love to hear the interpretations of those who observe my work,” Billi has said. “Each person is reflected in them in a different way and manages to connect with an essential truth that resounds within them.”
To learn more about the artist, explore Martina Billi’s Instagram page.
For years, Martina Billi has reimagined wood as a canvas, creating meticulous yet fantastical portraits of the natural world.
These artworks, which often assume a monumental scale, explore humanity’s fraught relationship with nature and, in particular, animals.
Aside from wood, Billi also enjoys creating artwork on people’s bodies as a tattoo artist.
Martina Billi: Instagram
Related Articles:
Ornate Wallpapers Frame Bird Portraits Exploring Domesticity and Desire [Interview]
Exquisite Wooden Sculptures Move Like Real-Life Computer Glitches
Kinetic Artist and Domino Expert Build a “City” With 240,000 Wooden Planks
