Dorothy Circus Gallery was founded by Alexandra Mazzanti and her mother Maddalena di Giacomo, who played a pivotal role in the conception and branding of the gallery. The Gallery’s logo typeface was derived from an old original calligraphy found within a 19th century diary that belonged to Di Alexandra’s family’s past generations. Throughout the years, it became a strong visual statement that bridged modernity with a fragile ethereal past.

Through dedicated and rigorous research, and always anticipating market trends and interests in the global market, Alexandra Mazzanti looks at contemporary art as an increasingly transversal construct, fuelled by the influences of all the Arts and aimed at enhancing the figurative as a stage for the surreality, a product not only of the unconscious personal search for beauty, but also an alchemic mixture of literature, poetry, cinema, theatre and psyche. With its outstanding scenery, the gallery perfectly embodies the visionary and revolutionary atmosphere of these seductive artistic contaminations and spreads one of its core concepts and goals: to arouse vibrant emotions and to offer an introspective journey to each visitor, transcending the limits of space and time with surreally intimate and emotional masterpieces. 

Thanks to its focus on figurative visual codes (that have been set aside until the first decade of the 21century) and always privileging harmonious techniques and emotional narratives, the gallery has played an important role in paving the way for the return of figurative art, deviating from the contemporary art trends of Abstractionism, Minimalism and Conceptualism in vogue at the time and no longer sufficient to describe the complexity and beauty of our contemporaneity.  In 2017, with the opening of a second gallery in London's charming Connaught Street, Dorothy Circus Gallery continues to raise every day its curtains on a prestigious programme dedicated to the return of surrealist-inspired figurative painting, strongly linked to the tradition of figurative classical painting of the Renaissance and Baroque movements, as seen in the works of Marion Peck, Mark Ryden, Andrey Remnev, Fatima Ronquillo, Jonathan Viner, Jeffrey Chong Wang, Tokuhiro Kawai, Grace Eunshin Kim and Alessia Iannetti. 

Tapping in the subconscious and challenging the everyday, Dorothy Circus Gallery focuses on bringing back the surreal elements of art, an Art that in the words of André Breton could “incite passers-by to dream in the shadow of reality”, deviating from the contemporary art trends in vogue at the time. The gallery has showcased  international figures such as Rafael Silveira, Peca, Victor Castillo, Paolo Pedroni, Kazuhiro Hori, Matthew Grabelsky, Scott Musgrove, Tara McPherson, Leila Ataya and Silvia Idili, who were and continue to be selected for their originality and technical ability with an emphasis on intriguing surreal and pop iconographic nuances and dreamlike details that convey a sense of inner wonders and curiosity.

While displaying an accurate selection of surreally intimate and emotional masterpieces, the Gallery aims to bring the beholders back to their primordial memories and to perceive again the adult's inner child, transcending the limits of space and time. Dreamlike details tied to a spiritual and animist symbolism are often harmoniously present in the works showcased by Joe Sorren, Andrew Hem, Koh Kisung, Fuco Ueda, Masakatsu Sashie, and Kazuki Takamatsu, capturing and revealing our deepest feelings, immersing the viewers within a mystical realm and universal empathy.

In recent years, the Gallery has directed its efforts towards curating exhibitions that focused on the return of the female narratives in Art, with particular attention to women artists such as Andrea Kowch, Miss Van, Afarin Sajedi, Jana Brike, Camilla d’Errico, Kukula, Natalie Shau, Karin Iwabuchi, Mitsuko Kuroki, Tran Nguyen, and Miho Hirano. The shows brought attention to the female voice as the narrator and the connector of humanity. Sensitive topics of feminism, gender equality and women's rights have been emphasised through the gallery’s 2019 curatorial programme, which also dedicated particular attention to maternal relations and female iconography in the art world with the major collective exhibition ‘Mother and Child’ held both in Rome and London. This was later re-proposed under a broad thematic spectrum and with the group show titled 'MILK', the drop that symbolises nourishment, a token of love and care, the essence of love for children in all their forms, demonstrating paternal inclusion and adoption.

In addition to its gallery work, Dorothy Circus Gallery has always been involved in cultural and social battles, raising awareness on a wide range of contemporary issues. In doing so, the gallery has promoted and curated several institutional street art projects such as Spray For Your Rights (2014), for which the gallery owner and director Alexandra Mazzanti curated Eduardo Kobra’s solo exhibition Peace and the creation of the mural dedicated to Malala Yousafzai in Rome. The Gallery has also exhibited prominent and up and coming Street artists such as, among others, Ella & Pitr, Millo, Saner, Hyuro, Ron English, SETH, Alex Face, Andrea Wan, LeValet, BLIC, Okuda San Miguel, Messy Desk, and Jade Rivera, all selected for their corageous visual language that is deeply connected to the imaginary found in Surrealism and Contemporary Figurative Art. 

Since 2020, the Gallery’s curatorial research has renewed its attention to the most promising, thought-provoking and avant-garde talents from Asia, which has originally started in 2008, and bringing on stage a visual language that is deeply connected to the historical and heterogenous cultural roots of the continent, while at the same time contaminated by key Western art influences including, but not limited to, the Italian Renaissance, German Expressionism, French Surrealism, Post-War and American Realism. The Asian artists that Dorothy Circus Gallery has and continue to exhibit, such as Jang Koal, Yosuke Ueno, Maruyama Junna, Bobby Leash, Cheng Cheng Yi, Junko Mitzuno, Tada Koiichiro, Ahoy, Mayuka Yamamoto and Luke Chueh, are shaping a new subversive perception of the contemporary and paving the way for new trends that reflects the desire for happiness of the young generations – lined up for change and eager to find  a new rising light on the horizon and the beginning of a more sustainable future.

The Figurative Art codes that have always characterised the curatorial line of Dorothy Circus Gallery in the traditional mediums of painting and drawing have in recent times become harmoniously intertwined with the realm of photography, thanks hyper-modern visitors styles. The Gallery began to highlight the strong bond established between contemporary photography and the figurative and surreal codes with the comprehensive exhibition “What I’ve Seen So Far” which took place in February 2021 in collaboration with GREY Magazine and has seen the participation of 12 international photographers, including the Billy Kidd, Caitlin Cronenberg, Arash Radpour, Laurent Chehere, Ziqian Liu, Anka Zhuravleva, Iness Rychlik, and others.

The Gallery has also been invested in exploring contemporary sculpture that offers to its audience a glance of ancient tradition and craftsmanship fused with modern techniques and mediums such as silicon and fibreglass. Sculpture artists such as Chishi Morimura, Maki Hino, Clémentine de Chabaneix, Emi Katsuta, QimmyShimmy, Ai Haibara, Adam Wallacavage, Kathie Olivas, Colin Christian, Moe Nakamura and Aya Kakeda have been invited over the years to exhibit in London and in Rome in multiple occasions. 

Conceived in 2017, and developed in the Rome and London galleries, the Six Senses Concept Store of Dorothy Circus Gallery is the result of the collaboration between the Gallery and selected Artists and Artisans with the aim of offering a multi-sensory experience, capable of reeling in the viewer in a waltz of scents, images, flavours and sounds. In addition to the five senses, the sixth sense Perception becomes part of the exhibition that helps to blur and blend the boundaries between art and other realms that make our emotions resonate.

For its Concept Store, the Gallery selects the most refined furnishing accessories and Art Collectibles created by its artists in the name of accessible luxury that becomes Art Life style. From the “Table Tea Settings” of the Russian ceramicist Valentina Fadeeva (Ceramic Tales); to the precious porcelain sculptures of Juli About, created for the most exclusive “table designs”. Then again, from the refined selection of “limited edition prints” by the artists of the gallery; to the rare "one of a kind" Kimonos hand-embroidered by IKKIM’O. Finally, we arrive to the carefully hand-picked "cruelty free" fragrances dedicated to the topics addressed by the Gallery’s exhibitions and produced by famous Master Perfumers, such as Oriza L. Legrand, Lorenzo Dante Ferro and Maria Candida Gentile.

Under the brand Dorothy Circus Factory, the gallery's production includes exhibition catalogues with original soundtracks and special limited editions such as the exclusive Eau de Parfum "Palpitation", a memorial perfume inspired by Ray Caesar's masterpiece of the same name and dedicated to Maddalena di Giacomo, founder of Dorothy Circus Gallery.