Alejandro Marmo - from outcast to artist for the pope

(ANSA) - Rome, December 10 - Buenos Aires native Alejandro Marmo has a unique tale to tell. Once an outcast, the 43-year-old is now an artist and friend of Pope Francis, who recently blessed his work exhibited in the Vatican Gardens.
    Marmo's work is linked to the ''culture of waste'' and is made in the world's outskirts through the use of recycled materials. Chains and gates abandoned over 80 years ago and found in the Castel Gondolfo papal farms were used for his latest ones, 'Cristo Operaio' (Christ as a Worker') and 'Vergine di Lujan' ('Our Lady of Lujan', a symbol of Argentinian traditions) exhibited inside the Vatican Gardens. The son of a Salerno-born father, he speaks Italian fluently and initially met Pope Francis in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, an encounter that set in motion collaboration between the two based on their shared philosophy on art and life. Marmo tells ANSA that art should serve to foster dialogue, help people and make daily life better - art as something that can lead out of the shadow and into the light, and that requires visibility to render its message universal - and this is also true of Pope Francis's faith. The two large works now part of the grandiose artistic heritage of the Vatican Museums were created by the artist with the help of a group of youths with drug problems - those ''excluded from society'', as he calls them - from Argentina. Their contribution and work is part of a larger project involving the artist and Pope Francis that aims to help youth leave 'cultural outskirts' through art and a belief in God. Marmo told ANSA that he plans to work in the outskirts of cities in southern Italy and especially Salerno, bringing art to the margins of society through the use of recycled materials serving as a metaphor for social recovery.