DEMIS MARTINELLI approaches the working of iron thanks to his father Valerio, an artisan. He instantly realises he has a certain "je ne sais quoi" with the material and decides to follow a personal path. He chooses to attend a school for the working of wrought iron (Francesco Ricchino di Rovato BS) and he begins manufacturing everyday objects as well as sculpture chairs and other sculptures. In 2001, together with Pietro Spoto, he organizes the first biennial exhibition held in Soncino (CR), which he entitles “...”. There, he creates Nel giardino (In the Garden), an artistic installation made out of iron caps. Iron caps will also be used in Demis’s first three-dimensional paintings. Thanks to Luca Bray, in 2003 DEMIS leaves for Spain, where he works and lives until 2004, showing his works in Barcelona and Madrid. After taking his art to Mexico, he flies back to Soncino (CR), his home town, where he keeps cooperating with his father and his brother Eros. He opens a private study and elaborates a new method for the working of wrought iron, which he moulds into elastic shapes.

Aside from sculptures and artistic installations, DEMIS devotes himself to photography, an art which has always been present in his life thanks to his mother Andreina and his uncles. In 2004 he develops a technique which enables him to express his thoughts: he carves his female nude photographs and he calls the technique “emotional writing”. While showing his works, DEMIS meets two people who will forge his aesthetic techniques: the tattoo artist Jan Zuttion and the sculptor Giacomo Stringhini Ciboldi. Zuttion leads DEMIS to the use of red in his photographs. This chromatic tonality will be used as a background for Demis’s photographic portraits of people belonging to the Italian and international cultural scene. Moreover, Zuttion introduces DEMIS to fusions, a pictorial method popular among tattoo artists. Demis, then, suggests Stringhini Ciboldi, creator of the Castelleone (CR) cultural association Quartiere Tre, a sculpture fusion. He also collaborates with Stringhini Ciboldi’s association. Nowadays, DEMIS keeps cultivating his passion for sculpture and photography and is planning an artistic experience in Central and South America.