GUARDIANS OF DREAMS

Curated by Art Directors Carlo Greco and Alessandra Magni Critical texts by Art Curators Camilla Gilardi Carola Antonioli Chiara Rizzatti Eleonora Varotto Elisabetta Eliotropio Erika Gravante Federica D’Avanzo Federica Schneck Francesca Brunello Francesca Catarinicchia Francesca Mamino Giorgia Massari Giulia Dellavalle Giulia Fontanesi Ilaria Falchetti Karla Peralta Málaga

Laura Timpone Liliana Sánchez Lisa Galletti Lucrezia Perropane Manuela Fratar Mara Cipriano Marta Graziano Matilde Della Pina Martina Lattuca Martina Stagi Martina Viesti Salma Eltoukhy Sara Giannini Sara Grasso Silvia Grassi

The human being, a Manichean by nature, has always been confronted with the reality of things, with the tangible and rational world, distinguishing between what can be associated with Good and what instead represents Evil.

Everything that has been absorbed is stored, made our own, and shapes our thinking, our relationship to the concrete world. But existence is not just this, as a more intimate and profound reality coexists in us, the dream reality. According to Greek mythology, are the three Onyri, namely Morpheus, Phobetor and Fantaso, three gods of the night, that send dreams to mortals. Morpheus, the most important, is the shaper of dreams, the one who establishes direct contact in sleep. He is a shaper and, at the same time, a guardian of our dreams, like every human being, he is, equally, a shaper and guardian of their own thoughts and dream visions, prudently kept inside two imaginary boxes. Two boxes inside which are hidden reflections, secrets and visions on the past and present, reflections on the concept of Good and Evil for the purpose of research and re-elaboration of the future.

What can be shown, made available to the world? And what, on the other hand, shouldn't be revealed? Within the current context, marked by the dilemma that contrasts the reasons of the individual with those of society, the question arises as to what is the real and appropriate perception of Good and Evil. The debate around this issue was already present in the Greek tradition, where the ethical-religious problem and the socio-political one revolved around the centrality of the logos, that is the relationship with the being of things, the reason that explains the nature of the various realities, that form the world, and of the latter's irreconcilability with pathos.

The modern age, however, has changed things, blurring the clear distinction that humanity had conceived of Good and Evil until now, altering the conception of traditional dualism, of what is right and what is wrong, in the soul of people. The complex and difficult reality of today, based on an axiological skepticism, is characterized by a constant presence of feelings related to insecurity and uncertainty, together with a sense of existential failure that has led people to seek real approval social based on appearance and mass consumerism, overshadowing that dreamlike, otherworldly reality, which has always been the guardian of our thoughts, dreams, values. Ours, according to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, is a "liquid" society, a society that has flattened human values and consciousness and the proliferation of social media, although having enormous advantages, has altered the way we interact with culture and others, consequently altering one's perception of what surrounds us and the importance that each individual places in things, events and experiences. Perfection and, above all, mass homologation have become the main points of reference, the foundations of the new distinction between Good and Evil, overshadowing the fundamental aspects of the life of every human being. All aspects that have been put aside by many, but not forgotten by everyone. M.A.D.S. invites artists to overcome modern sociological barriers, proposing a personal reflection on the content of their imaginary boxes, made of dreams, concepts, thoughts and ideals. Of positive and negative experiences that have contributed to the generation of a precise identity that needs to be shared through artistic creation. According to their culture, religion and vision, each artist is invited to recreate their own universe, to choose what to show to the world and what, instead, to seal. To be creators and, above all, donors of their own experience, of their own interiority. Because dreams shape the world.

Concept by Federica Schneck Art Curator

Acure A chromatic explosion invests our gaze. Pupils move from right to left, from top to bottom scouring every inch of the composition. The rhythm is concussive, the melody that resonates among the reliefs and depressions of "Let's do our best tomorrow" is so energetic that it both emanates and conveys to the viewer the breath of life force. Modern abstract art is based on the liberation of lines, shapes and colors, and no longer on an actual representation of objects, figures and landscapes. Abstract artists break down perceptual experience into its essential elements, allowing us to better understand it by elevating the creative act to the pinnacle of the pictorial experience. In this sense, abstract art becomes the chosen vehicle for passing on and spreading the message. Although in fact the work is created by the artist, abstract art allows everyone to freely interpret what she or he sees and associate his or his own experience, desires and emotions with the work of art. The result is abstract art that is not always the same but rather changes, transforms, and alters its meaning each time it is looked at by a person. In other words, we must consider the individuality and experience of the artist as the basis, as the foundation of the work of art. Without them, nothing is possible.

The viewer assimilates these foundations, grasps their meaning and gives the work his or his feelings and sensations, uniting the artist's individuality with his or his own. Acure with "Let's do our best tomorrow" wishes for the fulfillment of this process wishing that the work born of his creative sensibility could be a reminder to do better and better, to achieve one's goals. The artist, in this sense, gives the vision of his work to us viewers who, through those organic and multicolored forms, are hit by a wave of extraordinary energy. And so it is that flou pink spirals gently lie above a backdrop characterized by green, yellow, blue and red globes. They are spirals that have an organic form and therefore directly stimulate our sensibility by bringing us closer and closer to the work. All around them, yellowish snakes move throughout the composition. They are extremely subtle and zig-zag following a rhythm all their own, resting on the color of the backdrop and soiling themselves with it. In Acure's work, acrylic and paper mache dance in unison in an excited, energetic, full of life dance. We can sense the artist's desire to convey to us, through material and color, the incitement to live a full and satisfying life. We can perceive Acure urging us, through the use of vivid colors and organic, natural forms, to savor the spark of creativity that lies beneath the creation of the work. "Let's do our best tomorrow" is a figurative reminder to life. It is a translation in images of the energy within each person that is just waiting to be released.

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

Acure

Let's do our best tomorrow

Agata Matczak “Creating art is a very deep and emotional process for me. Emotions, freedom, joy. My paintings are very intuitive and personal, full of hope, passion, and gratitude for the beautiful world around us. All my photos are made of feelings” (Agata Matczak)

M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery introduces Agata Matczak and her work Imaginación she describes "Imagination is full of beautiful imperfections and simple moments of joy. Fleeting moments - fantasy combined with imagination and dreams". Agata's art comes from the perception of reality, of the surrounding nature, and comes to life in abstract form through sensual and colorful images. In this case Agata represents flowers, the symbol of life that are the symbol of imagination. The atmosphere of her work is dreamlike and Agata reinforces this concept through skillful play of light. Our artist creates a bridge between the worlds of reality and imagination, and nature is her favorite subject. In fact, it is a determining factor in her life's journey: her love for nature and its accompanying phenomena prompted her to study at the Faculty of Physics and delve into the secrets of nature, but she never gives up her passion for painting, which over time turns into something more. Her knowledge combined with extreme sensitivity lead to results of great emotional impact. Without giving up the opportunity to observe surprising effects and fascinating color shows.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Agata Matczak

Imaginación

Aina Putnina "Color is a power that directly affects the soul."

(Wassily Kandinsky)

Aina Putnina is an artist who has been able to wisely combine tradition and innovation, exploiting the great potential of digital art to create dynamic artistic poetics. Aina's digital works are characterized by a variegated chromatic palette, which gives the creations a strong dynamism and expressive power, since all of Aina Putnina's artistic poetics is based on the communicative power of color, deputy as a key element for the whole understanding of the work. The artist explores her interiority, the external world and her relationship with it and colors are the metaphor of her sensations. The liquidity of the color recalls the elasticity and versatility of emotions, which explode in the work, and the saturation of the color helps the observer to understand its expressive power. What the artist aspires to is the creation of a bridge of dialogue between her and the observer, who is encouraged to undertake, like her, an inner journey to know and be able to show the deepest sides of one's being and in how they interface in concrete reality.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Aina Putnina

Forest edge

Aina Putnina

Wonderland no.3

Aina Putnina

Staircase

Alberta Olivetti

Alberta Olivetti's art takes up the spirit of Surrealism by revisiting it in a pop style. Her works depict mostly female subjects, drawn in ink. The prevailing tones of black and white are enhanced by the contrast created by the few coloured elements, which complete the composition by drawing on the artist's imagination. The title of the work that she is presenting at this exhibition, III - L'imperatrice, is inspired by the world of tarot cards. In fortune telling, in fact, the third tarot card is precisely the Empress, a female archetype that symbolises independence and autonomy. Mental and creative energy is her main characteristic. This figure therefore symbolises the possibility of immersing oneself in thought and giving life to new ideas, sometimes even losing oneself in them. For this reason, according to the artist, she also lends herself well to becoming a metaphor for our times, in which thought is sometimes used as an engine to amplify confusion and fears. In this representation, the Empress is at once in the real world and in the imaginary world of ideas: in fact, she has the features of a contemporary woman, but some of the details that characterise her, such as the butterfly that adorns her chest and the frog that peeps through her hair, while belonging to the real sphere, contribute to giving her an almost imaginary appearance, reminiscent of the surrealist style from which the artist draws inspiration.

Like all Olivetti's women, the Empress has coloured cheeks. They are an element that the artist uses to allude to the idea of the clown and symbolise the modern mask that we are all unconsciously called upon to wear. Drawing on the sphere of the dream and the surreal, this work perfectly interprets the concept of this exhibition, which invites artists to recreate their own universe by "proposing a personal reflection on the content of their imaginary boxes".

Art Curator Marta Graziano

Alberta Olivetti

III - L'imperatrice

Alejandra Abad

Expressing what we feel in our deepest self, finding an expressive means that allows us to do it in a natural way: this is perhaps the most difficult mission for each of us, because we all feel the urgent need to express ourselves, to externalize what that we have inside, to be able to communicate and make ourselves known. Artists have the immense gift of having found in art the perfect tool to express themselves and to get to know each other so truly in depth, without filters. They are able to activate a creative flow and let their emotions flow, through their hands, directly on the canvas. These emotions are thus freed from all constraints and travel free, to then infuse themselves into the observer of the work of art that is created. Energy, strength, emotion: this is precisely what we read and what transpires from the works of the artist Alejandra Abad, of which those presented here are an amazing example. Alejandra truly possesses this unique expressive gift.

Alejandra Abad

Yes, because the colors and abstract shapes of his works speak to the viewer, tell a story, a feeling, a state of mind: they simply show us a small part of the artist. In these works the titles give us the key to reading with which to explore them. In “Aquarium” we really manage, through lines and colors, to feel transported to the world of the sea, with its muffled sounds and its frenetic but relaxing movements at the same time. The color application technique chosen by the artist shows us precisely that filtered and blurred vision of water, which takes our minds elsewhere. In "Bitter sweet" we can feel the contrast, but at the same time the dialogue of two opposites that meet. The definition of the lines that meet the shades of colors, their clarity, create an overwhelming energy. We seem to be able to enter a fantastic, oneiric world, in which we feel free to choose between opposites, at any time, between what we prefer, without necessarily being bound to that choice, but alternating it, following what at that moment it makes us feel good: light or dark, hard or soft, sweet or bitter indeed.

Art Curator Silvia Grassi

Alejandra Abad

Aquarium

Alejandra Abad

Bitter sweet

Aleksandra Kashina “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

(Edgar Allan Poe)

Aleksandra Kashina is a contemporary visual artist living and working in Hong Kong. Her works are the result of a profound reflection and study of art history and, for this reason, her paintings seem to arise from a fusion of styles and thoughts, which have characterized different historical epochs. Expressionism and Romanticism form the basis of her style, which is so intensely influenced in the color tones and the depiction of the subjects. The humid and dark atmospheres portrayed by Aleksandra Kashina, in fact, envelop not only the subjects of her portraits, but also the landscapes, recounting the difficulties and uncertainty of the dark moments experienced. The softness of shapes and details in Munch's art merge here with the restless settings typical of Romanticism, gently sinking into the dream world in search of a refuge. In the work 'Spring 2015' exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery at the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, the artist undresses before the viewer, portraying herself in a moment of profound intimacy.

Her body is helplessly abandoned to sleep, while her face is hidden by long red hair; her snow-white skin seems to merge completely with the sheets, which envelop her like a cloud. The purity of white clashes with the turbulence of the other colors, especially red, telling of the reality-dream dualism. For Aleksandra Kashina, accessing her dreams means having the opportunity to rediscover herself and, once back in reality, to be able to narrate herself under a new light.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Aleksandra Kashina

Spring 2015

Alessia Zari "A room can be defined as empty, if you remove all the furniture, if you don't leave any furnishings inside; in that case it is defined as empty. It is empty of everything it once contained, but it is also full: filled with emptiness, full of itself."

(Osho)

Although, at the beginning, portraiture was the primary source of inspiration for Alessia Zari, it is only through a more in-depth study of the numerous artistic movements of the twentieth century that the artist manages to discover a new expressive artistic language, which will become her point of force. The gestures, the strength of the sign impose themselves, creating a temporal gap: to be there, in the present.

This characteristic strongly recalls the artist's will to bring out a part of herself that has remained hidden for too long. Through the immediacy of the execution, Alessia Zari seeks contemporaneity by combining thought and action, but also her own interiority, often in conflict. This theme is resumed and analyzed through the study of solids and voids, as a symbol of the persistence of Good and Evil, often coexisting within our soul. But everything, in reality as in the soul, is duality and what we choose to follow will be the personal message that we will convey to the whole world.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Alessia Zari

Ali

Alessia Zari

Polmoni del mondo

Alessia Zari

Radici separate

Alexandra Machmar "Looking for happiness outside of us is like waiting for the sun to rise in a cave facing north."

(Tibetan proverb)

Alexandra Machmar, a German artist, places the goal of expressing all the joy and positivity towards life at the center of her artistic research. Through colorful, playful compositions with a strong reference to the world of cartoons, the artist traces a personal expressive line that embraces distant memories, personal memories and transforms them into cheerful and colorful representations. Through the experimentation of several techniques and materials, Alexandra Machmar takes her personal experimentation to a higher level, trying to make compositional organization and fleeting action coexist. Almost like a game, she lets herself go to creations that include strong references to mass culture, as if to entice the viewer to follow it on its journey into colors, positivity, in search of past memories to resurface and make live in the present again, with a different, more open and positive eye.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Alexandra Machmar

SWEET DREAMS

Alina Axane For Alina Axane painting is a moment of liberation, a therapeutic moment that delves deep into her soul.

She herself states that "it is the most significant connection I have with myself, painting is freedom and joy". The artist uses different techniques: from acrylic to oil, also experimenting with the mixed technique. In all these cases, a search for colours and light is evident, through which she brings to life heavens, seas, flowers, angels and universes. On the occasion of the exhibition "Guardians of dreams" by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, Alina presents five works that follow the same line. They are titled: "Anchors", "Loverture", "Supernova", "Perspective" and "Unconditional Love". The works are in fact performed with soft colors, pastel, recalling the world of dreams. In some cases, as in "Loverture" and "Perspective", the softer and more nuanced brushstrokes are opposed to more material and dense brushstrokes. This contrast creates a play of contrasts that is reflected in the gaze of the viewer who, in continuous movement, finds in these brushstrokes a focal point to dwell on. "Supernova" and "Unconditional Love" are lighter and focused on light, guiding the viewer to an inner search. The work that most differs from the others is "Anchors" which presents figurative features. This is the only one of the five in which the viewer can find an element that approaches reality, even if it does not appear easily recognizable. This feature allows the viewer to imagine and be able to travel with fantasy. In fact, for some it may seem like a bridge, ideally something to cross, while to others it may seem like a large ship on a journey. Alina Axane's art transmits to the viewer the same meaning that it has for her: freedom, which is reflected in the freedom of interpretation that leaves the viewer, albeit suggesting emotions through the titles, and at the same time, inner reflection, in a delicate way like her brushstrokes.

Art Curator Giorgia Massari

Alina Axane

Anchors

Alina Axane

Loverture

Alina Axane

Supernova

Alina Axane

Perspective

Alina Axane

Unconditional Love

Amyk “Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book whichever is before our eyes --I mean the universe -- but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written."

(Galileo) If we allow ourselves a glimpse into the intense whirlwind of art history, we can certainly consider a tension towards composition over content as a matter of interest. Harmony in composition became progressively more and more important. Precisely in order to achieve the best aesthetic effect, the most celebrated Renaissance artists regularly used geometric figures (such as the triangle) as a canvas for the composition, thus ensuring results that bordered on absolute perfection. All the avant-garde movements of the last century have always used particular geometric shapes to bring the work to life, often with very obvious symbolic intentions, see De Chirico's case with the egg. This digression on geometry in art is useful for us to appreciate Amyk's artwork. Her paintings have a disturbing aesthetic aspect, a precise immersion in the emotions they arouse; this precision and punctuality derives precisely from the even unconscious use of geometry in her paintings. An evident process of healing through art and its evolution in sign and gesture. Even viewing just these three paintings, without knowing her practice, we can notice the change, the passage from darkness to light, from dense to rarefied, from the concentration of layers to the lightness of forms.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Amyk

The Blue Hour

Amyk

Wisdom

Amyk

No. 60.100 - Intuitive Series

Anael Ghazaryan

Anael Ghazaryan is an Armenian artist with a unique and provocative style. Her art is free from clichés and classical canons, with paintings of strong expressive power. The artist, influenced by her crosscultural experiences, combines expressionism and surrealism, taking us on a journey through multiple realities. In her works we see the subjective vision of reality, typical of expressionism, and the Surrealist element of dream and the unreal, skilfully fused together through unusual juxtapositions of different elements, irreconcilable in the real world. Through this art form, the artist realises strong symbolism that strikes the viewer from the first glance at the canvas and highlights the main part of a painting, namely its message.

Anael Ghazaryan

Through this art form, the artist realises strong symbolism that strikes the viewer from the first glance at the canvas and highlights the main part of a painting, namely its message. The two works that the artist exhibits for this exhibition reconsider the concept of God and religion. It is about going beyond our beliefs, moving away from the thought of good and evil, darkness and light, freeing ourselves from judgements and preconceptions. We are everything and God lives within us. The artist exhorts the viewer to be the master of his reality and accept himself, because there are neither saints nor sinners, but powerful and perfect beings, like Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian man.

Art Curator Lucrezia Perropane

Anael Ghazaryan

I'm God. The revolution of the mind

Anael Ghazaryan

Thug Life Saint

Anderson Oliveira Pires “For me art is part of my essence. When I am painting, I feel like I don’t need anything else and sometimes I lose track of time and go days without sleep and hours without eating immersed in paints, textures, shapes and colors.” (Anderson Oliveira Pires)

M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery introduces Anderson Oliveira Pires and his work Portals of dreams at the international art exhibition Guardians of Dreams. The texture of the work is the hallmark of Anderson's art, as is the attention to detail, the care, the passion that emerges from the canvas. Our artist's research stems from introspective analysis and the manifestation of his deepest being, which goes beyond life and becomes immortal. His works are photographs of his essence, of his soul, so the part of Anderson that he chooses to share becomes eternal through his physical manifestation of the artistic act. It is no accident that Anderson invests his whole self in the making of his works, transcending the boundaries of space and time. This is reflected in his work, which is a manifestation of something that goes beyond the patterns of reality, transcends convention, and represents something that is unconventional, irrational but at the same time universal. To make art for Anderson is to grow, to find oneself, to heal, to improve, to reflect, not only that, to make art is to communicate with the viewer. The relationship he establishes with the viewer of the work is very free, the artist leaves it to the viewer to interact with the work and create his own space, through the use of imagination. Finally, Anderson seeks harmony of colors, shapes and materials without sacrificing multiplicity and variety.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Anderson Oliveira Pires

Portals of dreams

Anderson Perin “Art for me is that way of sharing with everyone our feelings, our worldview, our moments...It's making our soul connect with the heart, with the soul of people...is to raise awareness…is to thrill!!” (Anderson Perin) M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery introduces Anderson Perin and his work Synapses he describes "The moment when I was at the bottom of the abyss of feelings, almost erasing myself, and suddenly, that spark appears that rekindles the fire of life, making everything shine again". Anderson Perin explodes his interiority through abstract expressionism and action painting. His works, such as the one presented at the international art exhibition "Guardians of Dreams," fully represent his feelings and emotions, not coincidentally the beginning of his relationship with art is linked to a burnout crisis at work added to depression and the separation of an 18-year marriage. This first collection is called "Abyss of the Soul," or the deep dive into human feelings, not only of the artist, but of every viewer, at the moment of pain and sadness. This says so much about the communicative medium Anderson selects to express himself, his style, and what he intends to share with the world. Art for our artist is born from a need and ends with communication with the viewer, which is essential. That is why his art is personal and universal. Anderson wants to connect with himself and with others, so art is exploratory of his being and of the human being in general, as well as a dialogue with the viewer. His work stems from an introspective phase of exploration of his soul and the outside world and is developed through action and the use of color. The canvas is a projection of our artist's movements as he moves and excites his audience. The experience is intense, emotional but fully aware of the artistic and literary experiences of the past, which Anderson looks at with great respect: Jackson Pollock is the main reference of the work, which also carries with it the philosophical reference of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Anderson Perin

Synapses

Andisheh Moghtaderpour

Andisheh Moghtaderpour is a Swiss based artist. Andisheh Moghtaderpour's academic and artistic career began in her youth with private drawing and painting lessons, later she studied painting at the Faculty of Art and Architecture in Tehran, and obtained a Bachelor's Degree of Painting in Cambodia. During her life, the artist had the opportunity to visit and live in numerous places in the world and this allowed her to get in touch with new ways of thinking and new ways of seeing the world, these influences are certainly found in the her way of living and interpreting art. Andisheh Moghtaderpour is, for the first time, the guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits three figurative works of art that tell real stories, with an ethereal and at times spiritual atmosphere. The works "Forcer la barrière # 2" and "Forcer la barrière # 2" are extremely powerful from a communicative point of view, the artist aims to convey the importance of "feeling", in the sense of perceiving. It is no coincidence that in both works the subject has her eyes closed, but very open and attentive eyes are visible not far away. The woman, in both works, is mixed with nature, is part of and unites with what surrounds her. In “Nostalgie no.3”, however, she perceives a sense of freedom and lack.

The artist is particularly sensitive to issues concerning the importance of the essence of the individual disconnected from appearance and external influences.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Andisheh Moghtaderpour

Forcer la barrière #2

Andisheh Moghtaderpour

Forcer la barrière #3

Andisheh Moghtaderpour

Nostalgie no.3

Anita Faber “Painting is my passion. My life, nature and people give me the motives. Seeing the spectator of my works inspired and amazed makes me happy” (Anita Faber)

When an art lover visits the Uffizi Museum in Florence (Italy) and finds himself in front of the Primavera, he takes a breath, loosens his muscles and stands in silence admiring such talent and beauty. Anita Faber has this effect, her talent astonishes, intrigues, and her works are admired without uttering a word, because that would be too much. Writing about Anita's works and talent proves superfluous because everything there is to know is right in front of everyone's eyes, her artistry is to be admired. Anita appears at the Guardians of Dreams international art exhibition at the M.A.D.S. international art gallery and regales our eyes with her works Dandelion meadow, Desire, Drops. Three marvels of photorealism, elements of nature such as dandelions and leaves painted in minute detail. A quick first glance at the works, in fact, might make one think they are photos, looking more carefully the enchantment is revealed. The subjects chosen are explained by her life experiences: Anita spent her childhood on a Luxembourg farm in Beiler, a small village near the Belgian-German border. She lived with and in nature, so it is not surprising that nature was her muse. Hyperrealism is also developed in portraits, such as Desire, which are extraordinarily faithful to reality, and meticulous but at the same time emotionally charged.

Her hyperrealist painting is striking, the workmanship is of the highest technical quality, such that it blurs the distinction between reality and the painted images. Many of these characteristics have implications in common with Trompe-l'oeil. Both techniques seek to give the illusion of reality and thwart the distinction between reality and painted images.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Anita Faber

Dandelion meadow

Anita Faber

Desire

Anita Faber

Drops

Anna Weichselbaumer "Tell me, what is this mystical secret that lies behind the appearances of our life, and that lives in the heart of our existence?"

(Kahlil Gibran)

What is a painting? From this question the artist Anna Weichselbaumer lays the foundations of her entire artistic research, based on the discovery of the functionalities and hidden sides of art, associated with the human soul. Art not only shows, teaches, but moves something in the soul of the human being, it becomes the means through which existential doubts are revealed, they find forms and, perhaps, answers. The colors and shapes of "FRÜHLINGSHOCH" recall the many facets of the human being, in perennial transformation and in struggle between external and internal, impenetrable reality. The imagination becomes the access key to the hidden meaning of the painting, thanks to which it is possible to see the mystery that surrounds it, a mystery also linked to the existence of the human being. And, to Anna Weichselbaumer the question arises: who are we really? We are like a painting, but much more.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Anna Weichselbaumer

FRÜHLINGSHOCH

Apoorva Mittal How many times we let ourselves be kidnapped by the beauty of a landscape, by the colorful colors of a garden in spring, by a small meadow in bloom. The wonders that nature offers are always able to cause wonder. In contemplating the immensity of its beauty, which comes to us as a charge of energy, the human being is captured by sensations and emotional impulses. Canadian artist Apoorva Mittal manages to transform these imputs into art. The artist’s preparation began at an early age when her mother, also an artist, went to art classes. The various influences she subsequently absorbed from different figures and teachers she met along her path forged her into the artist she is today. As is well known, every artist has his own poetics; that of Apoorva revolves around observation. We can say that her art is generated through her eyes that see and her mind that sediments lines, colors, details reassembling them in a new composition made of visions enriched by familiar points of contact to the artist. Apoorva feels the need to translate on canvas the emotion of a moment. Painting helps her to crystallize experiences and suggestions to then translate them into ethereal and magical works. In this sense, nature is classified as a preferential subject, for its changing and fascinating. In the work "Walk on a Snowy afternoon" Apoorva is fascinated by the colors and shapes created by the snow fallen on a typical Canadian winter afternoon. The apparently bare scene comes alive to the sight of small animals that feed sharing the vegetation that continues to grow undaunted despite the cold temperatures. In "Home" instead we note well the observing nature of Apoorva. The private space is described in detail following lines, shapes and objects scattered in the room. It’s a way to explore physical and mental space by finding your own rhythm as events unfold. The series ends with the work "Pay attention to those leaves" more experimental than the previous ones.

Note in fact the collage created by the artist right at the center of the composition, so as to, precisely, place it at the center of attention. The observation capacity of the artist triumphs in all her works and the viewer, can only get lost in the suspended atmospheres that Apoorva can recreate.

Art Curator Eleonora Varotto

Apoorva Mittal

Walk on a snowy afternoon

Apoorva Mittal

Home

Apoorva Mittal

Pay attention to those leaves

Aranka Székely

At the ninth International Exhibition of 2022, organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and titled "Guardians of Dreams", we present a special selection of five works of art by our dear and faithful artist Aranka Szekely. For the occasion, the M.A.D.S. wants to invite artists to overcome modern sociological barriers, proposing a personal reflection on the content of their imaginary boxes, made of dreams, concepts, thoughts and ideals. According to his own culture, religion and vision, each artist is invited to recreate his own universe, to be creators and above all donors of his own experience and interiority. Another time, the artist wants to confirm her wishes and affirm the importance of her artistic research, in which she manages to give a voice to women and more generally, to the female figure and to tell it in its complexity and in its many facets. In the triptych "Cheeky Wind", "Reverie" and "Veiled nude", the woman protagonist of each work appears sweet, but also sensual, welcoming, but also independent. Her long and enveloping hair, a decorative veil with harmonious sinuosity. "Dearms", is the work that differs most from the others, due to the colors used and the style chosen to represent the protagonists. Love remains as a guiding thread, the complementarity of the subjects, who seem at the same time a single body, but a thousand different bodies. The outlines of the faces, repeated and followed one after the other as in a vortex, represent once again the multiplicity of the characteristics that make up a person. Lastly, "Tango passion", is the unifying point of the previous ones, in which the woman is accompanied by her man in an exciting dance.

Art Curator Carola Antonioli

Aranka Székely

Cheeky Wind

Aranka Székely

Dreams

Aranka Székely

Reverie

Aranka Székely

Tango Passion

Aranka Székely

Veiled Nude

Arina Malukova “When I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful.” (Giorgio de Chirico)

The artworks by Arina Malukova, a contemporary artist of Ukrainian origin who lives and works in New York, are pilgrimages towards distant, dreamlike worlds where man and nature peacefully coexist.

Atmospheres enveloped in a delicate and pleasant silence, accompanied by the scent of wild flowers, characterize her artistic research, in which certain aspects of de Chirico's art, as well as African culture, seem to echo. Indeed, the movement and serenity of the exotic landscapes depicted by Arina Malukova are interrupted at times, leaving the observer astonished after his gaze encounters some silhouettes, on whose heads they carry large baskets. These figures have no faces, they seem as immobile as statues, adorned with gold threads and long dresses. Like de Chirico's mannequins, so mysterious, being devoid of eyes, ears and mouth, they evoke the impossibility of seeing, hearing and speaking. However, recalling the poets and soothsayers of classical mythology, they also evoke the superior ability to investigate reality beyond its phenomenal appearance. At the same time, the choice to cite African culture, where weights are often carried on the head, is a way for the artist to approach a deeply ancient culture linked to an ancestral rituality. Her silhouettes seem to be the pillars of an unreal and dreamlike world so apparently distant, but which we can actually see and reach at any time. The elegance of the language adopted, so rich in details and minutely described elements, lends regality to Arina Malukova's works, accompanying the observer into a metaphysical world, where experience takes on a whole new meaning.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Arina Malukova

Blue Landscape

Arina Malukova

Running Zebras I

Arina Malukova

Sun Flowers Fields

Art by Lingg - Sandra Lingg "It means much to have loved, to have been happy, to have laid my hand on the living Garden, even for a day."

(Luis Borges)

Art tells of our time, illuminates what is uncomfortable, what is hidden. Art can speak of pain, suffering and war. With works of art we also have a chance to remind ourselves of the normality of grief. A painting, it can be sad with us and for us. In front of images, we can feel less alone. But the best-selling postcard in the world is a reproduction of Monet's famous "Water Lilies" from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. This information tells us that we need contact with beautiful things now more than ever because we are burdened by problems that threaten to make us fall into depression or sadness.

Art by Lingg - Sandra Lingg

This is why beauty is important. It is an emblem of hope. Art has the power to make us more complete, balanced and healthy because it contains concentrated doses of qualities we need in our lives. Sandra Lingg's paintings are imbued with the serenity and tenderness that we long for, yearn for, and often lack.

Those gaudy, fun colors spread with pallet knives have the flavor of a beautiful experience, of authentic moments, of flowering meadows, of pawing eager little feet. The artist's images are imbued with life and love of life, pure and genuine feelings on linen.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Art by Lingg - Sandra Lingg

Rhythm and Green Summerlove

Art by Lingg - Sandra Lingg

Brightness overcomes darkness

Art by Lingg - Sandra Lingg

Marriage flowers

Art by Lingg - Sandra Lingg

Summerglow

ARTerans ”The most beautiful and fascinating emotion is the sense of a mystical.” – X-Gen

ARTerans (Rodrigo Terán Suárez) is a visual artist based in México City. After several years of working in Advertising (while painting as a hobby) he decided to pursue a career in his true passion: visual art.

Currently he works with mixed media producing fantastic, exotic, highly colorful and seductive pieces that reflect his fascination for light and color, as well as for the graphic richness of pre-Columbian art.

ARTerans ”The most beautiful and fascinating emotion is the sense of a mystical.” – X-Gen

The artworks ARTerans is presenting in the international art exhibition GUARDIAN OF DREAMS by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, show fantastic surreal scenes, highly details and colorful, he adds many elements allowing the viewer to dive with their imagination and navigate through his dream like scenes. His artworks are absolute masterpieces that catch the viewer attention and bring them to the world of imagination of the artist.

Art Curator Salma Eltoukhy

ARTerans

The consecration of fantasy

ARTerans

Late epiphany

Asta Caplan

The French artist Jean-Étienne Liotard said: "[...] it is much more difficult to be a good colorist than a good draftsman; [...]". The reason of this difficulty lies in the fact that the colors of things change endlessly depending on the light from which they are struck; consequently, it is precisely in the skill of the artist to be able to capture and bring back on canvas the best shades. Asta Caplan not only overcomes this basic difficulty very well, but in addition she has ventured into the creation of a whole series of canvases that have as their only subject parts of a luxurious chandelier, with its infinite games of reflections and sparkles. As a result, we can fully understand all of her talent and commitment to perfecting the art of painting. The oils on canvas by Asta Caplan because of their style, subjects and colors, refer to an aristocratic and noble past where elegance and refinement were the protagonists. The viewer, admiring her works, is catapulted into a past full of luster, in homes whose austere interiors are refined by furniture and sophisticated tapestries. The artist of Finnish origin, currently living in Germany, thus becomes, in these canvases, a painter of domestic intimacy and still life, reconnecting, in a sense, with the Flemish tradition. During the 18° century this type of scenes were considered part of a lower pictorial genre, yet the subjects represented, thanks to the way the artist relates them to each other, thanks to the soft tones, thanks to their immobility, acquire a sense of eternity that confirms the accuracy of the erasure by modern criticism of the division of painting into major and minor genres. On the other hand, how could one consider these wonderful works as inferior? On the contrary, we can talk about a kind of magic that surrounds the works of Asta Caplan: time stops, our breath slows down, our mind empties, far from our chaotic lives, we relax thanks to her works.

This magic is the result of an impeccable technique and a precise and conscious excursion. Asta Caplan is a mature artist and her wonderful works speak for her.

Art Curator Francesca Catarinicchia

Asta Caplan

Arm Chair Travel

Asta Caplan

Tales of the Deep Dance and Sparkle of the Mind I

Asta Caplan

Tales of the Deep Dance and Sparkle of the Mind III

Aswan Diama “Once have the women on your side and you could sell the very world.” (Émile Zola)

The French abstract and figurative painter Aswan Diama concentrates her pictorial production on portraits of women. The female figure becomes the main character of her canvas; in doing so the artist would to praise the role of the woman and pay tribute to her. Her artworks are the representation of how the feminine figure is seen by the artist herself. The woman is depicted in paintings as a woman in all her beauty and purity, as the woman who comforts, the woman who helps, the woman who gives birth to new lives, the woman who gives peace and harmony to the hearts. The essential traits of the portraits’ subjects are painted by figures formed by lines, curves, angles, combined with colours and soft touch textures that restore a warmth, intimate and cosiness sensation. The power of the images created by Aswan Diama is obtained with the mix of cold colours side by side with lively ones, the presence of deep shadows and material density of lines. This rich composition of forms, shapes and shades enables the artist to give to the viewers a strong sense of power that comes to light through delicate and soft feminine portraits. The result can only be paintings that can move, speak and interact with who is looking at them, demonstrating feelings and emotion.

Art Curator Manuela Fratar

Aswan Diama

YMA

Barbara Knuz

The interest in portraiture - and self-portraiture - thus stems from a curiosity that is in absolute continuity with the prime motive of philosophical questioning, namely the question of human nature. "I am another" wrote Rimbaud in 1871, anticipating the fragmentation of identity that would characterise the 20th century. It is a gradual realisation that unhinges the optimistic realism of the 19th century to pave the way for a new realism that, in the narration of the self, envisages invention, permitted but also imposed by the creative process itself.

Barbara Knuz

To paint their own portrait, artists must confront themselves with the mirror, with their own double, but above all, referring to Winnicott, with the mirroring of themselves in the face of the other. Other understood as mother, it comes to pass in this vortex of identity and to comment that therefore the artist herself is her own mother in the concept of the portrait, so perhaps the portrait always becomes selfportrait precisely because of this intrinsic property. Barbara Kunz does a precise job from this point of view, her portraits/self-portraits are mirrors that could mirror her own image as well as our own, we do not know her precisely but we know ourselves through her.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Barbara Knuz

Overthinking

Barbara Knuz

Learn to know me

Beatrice Buccella

Beatrice Buccella was born in the province of Rome on May 11, 1991 she graduated in artistic and architectural studies, experimented with various techniques to find her way up to deepen the digital drawings, realizes the works with the technique of acrylic and tempera. The artist is, for the first time, a guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits an emblematic work entitled "Bee". The work on display is reminiscent of Banksy's Street Art works from some points of view. The artist represents the beekeeper as a vandal, not as a professional, the full suit of the beekeeper is almost a hooded sweatshirt useful to hide the identity of the one who "steals" what does not belong to him: honey from the bees. The work is a metaphor for the world in which we live every day, in which nature is exploited and we constantly take what, in fact, does not belong to us. The work is luminous, the brushstrokes are compact and Beatrice's artistic confidence is perceived as she conveys her message perfectly and decisively. The artist tells the world of bees without actually representing them directly, but on the contrary, she represents their home, and their most precious asset: honey. The ancient Egyptians considered bees as a symbol of rebirth, considered authentic divinities, today the artist gives them a different meaning through her work, in fact, she manages to convey a sense of protection and safeguard due to the importance they have for ecosystems.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Beatrice Buccella

Bee

Bennio E. Walder “Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul” (Vincent Van Gogh)

Art allows the encounter with oneself. In this way, the real reflection and connection of oneself with one's soul, emotions, thoughts and feelings arises. It is possible to build a bridge between the different perspectives, aspects and ways to be of each person, reality and nature, and to express them creatively through art. Bennio E. Walder experienced this encounter with art and with himself in a very difficult time and that is what led him to his artistic endeavor.

His personal commitment to build up something different, big and transformative, to share beauty, harmony and positivity has been turned to the artworld and his artworks have been born. Bennio's paintings share an aesthetic and positive impact on people, the viewer can get lost on the different colors, shapes, details, words, figures or graphic resources understanding their power and need. They are a reminder of "common things" that are more important in life in which there should be a greater focus, such as love, peace, hope and understanding.

Bennio's artworks show exactly the impact and power of art to humanize and transform the own reality.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Bennio E. Walder

Deepest thoughts

Bennio E. Walder

Parts of my mind

Bennio E. Walder

Mr. Matterhorn

Birgitta Lundqvist Through my art I want to inspire you and your fantasy. Most of my paintings can be turned in different directions and give other options to the fantasy. I Just let the brush take me forward in the process and the flow takes place in me. (Birgitta Lundqvist)

Birgitta Lundqvist is welcomed back with great enthusiasm by the international art gallery M.A.D.S. The international art exhibition "GUARDIANS OF DREAMS" is the perfect setting for the new works presented by the artist. Her works are pure expressions of abstractionism that is highly introspective and expresses the feelings and sensitivity of the artist's soul. Birgitta is recognizable by her delicate color palette and elegant forms. The pictorial material, moreover, is the protagonist along with movement, a dynamism that can be described as ecstatic. Finally, Brigitta communicates with the viewer through the depth of content that emerges from her works, a mirror of a reflective and romantic personality.

Outbreak is an explosion of feelings "and that is why I used a lot of water. It shows memories and things I have experienced both in the past and recently. It tells me what I've been through, but it doesn't tell me about the future. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery."

Birgitta Lundqvist

These are the words Birgitta uses to describe her work. The liquid component in this work is essential to describe the intimacy of the artist's reflections. The second work is called Dreams.

"I painted it after a night when I dreamed a lot. It is a struggle between good and bad things, light things and dark things. A mix between thoughts or things that cannot be shown or talked about. And things that are real and need to be talked about." Again, it is crucial to understand how well Birgitta manages to represent the dreamlike component that accompanies this work, which is evident. The struggle is represented by the artist's movement and the color selection that enhances it. Birgitta's paintings are inspired by her inner and outer journeys; she is influenced by both her intimacy and the external context. Birgitta Lundqvist paints based on her feelings, which manifest in her art and symbolize all the fragments of her life, such as thoughts and dreams. She likes to paint intuitively and without any pressure. Abstract and intuitive painting is liberating for her soul, a kind of meditation.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Birgitta Lundqvist

Dreams

Birgitta Lundqvist

Outbreak

Candi Soul Sparkles There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

Candi Soul Sparkles is a young Icelandic artist, with various origins (a bit Irish, French, British). Candi Soul Sparkles is a sunny girl, emotional, deep, full of positive feelings: this personality is fully inserted in his works that become bearers of deep meanings that go beyond the reality of the facts. His soul becomes his style. For the exhibition "Guardians of dreams" in M.A.D.S Art Gallery, she exhibits a romantic and dreamlike enigmatic painted work. The central subjects are a man and a woman, probably two lovers, portrayed as silhouettes of orange color and inserted in an undefined space and time: they are immersed in an evanescent atmosphere, made of pink foaming clouds and in the distance, Just sketched, you can see the walls of a village or castle. Candi Soul Sparkles shows us a serene, sweet scene, but also opens up other meanings. Whether this is a finite love, broken by some event, a tender memory of a past love, or a thought, a dream of an unfulfilled love or a dream of a love that has yet to bloom? Surely we are faced with the representation of the unknown, of the enigma of love in all its nuances, of the feelings, of the inner feelings that an image can make everyone live. Candi Soul Sparkles wants to excite and bring the viewer to analyze his consciousness and his feelings...and it succeeds very well.

Art Curator Giulia Dellavalle

Candi Soul Sparkles

Sacred hearts lovers from a hidden village

Carola Orieta-Sperman

Good and evil, right and wrong, full and empty, reality and dream, matter and thought: opposites in constant battle with each other. Each of us fights this battle every day, each of us seeks a balance, each one would always like to make the best part of himself prevail. In this work entitled "Weight Management", the artist Carola Orieta Sperman confronts us with a representation of this aspect of the life of every human being: as she herself says, materialism and emptiness collide with the creation of a conscious life and conscious. In this journey in free fall that is life, in which everything is unpredictable and unexpected, it is up to each of us to decide to tie ourselves to some ideals rather than others, which can thus guide us in the most difficult, but also daily, choices. In the representation of this battle, Carola adds an extra element, which can guide us in this: the spiritual influence, represented here by the veils.

Strongly believing in something gives us strength, gives us points of reference, gives us a filter through which to observe with a certain look. The creation of this work is a meeting of opposites: here photography meets digital collage. The representation of reality as it appears to our eyes par excellence converses instead, in Carola's work, with the representation of a reality created by the mind and hand of man, by the union of different elements even distant from each other in real life. In this way the artist is able to give an effective vision of an abstract concept, but which is actually so concrete in the life of each of us.

Art Curator Silvia Grassi

Carola Orieta-Sperman

Igneous Energies

Catarina Diaz

Catarina Diaz is a London-based artist, whose artistic expression finds free rein thanks to the use of collage and mixed media. Catarina's artistic work is characterized by the essence of extremely bright and vivid color palettes, expressing her deep admiration for what concerns the female world, investigating the issues concerning identity in relation to the connection with nature. The artist in each work of art combines the female figure with elements of nature that represent, on the one hand, some identity and character traits, on the other elements that invoke the peace and tranquility sought in the chaos that governs the world. Catarina Diaz's pieces are transcendent and ethereal, and in them realism merges with spirituality and surrealism.

Catarina Diaz

Diaz is a permanent artist among the ranks of artists exhibiting during the exhibitions organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits two works of art, very different, but perfectly consistent with the style and intentionality that belong to her. “Deep Blue” represents a woman who is strong and confident in her inner power. A new element in this work is Catarina's choice to use animals as an integral part of the subject: the seahorse as an earring and the fervent fins of a fish as the upper part of a dress. "Dreamly" has a different connotation, in fact, the atmosphere is peaceful and the woman is more vulnerable and fragile, just like the butterflies chosen by the artist.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Catarina Diaz

Deep blue

Catarina Diaz

Dreamly

Chiara Piantanida

Chiara Piantanida is an Italian artist, whose artistic journey begins thanks to the inspiration that comes to her from the works of Frida Kahlo, whose surrealism allows her to find her own sphere of personal artistic expression. The artist's works are characterized by bright colors and the perfect definition of the subjects that Piantanida represents. The surrealist element is the basis of almost all the works that are part of the artist's artistic production and this distinctive feature is also present in the works on display on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams", organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery. "Il Piccolo Principe" is the representative work of the famous story by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; in the world of illustration, "Il Piccolo Principe" has been an interesting point of reference since its inception for those who want to express: "The essential is invisible to the eye". Extremely interesting in Chiara Piantanida's interpretation is the choice not to represent the physiognomic features of the fox and the prince, not to deny their identity, but on the contrary to better define their freedom of expression.

Chiara Piantanida

"Sotto un cielo stellato", presents many elements to be interpreted, the artist chooses to represent the night sky as a semi-sphere containing infinite stars and constellations, at the base of which there are all different houses, which contain different worlds and realities. "We are at home anywhere on this earth, if we carry everything within ourselves.", Thus quotes the phrase that follows the back of the whale placed further down, in what seems to be outside the world, a sea of ​dreams in which everything is achievable, from the polar bear that rules a hot air balloon, to trees with lanterns that sink their roots in the water.

Chiara Piantanida is an artist able to tell real stories, worlds studded with new facets and sources of inspiration capable of deeply striking the observer.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Chiara Piantanida

Il Piccolo Principe

Chiara Piantanida

Sotto un cielo stellato

Claudia Habringer "We force ourselves not to perceive our abyss. And yet, for our whole life, we do nothing but look down, at our physical and psychic abyss, even without perceiving it."

(Thomas Bernhard)

What drives the artist Claudia Habringer to create art is the need to go beyond the concrete side of reality, to nurture personal curiosity and to represent what the universe gives her. The artwork "In resonance with IGOR STRAWINSKY and his Music" is not only a strong reference to man's bond with music, but it is a real declaration of how everything is connected: from people, to nature, to the entire universe. And the colors and lines are the vehicle of the representation of this connection, they are the language through which the artist puts her perceptions into action. What derives from this are impulsive works, confusing at first glance, which nevertheless hide the true meaning of life: a life that is not often regular, clean, a life where sudden things are precisely the diversities that make it interesting and wonderful. Claudia Habringer's art is passion, a search for emotions, for connections with the outside world, with others. It is a journey in constant search of energy, of visions.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Claudia Habringer

In resonance with IGOR STRAWINSKY and his Music

Conrad Beukes

Since time immemorial, man has felt the need to express himself through expressive language that gives voice to his innermost feelings as a remedy against anxieties. The artist Conrad Beukes, who was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, expresses his deepest feelings through his paintings. He explores his consciousness by delving deep into his unconscious. The artist goes beyond aesthetic stereotypes, bypassing rational thought to bring out a deeper reality. The brush runs free on the blank canvas, using different media to give the painting greater expressive force.

Conrad Beukes

The work comes to life involuntarily, almost automatically, and the feelings materialise through symbolic images, Jungian archetypal symbols that sprout from the unconscious. The works that the artist presents in this exhibition refer to rock art, simple images that contain profound meanings. With few details, the artist creates works with a strong emotional impact. The themes of transformation and journey, expressed in these works, symbolise the desire to renew oneself, to abandon fixed points in order to leave room for evolution and change. These works arise from the deepest desires of the unconscious, realised with extreme simplicity, but which convey great strength.

Art Curator Lucrezia Perropane

Conrad Beukes

Dream ride

Conrad Beukes

Trasformation

Cristian Diez-Sanchez However, today's reality makes us increasingly insecure of ourselves, makes us question our thoughts and feelings, leading us to rely on mass thinking. The dream world, otherworldly, spiritual, which has always been linked to a profound vision of ourselves, seems to be moving further and further away from our daily thinking. Artists, more than others, have the gift of knowing how to show, despite everything, their deepest self, their most intimate thoughts and their vision of the world through their works. In the works presented here, the artist Cristian Diez Sanchez manages to populate our reality with characters from mythology, religion and tradition who carry important messages, still relevant today, that lead us to reflect. In fact, Cristian makes his sculptures speak of him in the place, perhaps par excellence, connected to emotional peace and the feeling of light-heartedness, but also of profound reflection on himself and on the world: the beach and the sea. Through the messages that the history of these characters transmit to us, we too, accompanied by them, are pushed to reflect: the courage, strength of spirit and determination of Atalanta; the mercy and sacrifice of Christ for others; fear opposed to intelligence and the challenge won by man that the myth of the Sphinx reports. Culture, religion, society have shaped humanity over the centuries and have given us important values ​that it is our task to keep alive and pass on to those who will come after us. The abstraction and simplification in the smallest elements of the figures emphasizes their expressiveness and their communication. Their gestures, their position, their structure speak much more than a thousand details and a thousand words. Even their being completely alone in a pleasant place emphasizes the feeling of loneliness that often passes through each of us, perhaps even when in reality he is in the midst of a crowd. Loneliness, however, is not physical, but mental, emotional: we often feel misunderstood for what we feel and what we believe. The messages transmitted by Cristian's works, however, are universal and make us understand how many other people like us, who experience our same feelings and thoughts, are actually in the world, ready to accept us.

Art Curator Silvia Grassi

Cristian Diez-Sanchez

Atalanta, human huntress, Greek mythology

Cristian Diez-Sanchez

Christ, Catholic myth. Religion

Cristian Diez-Sanchez

Sphinx (human head), Egyptian and Greek tradition

Dana Hassan "We are the memory we have and the responsibility we take on. Without memory we do not exist and without responsibility perhaps we do not deserve to exist."

(José Saramago)

Concept and narration are the two main threads of the artistic poetics of Dana Hassan, an artist who contrasts a lively and dreamy artistic imagination with an expressive need close to contemporary social issues. Although, on the one hand, the aesthetics of the artwork is taken into consideration through the combination of vibrant colors with an almost studied artistic composition, the whole thought of Dana Hassan sees in art not only a purely aesthetic object but a form of high-impact communication, capable of creating a real change on a social level. "Le temps d’un été" is the representation of the artist's personal experiences, of her lived, but it is also a hymn to change, to hope. The artwork becomes the spokesperson for the desires and needs of others, through the representation of alternative worlds in which memory, experiences and emotions are the real protagonists.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Dana Hassan

Le temps d’un été

Daniel Iván Lavadores Gutierrez "Losing the past means losing the future."

(Wang Shu)

Daniel Iván Lavadores Gutierrez (The LaG) is a Mexican artist whose work arises from the introspection of the passions and conflicts that fuel his existence. Influenced by photographer Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra and Diego Valencia, his art places importance not so much on the aesthetic quality of the work as on its hidden message, which recalls memories, inner torments and emotions experienced firsthand.

The proposed works represent a masterful work with X-rays on a very delicate and personal theme which is the loss of the father. Recalling Japanese culture, the artist places himself at the feet of an ancient illustrative scribe of ancient Japan, and works through metaphors and the juxtaposition of intimate and personal situations with mythological elements. The resulting works are the perfect representation of how personal memories move in our mind, within us, and fluidly emerge, never letting go. Like a real cathartic act, Daniel Iván Lavadores Gutierrez joins his world to that of ancient Japan to bring out hidden sides of himself, past memories that, by influencing the present, help him to overcome difficulties and to accept the present and the present with more serenity.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Daniel Iván Lavadores Gutierrez

Ushi Oni

Daniel Iván Lavadores Gutierrez

The Guardian

Daniel Iván Lavadores Gutierrez

A glance at the river

Daphna Laszlo-Katzor Daphna is an artist of obvious talent. Her ability to create images by blending space and time is phenomenal. She starts by observing reality to recreate one-of-a-kind scenarios, mixing the technique of digital photography with computer graphics. The end result is imbued with a magical, surreal feeling. Like the work 'Rooms,Repentance' in which a boy on his back and a woman surrounded by cats are placed in a digitally constructed space. A dreamlike atmosphere. In the background a choice, a door and a window. The colours favour the viewer's immersion into the image. The blue is mesmerising, addictive and contrasts with the darker, more mysterious black. The subjects are realistically realised and their appearance allows one to identify with them. A bad dream or a psychotic effect? Daphna lets the audience give an interpretation to her works, a subjective meaning. This is the beauty of her art, it is open to multiple information and the artist does not force the viewer to an unambiguous vision. This artwork explores the human psyche. An endless loop of thoughts that is transformed into tangible, three-dimensional images.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Daphna Laszlo-Katzor

Rooms,Repentance

Denise Grossman

Denise Grossman, presents “My Cup Runneth," “Evolution” and “Ambivalence” for the “Guardians of dreams” Mixed Reality art exhibition at M.A.D.S. Art gallery. The first artwork manifests grateful and hopeful purple tones surrounding white delicate flowers, which are being presented as an offering to an outstanding energy waiting for the embrace of the thankful gift. “Evolution” portrays how nature listens to how time passes and with it creates a richness to be contemplated as a result of patience and wisdom.

The artist uses warm tones to depict an unavoidable moment, which has to do with the blooming renaissance of nature. Warm tones are needed to witness constant endings. The “Ambivalence” of nature wanders and discovers how imperative is duality in order to testify passion and calmness. The rule always applies, after turmoil tranquility splashes its way into a new beginning. Denise Grossman illustrates a breaking wave just in time to take a deep breath before the contemplation of infinite possibilities. Blue cool tones are required with bold traces to comprehend the ambivalence of nature’s outcome. “We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.” - H.G. Wells. Be vigilant of what you desire, it will come true once you are thankful towards its process and accept it with patience and passion. Denise Grossman perceives her strength to acknowledge her dreams.

Art Curator Karla Peralta Málaga

Denise Grossman

My Cup Runneth

Denise Grossman

Evolution

Denise Grossman

Ambivalence

Dina Hosseini “Painting is a way, for me, to discover the mystery of this world, the wonder of seeing for the first time and experiencing creation like our creator” (Dina Hosseini)

Dina Hosseini's abstractism is very intense and profound. Dina takes reality and deconstructs it.

She presents a vision of the world and of the human being that goes through an introspective and reflective phase and is developed through her creativity, artistic talent, and garge ability to communicate what she feels. Dina presents The eyes of the universe at the Guardians of Dreams international art exhibition in the M.A.D.S. international art gallery. Our artist describes her work with the following words "None of us knows exactly when everything will end or begin, I only know that there is a common point. When there was no one and nothing, when everything was from the beginning." Her view of the universe and things is evidently enigmatic, and she expresses this both graphically and in her words. This is indicative of a complex and deep personality. This is accompanied by a cyclic, circular vision of things. The eyes she makes are as if in whirling motion and give life to broad abstract scenarios. Dina was born in 1990 in Tehran into a family of artists. She studied pictorial art at the university of art and architecture and has been teaching drawing, painting, history and philosophy of art at the Bisu art academy for 15 years. Today she gives us her philosophical view of the world.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Dina Hosseini

The eyes of the universe

Doan K Doan K is a Korean visual artist who uses a mixed technique. Starting with photography and then using graphic tools and 3D art, he creates original and creative images. Fundamental to his artwork are light and shadow, the true protagonists of his creations. Doan K is a keen observer of reality. He analyses details that often escape the human eye and makes fleeting moments eternal. Doan K captures reality for what it is, without filters or fictions. His images are true, deep and elegant. In 'Reflection' he not only plays with light but also with layers. Hues and times are mixed, removing the space-time barrier. Everything is balanced. The viewer is enveloped in a realistic yet dreamy atmosphere, still in space and dilated in time. The street lights and passers-by are perfect to convey this sense of everyday life. Doan K captures the lights and makes them the protagonists of the image. Doan K is able to project the viewer into other places and times, using his art that is without boundaries.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Doan K

Reflection

Dziuginta Didziokaite “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” (Paul Cézanne)

Evanescent image of a church in a desolate landscape. The work by the artist Dziuginta Didziokaite harks back to the Surrealist movement. The darkness itself, guides the reader to a poetic state, for which he or she will not interpret the work through the use of the spirit, but with the imagination.

Behind this ineffable landscape hides the artist's perception, which refers to a state of mind, a period and a precise place. Behind this landscape, therefore, lies the author's personality, his perception of the world and of the journey. Behind these colours hides a specific language for putting a dreamlike fantasising set-up on paper: the lack of grammatical limits and the search for the symbols of reality. They seem to be the fruit of instantaneous impressions of a journey, an encounter, a scene taken from a novel. From this style, the resulting series of mental associations, juxtapositions of images, symbols that evoke memories, a collection of objects that refer the mind to a place, are also left free. It is a landscape with a serene appearance, but one that conceals a trait of the artist's feeling. The intention seems to be not to depict a real environment, but to go beyond and transcend the earthly plane. This unconstrained landscape is created to make the viewer lose their bearings and to give the impression of moving without restriction, with great freedom. The viewer is thus catapulted into this dreamlike world that gradually loses all traces of civilisation, leaving an intimate atmosphere between him and the artist. Through a clean and light technique, the artist takes us to a place that only makes sense if it is experienced by the observer as a whole and to the horizon line of memories and personal experience. The landscape is without place, without chaos, geography loses a coordinate, becoming a metaphor for a place where our soul can be found in a memory.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Dziuginta Didziokaite

February

Edward Bakst

The vortex is a void, a threshold of passage, a space of articulation, a channel between past and future, without substance or individuality in itself, generating a spiral movement of reality. It is an energetic structure that spans reality, the virtual, society, the arts and the psyche, and it is amazing how it can be used as an analogical tool to interpret the world and account for its differences. In front of Edward Bakst's works of art, we find ourselves invaded and enraptured from a psychic-perceptual point of view. The experience that takes place is similar to that of sleep and how it is in symbiosis with perception.

Edward Bakst

In fact, the same dream experience as the experience of art is to be considered as a psychic-perceptual event. It must be specified, however, that sensation is not perception, since it is not clear and distinct, as Descartes would say, and has, according to Merleau-Ponty, a 'pre-intentional status'. With sensation, we have before us sensible qualities that are not well specified, never definitive or defined: sensation is that sense of vagueness before perception-understanding. Thus sensation in turn is a vortex. Bakst's art thus becomes the fuse and catalyst of an active process of aesthetic experience, the incipit to guide the self to the beginning of a mystical and symbolic questionnaire in which to lose oneself and find oneself again.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Edward Bakst

Imagine

Edward Bakst

Despair

Edward Bakst

Equilibrium

Edward Bakst

Torment

Elena Brandi

Elena Brandi, aka AguaPurpura is an Italian artist, with an eclectic artistic expressiveness and, as the artist herself defines herself, multi-expressive. Brandi was born in Milan and graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, then obtained a master's degree in Design: Production, Edition, Diffusion at the Facultad de Bellas Artes in Granada. The artist is, for the first time, a guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits an ethereal, transcendental work, with an incredible aesthetic taste and great visual and chromatic impact. "La Sacerdotessa" is a work full of visual elements whose illustration demonstrates Brandi's expressive depth and the ability to tell stories through the image. The work is part of a series of Tarots that come together in a project called "Tarocchi AcquaLuce", it is a work in progress that will culminate in the creation of a deck of cards for divination and energy reading. Emblematic of this series is the artist's choice to manipulate the work digitally, after having finished the work on paper, and this provides and creates a deep atmosphere, with a sensation of almost metallic reflection due to the light. As the artist herself explains "La Sacerdotessa" is the Arcanum II of the 22 Major Arcana, the work is rich in symbolic elements and references to myths, legends, beliefs of different types: we pass from the reference to Artemis (Goddess of the Hunt), to the book she holds in her lap as a representation of wisdom and concentration, passing through the Pillars of Hercules which are represented on the sides of the back of the throne on which the Priestess sits. The work is a catalyst for attention, every detail brings with it curious questions and deep interest on the part of those who are lucky enough to be able to observe it.

Elena Brandi almost presents herself as the "storyteller" of the spirit connected to energy and aura.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Elena Brandi

La Sacerdotessa (Arcano II)

Elena Zelenina Elena Zelenina grants me the privilege of collaborating with her again at "Guardians of Dreams". A romantic delicacy composed by light tracks composes "but I love you", a masterpiece of love and art, which seems to want to collect two hearts in one. Two people who love each other, who touch each other, hold hands and look at each other as if that was the right time to choose. The choice to bring the color of love closer not to the typical red, but to blue: an abysmal color, which promises depth and indissolubility. Those curved lines coming out of the heart seem to be roots, ready to grow and unravel more and more, just as that feeling does. Oz has just the dreamy and magical traits recalled by the concept. The figure is surrounded by a greenish yellow background that manages to frame it perfectly and put it in a position of absolute protagonism, in its purple and floral majesty.

Dreamer instead recalls all other emotions: the work is a watercolor, another technique used by the artist, which manages to create an atmosphere of fusion between colors and sensations. The delicacy with which Elena Zelenina always manages to realize her works is disarming, as she is always able to create a balance and generate in us observers a spark of peace, serenity. Everything in his masterpieces seems to be in search of that serenity that, too often, seems to get out of hand. Admiring the strokes, the brushstrokes, the composition of the subjects and the figures seems to be part of a process within us, of an inner journey from which we will surely come out enriched in every sense that we can even imagine..

“I consider myself lucky because I do not find it hard to love, but the source of the feeling feels like such a mystery.”

(Elena Zelenina)

Art Curator Sara Grasso

Elena Zelenina

but I love you

Elena Zelenina

OZ

Elena Zelenina

A Dreamer

Elina Melgin “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” (Helen Keller)

The artworks by Elina Melgin, a Finnish contemporary artist, are otherworldly journeys in landscapes where boundaries and shapes dissolve, nullifying all points of reference. Soft mists envelop the space, dense in warm colors that mingle, giving rise to new settings, where everything seems to vanish. The subject is led to a complete abstraction, pushing the observer to lose himself, to induce him into enjoying the beauty of color. Suspended atmospheres where each of our senses is activated in search of answers, amplifying our sensitivity not only to our surroundings, but also to our soul. In the three paintings (“Garden of a Sleaping Beauty”; “My Forest”; “Wanderers red horizon”) on display at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery during the GUARDIANS OF DREAMS exhibition, we notice how these aspects are characteristic of Elina Melgin's style. Color takes on an intense significance, becoming a bearer of emotions and a point of contact with the viewer of the piece. The main colors used are red and blue, and both carry a different emotional charge of fundamental importance to the artist. The first conveys strength and energy, while the second protects. The choice of color is not random and stems from the artist's needs during the creative act, as a moment of pure meditation and estrangement from reality. Elina Melgin's canvases are agglomerates of emotions and sensations, gently blending into soft mists, preventing our gaze from seeing clearly. She draws us away from sight to let ourselves be guided by the feelings aroused by color, creating a moment of encounter in which we can feel the emotion of the creative act on our skin.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Elina Melgin

Garden of a Sleaping Beauty

Elina Melgin

My Forest

Elina Melgin

Wanderers red horizon

Elisabetta Amoruso

Elisabetta Amoruso is an arista of emotions, feelings and thoughts that often alter our feeling, overwhelming it. In the three works presented at M.A.D.S Art Gallery, the young artist deals with a very sensitive topic that we often wish was only a dream. 'It's only in my head'; 'Odette' and 'Shadows of the past' are three works that are very similar to each other, both in their meaning and in their artistic rendering and realisation. Through the use of subdued, yet highly visible colours, Elisabetta has interpreted in a delicate way an emotional and psychological malaise that many people in today's society share. The dream that all this is <<just in my head>> or the memories of a negative period are not so much dreams as nightmares of which we ourselves are the guardians. Elisabetta's figurative art associated - via the QRcode with a very touching and melancholic video is the depiction of real and personal events. The artist shows great skill in the use of colours and in the very different, if similar, depiction of the protagonists and the elements that inhabit the scene. In fact, each painting is different, each position of the girl portrayed in it is different and reflects exactly what the title and sentiment suggests. Just as in a dream, which is the artist's own, but which is often told through sharing, so Elisabetta makes her own feeling, a point of sharing with her audience.

Art Curator Martina Stagi

Elisabetta Amoruso

È solo nella mia testa

Elisabetta Amoruso

Odette

Elisabetta Amoruso

Ombre del passato

Elzbieta Wilk “You tap in to this oneness and become part of the universe as a whole.”

(Stephen Richards)

These canvases are immersed in creative thinking. They show us as through a telescope pointed at the sky the contemplation of parallel and future universes, of fulfilled and happy realms, without bombs, where the soul closed to the din of the disordered world works on an art that is consolation. Thinking of the great artists of the past, these works remind me of Miró ones. He was convinced that art should fulfill that inner need that man feels at the moment when he wants to escape from present reality, to take refuge in a habitable, reconciled world, and thus discover the religious essence and the magical sense of things.

Elzbieta Wilk, like Miró, seeks that atmosphere and light that can paint the earth she inhabits and especially the sky above her. Miró therefore, makes the series of Constellations that see the light of day at a time when the denunciation against the brutality of man's action against his fellow man and against the rest of creation becomes more bitter. Wilk is concerned with cosmic consciousness, the given thought on which the whole is based. The artist through her painting seems to want to affirm that no matter how great, evil cannot completely degenerate the world.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Elzbieta Wilk

Cosmic consciousness

Emily Lay “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.”

(Marc Chagall)

Art as a cure for the spirit, art as a haven where to take refuge, art as a tool to express oneself without any fear and shame. Emily Lay is a self-taught contemporary artist, who has found unexpected happiness in the magical world of brushes and colors. Sometimes you have to go a long way before you find peace and harmony. Life is a long journey during which we encounter climbs, descents, and intersections where we are in difficulty when faced with the choice of a direction. Existence is a continuous search: increase your knowledge, have new experiences, and let yourself be overwhelmed by what your emotions suggest to you. "Tekhelet" was created in 2022 with the alcohol ink technique. The color contrast that we see is surprising: the blue explored in different shades is illuminated by gold - a symbol of light and energy. The title is very suggestive and behind it lies an ancient story: the Tekhelet is defined as the color of the high priests' ceremonial clothes and the fringes that decorate the ritual cloaks. The artist was able to treat the ink with great skill: light blue and midnight blue - which at times looks like purple - meet and mix, reminding the image of an infinite sky illuminated by the moon or a calm ocean on which the rays of the sun are reflected. Emily invites the viewers to navigate in the blue of her painting, starting a journey whose departure is known, but whose arrival they do not know. Try it, dive in, don't stop.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

Emily Lay

Tekhelet

Emily Marie Alice Peters What unique sensations the stormy skies give, the moments before the fury of nature is unleashed. It is the restrained energy ready to be liberated that so fascinated the painters of English Romanticism in the early nineteenth century. Romantic poets regarded nature as a living force and a manifestation of God. Nature became the main source of inspiration and a means of transmitting moral truths. Painters, on the other hand, combine this vision with the pleasure that comes from the contemplation of a grandiose and frightening natural spectacle at the same time. Sublime, in fact. Dark clouds pierced by tongues of light that illuminate the surrounding landscape in a disconcerting way. The Dutch artist Emily Marie Alice Peters embraces this poetics translating it to the contemporary. After almost 30 years of studies, her artistic research focuses on the representation of landscapes in turmoil. In her work "Faded Lands 4", light spreads after the storm. The sky is not yet clear and blends with the landscape. The light in this case also takes on a connotation of hope, the beauty to cling to when everything else disappears. In "Faded Lands 6", on the other hand, the atmosphere is darker, the color backgrounds become abstract and get lost on the horizon. Diagonal rows of vegetation give rhythm to the composition by lighting it in color. It’s almost ghostly, the feeling you can feel watching "Faded Lands 7" is the only work in the series where the landscape appears more recognizable. The fog that enveloped the previous works stretches, revealing a row of trees and a frozen pond full of reflections that intrigue the viewer’s eye.

When the artist works with color and water, she perceives the generative force of art. The masses of color move independently on the canvas. This technique almost accompanies the hand of Emily suggesting the final composition. It is an innate signal, which only the sensitive souls of the artists can capture. When the work itself speaks, the artist becomes the means chosen by art to give shape to new representations and sensations. It’s a great privilege and together, a great responsibility.

Art Curator Eleonora Varotto

Emily Marie Alice Peters

Faded Lands 4

Emily Marie Alice Peters

Faded Lands 6

Emily Marie Alice Peters

Faded Lands 7

Enrica Toce "Who has the imagination, how easily create a world out of nothing."

(Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer)

In reference to her scientific training, Enrica Toce's art proves to be very dynamic and in continuous experimentation. Colors take on the role of undisputed protagonists, guardians of the hidden truth that lies behind artistic creation, a truth that can only be discovered through careful meditation. Her artworks, in fact, recall observation, reflection on the various color combinations, which seem to merge and blend in a continuous dance. The play of light and shadow that is created reflects the artist's interiority and the whole creative process proves, for her, almost like a therapeutic practice, which pushes her to reveal the deepest sides of her self to reflect them on canvas and revive them by the observer. Enrica Toce's artworks aim at dialogue, sharing and creating a bridge of dialogue between her soul and that of those who find themselves in front of her works.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Enrica Toce

ÁPEIRON (ἄπειρον)

Enrica Toce

BATTITI

Enrica Toce

SINESTESIA

ESCH The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. (Eleanor Roosevelt)

In the artworks admired during the Guardians of Dreams exhibition, ESCH's creative exuberance found a muse eager to cry out for justice. The ignominious war that broke out in her hometown pushed the artist to dwell with her mind on the pivotal places of her childhood, and on the feelings that emerged when she saw them torn apart by a battle that knows no mercy. ESCH has managed to convey the this dramatic situation into art, to process it internally and express it externally. In Angel, the artist places the viewer in front of a magnificent metaphor between dreams and angels. They can be bearers of positivity like the most sublime desires or negativity like the most terrifying of nightmares, and this gap is visually realized with dense brushstrokes of bright and vibrant acrylics, which lash the canvas with energetic resolve. This ideal dualism gives way to Light's darker and more somber vision. If there was a veil of hope in Angel, now ESCH represents the meanest face of armed clashes, and puts observers in a position to feel part of an anonymous audience, forced to undergo - with fear and trepidation - the violent actions that unfold on the grim theater of war. But there is more. The feeling of horror that spreads in the gloomy scenario seems however preferable to the objectivity of a manifest and visible horror, which a cold and merciless light reveals to the astonished gazes of the onlookers. Azov Sea apparently distracts the mind from the ruinous effects of war, and leads us to admire an expanse of sea of enchanting beauty, crossed by two ships. The work offers an intimate reflection on melancholy towards loved places and people, divided both by a real and sentimental distance. As the small ships depart from each other going towards opposite ends, so the faceless violence of war forces us to separate from others and above all from what we have been up to that moment. The artistic intent of ESCH, on the other hand, finds in creativity the vigor to counter this annihilating trend, and shakes our consciences with a moving affirmation of one's identity, of what has been and of what will continue to be, in spite of every injustice.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

ESCH

Angel

ESCH

Azov Sea

ESCH

Light

Esther De Botton Esther is an extremely empathetic artist who seeks confrontation with her audience through art. Art is for her a stimulus that highlights the best part of herself, which helps her to convey joy every day. She contemplates the world around her, nature is one of her greatest sources of inspiration. Her artworks explore harmony and inner peace, they are feminine and elegant. Like her artwork 'Woman's dream 2' dominated by dreams and irrational magic. The colours blend like a whirlwind of emotions ready to explode. The light emanating from the artwork is astounding.

Esther describes the feeling of being a woman in this hostile world, how the feminine vision always leads to positivity and harmony. The painting appears spontaneous, refined and imbued with magic. The same magic one feels when facing the horizon, so unknown but so fascinating. A dreamlike, abstract vision that reconnects the soul with nature through the use of colours such as blue, yellow and orange. Serenity transpires from the evanescence of the coloured hues, from the nonchaotic but irrationally balanced swirl. Art is therapeutic for Esther, allowing her not only to express her feelings but also to relate to others, sharing joy but also fears and insecurities.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Esther De Botton

Woman's dream 2

Evelin Dogan In dreams you can be the spring, the earth, the breath of new beauty. (Evelin Dogan)

Evelin Dogan is a self-taught artist from Slovenia. She sees painting as a safe and comfortable place and she believes that art can unite for a more serene world. Evelin has a strong sense of analysis of the world around her and the sensations it conveys. Very often portrays natural events, the world of vegetation and animals with a particular and recurring style that I would define symbolist: technically her paintings are created with colors mainly dark tint contrasted by more vivid colors, bright and energetic, creating gloomy and suggestive atmospheres. In "Natural Beauty" (2022), the painting exhibited in M.A.D.S. Art Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition "Guardians of Dreams", Evelin investigates the world of dreams in relation to the beauty of nature. Nature is represented by a big birch in the center of the painting: its roots, large and powerful, seem to be the figure of a human, being clinging to the trunk of the tree. Nature is authentic and made of absolute harmony and perfection: through it we can imagine and dream, become part of its beauty..in the dream you can be the spring, the earth. Evelin is an expressive artist and a sensitive of the world. She wants to teach us to look at it as she sees it, full of feelings.

Art Curator Giulia Dellavalle

Evelin Dogan

Natural beauty

Feimo Zhu "You must keep the child in you alive: without him you cannot create."

(Joni Mitchell)

The art of the young artist Feimo Zhu explores the vast and increasingly avant-garde world of illustration, demonstrating a high communicative ability through the creation of original and colorful works, recalling the world of cartoons and comics. Her works, with a strong oriental flavor, are made up of symbols and elements relating to the oriental tradition that interact with each other and generate, in the eyes of the observer, a strong aesthetic impact. The colors, not too saturated, are combined with an artistic narrative that recalls, as in the case of “Chinese Alice in Wonderland”, stories of the narrative tradition on a thematic level which, however, are reworked in a contemporary key. For Feimo Zhu it is important not only the reworking of the characters, on an aesthetic level, in a modern and oriental key but above all the attention to details that also become the real protagonists of the entire work: details that do not escape the eye of the observer, who is invited to decipher every corner of the work and to provide his own personal interpretation. Artistic research and meticulous aesthetic attention are fundamental elements that push the artist to continuous experimentation, from which all her interiority and an original but innovative style emerge, which recalls tradition but with an eye to the future.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Feimo Zhu

Chinese Alice in Wonderland

Fluid Queen

Escaping from the truth of reality, men have always found in dreams the safe haven in which the unconscious mind is able to make up impossible scenarios and bizarre compositions that allow the creative mind to be free from any boundary in society. When trying to defy reality, movements like Surrealism, highlighted the importance of the irrational, the contradictory and the strange in the ordinary, making dreams the new reality to be worth considering. Letting the subconscious free in the act of creating, it is possible to get closer to the realm of dreams. For the artist Fluid Queen, painting is the activity that transports her to the nest of surrealism and protects her from the danger of the rational world.

Here proposed, her work “Trapped in lace” is the metaphorical representation of the safe place that elevates her while creating. Abstract figures are placed in the deep blue background, almost as if they were suspended in the sky. Well-defined and edgy geometrical shapes are enfolded in the contrasting soft hand-knitted doodling, symbolising protection from the threat given by the defined shapes. Because in the realm of dreams you can find the safe haven, the nest, where no danger can happen.

Art Curator Francesca Mamino

Fluid Queen

Trapped in lace

Francisco Pla Martos "Looking at great art makes you forget your own name, forget even where you're at. It can bring on depression and physical exhaustion. Amnesia. Panic. Heart attack. Collapse."

(Chuck Palahniuk) Stendhal syndrome is a psychosomatic condition that causes tachycardia, dizziness, vertigo, confusion and hallucinations in individuals placed in the presence of works of extraordinary beauty. According to Freud , artists through their works communicate deep-seated childhood conflicts, repressed Oedipal fantasies that manifest themselves in the form of artistic expression, as happens with dreams, which is why a work of art can cause a moment of enlightening revelation so strong that the body yields to emotion and falls helpless. One also thinks of the infant's pre-art experience: the encounter with the mother, her voice and breasts, a perturbing event is comforting of light after nine months of lulling, perfect darkness. Francisco Pla's works aim to create a moment of pure enjoyment of art, the image as a magnetic mirror that attracts like and opposites at the same time and with the same intensity. The geometric details, the use of the symbolic, are all tricks of the trade that add meaning to the painting, but it is its inherent attractive force that keeps us glued to the image, to enjoy its magical skill to illuminate us.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Francisco Pla Martos

INFERNO DI DANTE

Francisco Pla Martos

STILL LIFE

Francisco Pla Martos

DRAGON FIGHT

Fransie Malherbe Frandsen

Blasphemy reveals itself as the most disrespectful, rude and trivial offspring of what the Greeks called 'impiety', or neglect or aversion to what is sacred, and its companion 'heresy', another dangerous deviation from orthodoxy and insubordination to authority. After more than thirty years, the work 'Piss Christ' by Andres Serrano continues to arouse that healthy restlessness that invites a deeper investigation of its meaning. When, in 1987, Andres Serrano photographed a small white plastic crucifix immersed in a liquid mixture of blood and urine, so much controversy ensued that it became one of the world's bestknown contemporary representations of the crucifixion.The problematic knot between artists and religion has not been unravelled. If we talk about God in art, it is through the screen of irony, irreverence or even blasphemy. So while artistic practice in the West aspires to be totally free, it is perhaps censoring the search for answers to the deepest questions. Fransie Malherbe Frandsen finds her own way of investigating the religious and iconographic question of religion in art, borrows the elements most present in history and bends them to her will. An annoyed, listless, absent Virgin Mary. An impalpable woman of our times.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Fransie Malherbe Frandsen

Temptation

Gabriele Pandiani "The purest and most thoughtful minds are those who love colors."

(John Ruskin)

Although music plays a fundamental role in the life of the artist Gabriele Pandiani, it is the image, with its incisive stillness, that is mostly used within his artistic production. Almost like a photographic shot, the artist's works stop an instant, freeze it in time and allow a more penetrating and profound reflection, which however does not stop in the present, but recalls the past and the future. Through a precise video processing, to which is added the recording of the parameter automations through MIDI controllers, Gabriele Pandiani extracts the final frame, processes it and creates the final work, which, although living a life of its own, emanates an intense energy as the result of a greater work. His artworks speak of us, of the concrete world, with a watchful eye on the past and on what can manifest itself in the future. Gabriele Pandiani's art is fluid contemporaneity, as fluid is the skill with which he weaves saturated and impactful chromatic tones and contrasts them with strong images, through a recurring symbolism in today's world.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Gabriele Pandiani

Diplomatic Efforts

Gabriele Pandiani

Energy and Future

Gabriele Pandiani

Play Colors, Not Weapons

Gabriele Pionteck “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.” (Georgia O’Keeffe) Curiosity, creativity and experience have animated the experimentation of artist Gabriele Pionteck, who is always searching for a new and different artistic expression. Using the acrylic technique, the artist takes us by the hand into a place that only makes sense if it is experienced in its entirety and to the fullest extent by the observer, up to that horizon line that corresponds to the imagination. Hohe Tatra is a landscape without place, where geography loses its boundaries, the sea loses its density and motion, and everything becomes a metaphor for a place where our soul and body can find peace. The moon with its matter also helps in the metaphor that unites man's soul with its physical equivalent. This feeling of peace and serenity is the magic that any observer lost in the wild urbanisation can find in the composition of his paintings. Gabriele Pionteck paints without a concrete idea but follows her curiosity until it takes shape and from that shape, landscapes and mystical representations come alive. The paintings therefore do not simply describe long physical stretches but translate real states of mind. They are a synthesis of the painting of the Impressionists, who invite us to look at the painting in its entirety, and the symbolist metaphor, where each brushstroke is a reference to the next. Finally, there is a sense of mystery typical of landscape pieces that lead you towards an elsewhere, even though this has its referent in reality. Gabriele Pionteck's painting, as she defines it, can indeed be well represented by this adjective abstractly realistic.

Finally, the painting has something synthetic about it; a bond that attracts the viewer and catapults him directly into the landscape; one can perceive the wind in the mountains, the smell of nature, feel the moment of the sky and the moon that together describe distant horizons perceptible only through the eyes of the soul.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Gabriele Pionteck

Hohe Tatra

GeiuLiisi

GeiuLiisi is a self-taught freelance artist from Estonia, living in Finland. She loves to experiment and try different techniques and not limit herself to one style. Her artistic research is a continuous journey through which she tries to discover herself and inner soul. Strong brush strokes that create texture live along with soft fading ones on her canvas, creating a dialogue and contrast, between the softness and harshness of life. Her artworks are perfectly balanced in composition and colors, and despite her moving back and forth between abstract and figurative paintings, one can recognize her own distinctive personality through her paintings.

Art Curator Salma Eltoukhy

GeiuLiisi

Golden Coast

GeiuLiisi

Thumbelina's had Enough

GeiuLiisi

Hearts of gold bleed the most

Georgia Metheniti "You still have to have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

(Friedrich Nietzsche)

For the artist Giorgia Metheniti, art is care, support, art is home. It is a place to hide, to feel safe and to be able to free who we really are. The therapeutic aspect of art finds its roots in her art, which becomes the mirror of her soul and, also, of reality. But art, unlike people, does not judge, but welcomes every interpretation, every emotion, without distinction. Georgia Metheniti's artworks represent dreaming realities, distant from the concrete one we live daily, as distant is the deep and personal inner world of each of us. They speak of dreams, suffering, pain, but also of hope, strength and rebirth. They are artworks with a surrealist taste and, through the shooting of subjects with an unusual and curious tone, they speak to us of the artist's soul, a soul in constant search of discovery, of adventure without a logical thought, a path to follow. Georgia Metheniti tells us about a dream world, our inner world, often hidden but which contains mystery, magic and emotions.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Georgia Metheniti

Free ticket to Dreamland

Georgia Metheniti

Facing my own land of sadness

Georgia Metheniti

The existential circus

Gil Lachapelle

Gil Lachapelle is an artist born in the land of Burgundy, who today lives in Macon in the north of Lyon.

The artist is, for the first time, a guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and, on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams", he exhibits three works of art full of pathos and an ethereal and fascinating atmosphere. "Angéline" is the representation of a little girl with deeply expressive blue eyes, in this work Lachapelle proves to be an expert in conveying feelings and emotions through his works: the observer feels observed by the careful and sure gaze of the little girl protagonist of this work. Emblematic is the technique that the artist uses to create his works: acrylic, oil paint and knives. "Tin Hinan" brings back the importance of the artist given to the look and eyes, thanks to which Lachapelle is able to convey his feelings, history, and emotions. The observer manages to enter into deep empathy with the subjects represented by the artist. “Gil Lachapelle tells us the stories of these women and invites us to dialogue internally with her for unique encounters, full of emotions and humanity…”. Therefore, we perceive that profound parallelism between aesthetics and the essence of the soul understood just as "the eyes are the mirror of the soul". Another interesting subject for the artist is the creation of seascapes such as "Voiles en mer" which transmits, from a certain point of view, a sense of anxiety, but on the other a profound sense of freedom. Gil Lachapelle expresses himself through his works and this allows him to reach the observer directly and in a profound way.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Gil Lachapelle

Angéline

Gil Lachapelle

Tin Hinan

Gil Lachapelle

Voiles en mer

Gloria Keh “The artist in his calling of interpreter creates because he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like death”. (Joseph Conrad) Gloria Keh is a Singaporean contemporary artist whose artistic expressiveness stems from years of experience in the field. Her artworks tend to take the subject to almost complete abstraction, not only through painting, but also by intervening with mixed media such as collage. They often deal with important themes and in the case of the work 'Who will pick My Bones', exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery for the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, the artist talks about her own death. The work is the cover of an art book, created by the artist herself, in which the theme is the same and stems from a poem contained in it. The mixed technique that characterizes this artwork, where painting meets collage, allows the artist to express her vision with intensity, creating a sense of three-dimensionality that destabilizes the observer. We see a face torn at the mouth, and in its place a sentence reads the title of the work "Who will pick My Bones?". The two eyes observe us, while all around chaos reigns. On the black background, multiple agglomerations of thin white signs agitate, arranged in a confused manner, as if the surface had been scratched. The only color that catches our attention is red, painted in the top right-hand corner near one of the two eyes, where the background resembles a nebula. Gloria Keh, now in her seventies, chooses to talk to us about her emotions and thoughts on the subject of death, from which none of us can escape. She does so with delicacy, there is no anger in this work, only the need to discover herself. A set of emotions directed towards a destiny we all share, where the intention is, as Gloria herself says, 'to see death as a horrid beauty'.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Gloria Keh

Who will pick My Bones

Gregory Logan Dunn "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." (Joseph Conrad)

The superimposition of two objects implies, by definition, that the surfaces of two bodies fit together, so that part of the surface of each object is concealed by the body of the other object involved.

Contemporary American artist Gregory Logan Dunn has made the superimposition of pictorial layers his signature style, and the vision of the underlying layers is only possible thanks to the transparency and thickness of the surface layers. The works created by Gregory Logan Dunn appear as the result of the emulsion between two or more liquids in which good is submerged by evil. The patches of colour are spread on the canvas with a sharp, rapid gesture whereby the paint overlaps without ever mixing.

Gregory Logan Dunn

The works are a means for the artist to tell the viewer a story, the story of contemporary society, of profound individual and collective suffering in which beauty and justice too often succumb to the harshness and crudity of evil gestures and actions. The dominant colours in Gregory Logan Dunn's works are green, the primary colours and their nuances. Of all of them, red is the undisputed protagonist of many of his works. For example, in "Dead Ice", one of the eight works exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery on the occasion of the GUARDIANS OF DREAMS exhibition, the contrast between the red of blood and the blue of ice is particularly evident, as is the rawness of this image. This colour, symbol of passion, strength and violence, more or less evident, is always present as if to represent the vehemence with which man inhabits the world.

Art Curator Laura Timpone

Gregory Logan Dunn

Battersea

Gregory Logan Dunn

Black Snow

Gregory Logan Dunn

Blue Fuse

Gregory Logan Dunn

Dead Ice

Gregory Logan Dunn

Entropy

Gregory Logan Dunn

Ghost Internment Camp

Gregory Logan Dunn

Immolating Dream

Gregory Logan Dunn

Methuselah Air

Hadir Hammam Form itself, even if completely abstract has its own inner sound. (Wassily Kandinsky)

The potential of abstract art is what drives Hadir Hammam's creative flair not to limit her intuition to the exteriority of the surrounding reality, but to go fully into it, grasping its truest essence. The Egyptian artist places before the eyes of the spectator the manifestations of a passionate and inspired nature, from which to let oneself be carried away, as happens with A Change of Heart. With a few strokes, Hadir creates a suggestive and fascinating work, which seems to invite the observer to glimpse his own interpretation, without being distracted by a single vision. The artist grants the possibility of seeing a plurality of faces, profiles, figures, animals, which follow one another and change to the blink of an eye. The fil rouge are the shades of color, which have a chromatic range between gray, pink, black and white, also found in Meandering and Look No further. The result is a whole that goes beyond the reproduction of the sensitive world, and focuses effectively on a purely emotional level, which creates a real dialogue with the viewer. The indefiniteness of the forms leaves room for an extraordinary clarity of thoughts, sensations and emotions, which find their most complete form of expression thanks to the artistic medium. Hadir Hammam thus creates works full of universal contents, made all the more easily shared the more they are linked to the truest and most intimate part of the soul.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Hadir Hammam

A Change of Heart

Hadir Hammam

Look No further

Hadir Hammam

Meandering

Hakan Trulsson “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”

(Alberto Giacometti) Swedish sculptor Hakan Trulsson, through a process of high craftsmanship, transforms wood into abstract carved and coloured forms. Strong, dynamic forms and bold colours are the hallmarks of the sculptures' dualism; Hakan works with an unusual technique, creating a strong contrast between the raw, organic nature of the wood and the use of strong colours. The smooth, modulated sculptures characterised by fluid movements launch their essence into the abstract and vital world, presenting themselves in all their lightness. The sinuous lines are a very delicate means of approaching and investigating the structure of the wood, and it is from here that the entire creative process that guides the artist in the realisation of the entire work starts. A process that is created during the artistic act, which takes shape from an idea, transmitted to the hand and engraved on the wooden surface. The result is a spatial composition characterised by textural solids and conceptual voids, the synthesis of a personal frame. These three sculptures are presented as synthetic instruments that lead the viewer to distant worlds. In them one can perceive the intensity of an embrace, the importance of contemplation and the heaviness of life. All locked in a timeless, unprejudiced and above all free matter where the observer has the freedom to project his subconscious and let his imagination run wild. However, reality remains, but in a conceptual form, as shown by the signs of the artist's passage on the surface. A reality filtered by the mind and above all by the intentions that the stone dictates to Hakan Trulsson's process.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Hakan Trulsson

Light movements in wood

Hakan Trulsson

Sinouse lines

Hakan Trulsson

Concave and convex repeats

Hana Buchtová "Everything comes back, things and words go around in circles, sometimes go around the world, then one fine day they meet, come together and the circle closes."

(Sándor Márai) Heraclitus, with the famous phrase Panta Rei, maintains that nothing will ever look the same, and he exemplifies this statement through the image of bathing in the river. The river water in which we bathe will never be the same because, precisely, "everything flows," and neither will the man who bathes in it ever be the same, because every day it changes us a little bit. No moment will ever be repeated the same; no moment can ever be replicated; even what seemingly seems motionless and stuck is actually dynamic, because movement is the very essence of the flow of time. Hana Buchtová with her practice supports this ancient but current thought. Her abstract and intuitive paintings are a eulogy of transformation, of the process by which the soul is in a state of grace, in fact, flows. Allowing a gaze raised to emotionality alone, we can enjoy the experience of appearing emotional gates that open before our eyes and invite us to a fully enjoyable reality where the pleasure of flowing has no need of departure, no need of arrival. An immersive universe where we lose our bearings to find ourselves changed and with the power to enact change.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Hana Buchtová

GATEWAY TO ANOTHER DIMENSION

HaNao “Art must be an expression of love, or it is nothing.” (Marc Chagall)

Very accurate details; curious color contrasts but always perfectly balanced; protagonists who tell their story through their eyes and their gestures. HaNao is a Japanese contemporary artist who, during the creative process, listens to what her thoughts and emotions suggest to her. This is how her works are born: an inner journey in search of meanings, love, and beauty to which to give a shape and a color. “In a hydrangea garden” was created in 2022 with digital technique. Big blue eyes turn their gaze towards us: what do we read in them? Let's dive into their depth and try to interpret their message. Fair complexion; hair adorned with flowers; a strawberry in the left hand picked shortly before; an elegant white lace dress.

The protagonist is immersed - as the title itself states - in a garden of hydrangeas. It is a precious flower to which a special meaning is attributed: it is connected to the feeling of love and symbolizes a love that has just blossomed, a love that has died out but has come back to light or a love that, despite the difficulties, never dies. The work is intended to be a tribute to the purest feeling in the universe - the same that HaNao feels towards art. Through her creations, she represents her magical inner world: observe it, learn to know it, and interpret it, not forgetting to let yourself be carried away by the whirlwind of emotions.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

HaNao

In a hydrangea garden

Hanna Müller I dream of painting and then I paint my dream. (Vincent Van Gogh)

The art of Hanna Müller began to express itself from childhood with acrylic painting. It represented - and still represents - a privileged way of escape, as well as an intimate dimension in which to explore the potential of an inner and ideal universe, which enriches daily life. The creative flair of Hanna focuses on an abstract painting of great visual appeal and above all of profound symbolic implications, which capture the attention and imagination of the viewer.

Dreams of freedom takes us to a metaphysical level, where introspection leaves a visible mark in the elements of nature. Against the backdrop of a fiery dawn, which stands out in the sky beyond the top of a forest, the immaculate wings of a white bird emerge. The sumptuous white feathers frame a transfigured face of a symbolic crown, which extend to embrace the mind, thoughts and dreams. The composition is admirably balanced between the gray tones of the lower part and the warm and vivid ones of the upper part, in which the superb solar disc dominates. The artist seems to allude to an indomitable desire for freedom, which dominates the unconscious in the deepest moment of sleep. It materializes in a palpable tension, which aims to achieve the desired goal.

The essential features of the face make it possible for each to imagine himself, and to travel with the imagination on those spread wings, to aspire to touch the highest peaks of a factual, mental and ideal freedom. Hanna Müller invites us to share a wonderful daydream. An invitation that can only be accepted.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Hanna Müller

Dreams of freedom

Hanne Giacobbe Helleberg

Hanne Giacobbe Helleberg, presents “Crazy summer” for the “Guardians of dreams” Mixed Reality art exhibition at M.A.D.S. Art gallery. “Hope is a waking dream.” - Aristotle. Confidence is implied in Hanne’s artworks, where brush strokes are daring areas to be witnessed as the result of an inner self exploration. The awakening from an elaborated truth has come to make us believe that we are in charge of an intrinsic hope. Imagination is needed to be hopeful. The starting summer, the hopeful summer, which often brings positive thoughts towards our desires. “Crazy summer” is depicted as a hopeful energy in a bold and bright environment containing red and orange areas ready to be witnessed as a statement on an impetuous season. There is an important contrast in the artwork between the rhythm and the bright colors, where the colors are exceedingly dynamic while the rhythm is passive as usually happens with the surroundings during summer. Summer takes over filling silences wherever it may go. It needs the passiveness so it can burst into a desired outcome. “Crazy summer” awakes from a dream of constant stimulation by a hopeful desire to keep evolving into pure happiness.

Art Curator Karla Peralta Málaga

Hanne Giacobbe Helleberg

Crazy summer

Heather Allison

Heather Allison lives near the stormy shores of the Northern California coast. The artist is known for her photographic works of still lifes, made with a melancholy and thoughtful lighting, thanks to the use of exotic objects but also domestic and familiar elements. The atmosphere is particularly reminiscent of the works of artists such as Hendrick Fromantiou, Elias Van Den Broeck, Hendrick Andriessen, so we are faced with the vanitas style. Heather Allison is, for the first time, the guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" in which she exhibits three works of art representing still lifes. “THRIFA FRAMED” looks like a small representation of a garden, with a statue placed in the center immersed in a whirlwind of flowers and colors. The work is ethereal and seems to suspend time, making it imprinted almost eliminating the concept that underlies still lifes, the concept of the transience of life. In this work, what appears to be pre-eminent is beauty and delicacy, which, at the same time, makes us aware of how momentary it is, like life. There is therefore a strong parallelism between the artist's aesthetic taste that allows her to create fascinating compositions.

“TRANSFIGURATIO” is the representation of a still life with fruits, insects, parts of a beehive and flowers. The atmosphere is reflective, impromptu and full of pathos. With "VANUS" we have the apex of the communicative power of these still lifes, in this work the atmosphere is particularly dark and appears distant, unattainable, something deeply immobile and incomprehensible to the human being.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Heather Allison

THRIFA FRAMED

Heather Allison

TRANSFIGURATIO

Heather Allison

VANUS

Hee Young Hee Young is a young artist strongly influenced by expressionism. The images she paints are often figurative but at the same time imbued with feelings and emotions. The faces of the characters she draws, their bearing, their iconography, seem to represent a personification of a feeling. Hee Young communicates to his audience through a language implicit in painting. In her painting ' The eyes', her artistic process is well represented. The artist chooses to depict a half-bust of a woman, elegantly dressed, with lavish jewellery. Her gaze can be interpreted as haughty but reveals a cold and calm, almost analytical look. The focus of the artwork is her eyes, the mirror of the soul. The colour tones are soft, very harmonised and calm. The painting in general gives a sense of stillness. The details are interesting, made with smaller brushstrokes and contrasting, if only slightly, with the colour of the background.

Everything remains in warm shades of pink and yellow. The artist wants to send a message to the viewer, namely that it is often necessary to look at the things that happen, in a cold and detached manner so that one's thoughts are objectified and not influenced by appearance and subjectivity. It is important to analyse what is happening around us.

눈길

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Hee Young

눈길 The eyes

Hell Imagery What can we imagine of hell? It frightens us but at the same time we are curious. It’s something that we’ve always heard about and that we’ve seen declined in various forms at school, at church, maybe even at home. The vision of hell presented by the artist Hell Imagery, however, is as precise as it is disconcerting. The artist has defined over the years his vision of hell drawing from various sources. His personal vision is thus contaminated by films, books, pop culture and creepy art. The result is a version of Dante’s dark and frightening hell. The shiny and fluid colors seem to vibrate in many flashes. In "The Big Melting", for example, we see decomposing bodies writhing together in an endless loop of torment and damnation. Observing this work, one almost gets the impression that the subjects come to life, they move inside the composition. It’s a work that arouses anguished and vibrant emotions, representing reality through an obsolete timeless line. "Birth" on the other hand, impresses with the bewilderment it arouses. The subject is not entirely recognizable: is it a person? is it a monster? What is happening? Perhaps, it is precisely the lack of clarity that frightens us. Not knowing what awaits us wears us out.

This feeling that arises in the viewer is amplified by the vision of filthy, bloody, soggy walls, transhipping of repellent tacks. The works are so real that you can almost hear the voices, the smell and the carnal noise of those creatures moving slowly. The extraordinary realism, almost Flemish, is the key to the work of Hell Imagery. The work "Necrobots", which closes the series in a dialogue between humanity and technology, a parody of eternal life. The creature may be dying or, ready to live again thanks to the cables that are restoring energy. A new feeling of beauty comes out, threatened and contaminated, a new thrill that pervades the quiet of the observer.

This is what characterizes David’s work: the horrid surrounds us, it is on the street, in our homes, in every corner of our society, in every corner of our intimacy and our daily life.

Art Curator Eleonora Varotto

Hell Imagery

The Big Melting

Hell Imagery

Birth

Hell Imagery

Necrobots

Hiromi Nakai The world is in ruins. Or rather, human society is slowly disintegrating without showing signs of recovery. Pandemic events, stagnation, wars and tensions between powers, economic crises and a general loss of confidence in the future are characterizing our historical period. How did we end up in this state? How could the human being endowed with great reasoning create a present and wish for such a depressing and tragic future? Where is all our intelligence? An aura of pessimism and mistrust has spilled over the entire globe, turning that blue and shiny planet into the dullest and darkest atom in the entire universe. The question is one: what are we doing? We are blaming the consequences of economic and political choices that are now collapsing, we are trying to resist a world that is literally falling apart. Yet, whose cause is it? Who did all this? It was us, human beings endowed with reason and intellect, unencumbered by primal instincts and aware of the past, present and future. But are we really like that?

Do these qualities fit us like a glove or are we the ones who, simply, paint ourselves that way because we are blind to our true nature? In reality, human beings are dominated by their virtues but also, and above all, by their vices. The pursuit of comfortzone, disproportionate enrichment, loss of faith and millennial values has led humanity to increasingly lose reasoning to sink into the gilded cage of greed and arrogance. We are like that, humans are still bound by their instincts, just like animals. Unfortunately, however, the human species has the ability and intelligence to rationally exploit its instincts by going on to create a world that is essentially dirty, sick and wrong. This impatience with the world is ingested - unknowingly - by people's souls and is mixed, joined with the personal suffering that one may experience during the course of life. The opaque atom - the world initially - has also stained the person's soul with darkness. Sometimes, it happens that, for a variety of reasons, a person touches the bottom of the abyss and, from that point, she is unable to rise again. The water is cold, the light cannot reach those depths. The body becomes rigid, apathetic; unable to find a solution. When you reach the bottom of the abyss, each soul is alone, and only within it is the key to rise to the surface again, breathe oxygen and become bathed in sunlight again. "Dream Destination" is the pictorial testimony of that key, of that light that dragged Hiromi out of the darkest abysses. It is the translation into matter of a path the artist herself took to lift herself up during one of her darkest periods. The dragon, a magnificent, imposing and sometimes disturbing being, takes on a character of granitic solidity in this work. The being, depicted in large, expressive brushstrokes on a reddish background retains within it a great expressive force that is expressed by elaborating the artist's feelings toward his life and the dragon itself. And this is how the dragon becomes one of the pillars that have succeeded in raising her up, and this is how the dragon becomes the guardian of Hiromi's existence, and we can do nothing but observe it in all its majestic magnificence.

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

Hiromi Nakai

Dream Destination

Hiromi Nakai

Holding Fast

Hiromi Nakai

Time Passes

Inmaculada Cuesta Gómez

Inmaculada Cuesta Gómez, presents “Pulchrum 3” for the “Guardians of dreams” Mixed Reality art exhibition at M.A.D.S. Art gallery. It will be taken as a gift where blue and turquoise tones act as the connection between the artwork and the beholder. The main character in the artwork, gazes towards the spectator, a presence is waiting for something to happen. “Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” - C.G. Jung. The character looks outside the artwork while the artist looks into herself to portray her awakening. Brown warm tones contain a calm environment with white floral pillars. The character gazes towards the spectators as saying: “Deserve your dream," just like Octavio Paz did. Beauty is represented as a message of boldness ready to be witnessed as an empiric force longing to burst into a passionate energy, which will be guided by the beholder’s truth. Take a look into how a gaze could be imperative to understand a subtle change into one’s awakening. The character carries the responsibility to dream about the artist’s awakening. Inmaculada’s “Pulchrum 3” acts as an active message of the intensity of beauty and how powerful an awakening can be once it has been depicted as a dream so the spectators can keep imagining thanks to Inmaculada’s truth.

Art Curator Karla Peralta Málaga

Inmaculada Cuesta Gómez

Pulchrum 3

Inna Perkas Dreams must be heeded and accepted. For a great many of them come true.(Paracelsus)

How can we define the essence of what is going on in the mind? We perceive its presence and undergo its influences, we let ourselves be guided by it. But is it really possible to understand its substantial nature? Inna Perkas tries to give her own personal answer through a composite work entitled Dreams? Throughts? Picture in picture in picture? - Yes, all together. The artist elaborates a story that unfolds in nine canvases, and tries to reproduce the depth of the mental substrate with a witty superimposition of acrylics and glass. What is invisible to the eye is thus caught in a glance, which seems to range from time to time in different stages. In this changing whole, Inna encompasses the totality of the movements of the psyche, whether they are conscious like daytime thoughts or unconscious like the most intimate fluctuations of dreams. If we dwell on each section, we can immediately perceive the projection of an intelligible universe (but no less real) thanks to a balanced chromatic choice on delicate and suffused tones. What the artist does is an admirable imaginative effort, which manages to perfectly render the cohesion of every element of the mind: the result is the achievement of a factual and ideal harmony, based on an awareness that transcends logical categories. Although the union of different components together can often be synonymous with chaos and disorganization, Inna Perkas proves that this is not always the case. Each part compensates and exalts the other, in a perennial circle that brings what is invisible to the same level as what is visible, and what is thinkable to the same dimension as what is dreamable.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Inna Perkas

Dreams? Throughts? Picture in picture in picture? - Yes, all together.

Isabela Castro Isabela Castro, a Brazilian artist, while she is painting carries out a spiritual process during which she is guided by the effect that music produces on her unconscious. She dances the brush moves to the rhythm of music and creates a pictorial representation of the sound. Isabela’s paintings are multi-sensory experiences, and the work consists not only of the final result of the colours spread on the canvas but from the moment of the creation of this. Her paintings are the perfect representation of the act of creation: the colours are vivid and enveloping and the brushstrokes are instinctive, fast and allow the colour to bloom directly on the canvas, spontaneously. The bright red tones of "Bem vindo aos céus" contrast with the blue tones and suggest the dualism of the elements of water and fire, two powerful elements, always engaged in a primordial struggle. In fact, the red silhouettes recall the ancient cave paintings and at the same time also the red tones used by Murakami. Even the tones of the work "Confusão harmônica" have the same primordial imprint, in this case the viewer can observe the red strokes that recall the footprints of two hands on a wall.

"Ritmo cósmico" is a work that gives more tranquillity, in this case the prevailing colour is blue, blue mixes with a light red, just hinted and delicate. Isabela Castro lets herself be guided by instinct and realizes works that transmit all the passion of the instinctive act in its most authentic form.

Art Curator Sara Giannini

Isabela Castro

Bem vindo aos céus

Isabela Castro

Confusão harmônica

Isabela Castro

Ritmo cósmico

Jai Mitchell

Inevitably, the most immediate consideration that assails us when we think of a vortex is that of a phenomenon characterised by uncontrolled movement, a flow or suction in an event in which no order or end can be found. Its fluid movement has been the inspiration for many cultural currents and it becomes an image when the knot of which it is made manages to capture the image itself. The works of art proposed by the artist describe the movement, sensation and turbulence we encounter in the events we relate to and with which we must weave a network composed of experiential nodes, which make up the deepest characters of this system and, therefore, of our existence. In the movements of the brush we find spirals as a symbol whose origin is lost in the mists of time, it is present in the history of art and in that of different ancient cultures on Earth. An almost esoteric symbol that encapsulates the concepts of dynamism, cyclicity, development and expansion as well as regression and contraction, when travelled in the opposite direction and evokes the passage of time with its cycles of change and renewal.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Jai Mitchell

amapolas y tormentas

Jai Mitchell

Sometime Before Sunday

Jai Mitchell

The Dirty Rose

Jai Mitchell

The Way to Come Back from Disassociation

Jai Mitchell

When Carp Fish Remember Rana Trees

Jakub Kowalski “Art to me is a form of meditation but also a bridge between me and recipient. It's like dance of emotions. I want to evoke your emotions. Not only the good ones, also the uncomfortable ones. It does not have to be pretty. You have to feel something” (Jakub Kowalski) A thought-provoking shadow "Talk to yourself, listen to yourself, be understanding with yourself. Unspoken thoughts are often much more valuable than hundreds of spoken thoughts."

These, in fact, are the words Jakub Kowalski uses to describe his work. The international art exhibition "Guardians of Dreams" within the M.A.D.S. art gallery presents Thoughts. Our artist expresses his views through a communicative and artistic code that is the perfect crossroads between abstract and figurative art. The artist's research begins with an introspective phase, evaluates his feelings and thoughts as a human being and develops on canvas, through action, and then communicates messages that are universal and that each of us finds within ourselves, with different facets and visions. Jakub's work can be called an existential masterpiece as it perfectly represents the artist's existential analysis, the canvases want to create an intense and emotional bond with the viewers. The artist has developed a completely personal language that does not allow any categorization. The charisma of his painting consists precisely in the mysterious process that has allowed him to simplify the complex vision that his paintings express.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Jakub Kowalski

Thoughts

Janice Velasco

The college of Janice Valesco is a melting pot of world and image, as if beyond every piece that composed this mosaic the artist wants to give to the viewer a special meaning and message. If we want to understand what is the message inside the composition titled ‘the dirtiest soil and myself’ it would be useful to start from her consideration, in fact she says: <<Art has saved me from myself>>. This means that the art for the artist Janice Valesco is a way to enter inside herself and try to expiate all the disease, the feelings and thoughts about her life. The artistic creation is an introspective gesture, a pretext to investigate in the deepest part of herself and try to understand better what is happening around her. In fact we can see a composition created by different elements, as if every image was an object that in the contest in the whole vision takes an exact meaning. At the center of the composition is a radiography. In this way this becomes the protagonist of the collage as if the artist wants to create all the meanings around this focal element. As she says: << This is a plain abdominal radiography which nowadays it’s said that it’s only useful for surgeons in case of suspected intestinal occlusion or perforation. In this case I’m sitting in the middle of the pelvis gently smiling at what is clearly soil, and has a hand that reaches out and is touching my chest, not even taking a look at what's going on around, and over me: air and Shit>>. The artist Janice Valesco with her college is able to investigate inside herself, put order in the things and emotions and leave to the observer the result of this research through her soul.

Art Curator Elisabetta Eliotropio

Janice Velasco

The dirties soil and myself

Janusz Tworek You see things; and you say: ‘Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say: ‘Why not?' (George Bernard Shaw) What happens when technology takes the place of empathy? Can the priceless expressions of a face be erased with an ephemeral sequence of binary codes? Janusz Tworek's answer is clear and limpid, and in SocialMedia he focuses on one of the most intrusive aspects of technology in our everyday life, which is the world of social media. They are represented as a sparkling architecture, which amazes for its rigorous geometries and enchants for the preciousness (given by the use of gold and silver paint) with which it cloaks. It is a perfection as seductive as it is frighteningly unreal, which traps man in an illusion of invincibility. No place is too remote and no person is too far away not to be reached with a simple click. And so everyone closes himself more and more often and more and more willingly in a lonely universe, in which the virtual element increasingly takes the place of reality. The ability to communicate with anyone has made us unable to smile at someone, hear them speak looking them in the eye, and above all to fully experience a moment of vivid emotion. What remains is a stripped-down individual, deprived of his innermost essence in exchange for a vacuous simulacrum, which dulls the mind and turns off the gaze. The artist eloquently summarizes the critical repercussions of addiction to the virtual world. Man, whom Aristotle defined as the most social of animals, becomes a faint shadow of himself thanks to the tool that theorically enhances sociality. Janusz Tworek seems to exhort each of us to a profound reflection on ourselves and on the structures of our life with extraordinary effectiveness, and he does so by shaking the numb consciences, reminding us of the priority of emotionality. The only thing that can really make us "social".

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Janusz Tworek

SocialMedia

Jean Sierra-Hernandez “He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

(Lao Tzu)

In the iconographic tradition, wisdom will often be represented as a female figure holding the precious instrument in which it is possible to look at oneself and know oneself: the mirror. Yet, self-knowledge is also the error of Narcissus. The vain folding in oneself of those who, in love with their own beauty, see only themselves and fail to enter into a relationship with reality. In this sense, to know only oneself is to remain a prisoner of one's own image. At this point it becomes clear, as the artist himself says that it is through relationships with others and experience that one can learn to know oneself. There is no introspection that can stand up to what we express about ourselves as we relate to others. From these moments of relationship and experience result the artworks of Jean Sierra-Hernandez. Nostalgic paintings, with natural elements in fusion to an almost sci-fi refined style. Her blacks and whites give way to small bits of color to balance and give depth to the image. The significance of watercolors and digital painting can be found in the artist's idea of approaching the audience with harmonious and pleasing forms in slow motion.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Jean Sierra-Hernandez

Claudia

Jean Sierra-Hernandez

Lady of Dreams

Jean Sierra-Hernandez

Raven Queen

Jennifer Stoor “A work of art which isn't based on feeling isn't art at all” (Paul Cézanne)

Human beings have a strong need of self expression and art allows them to do it freely, with an aesthetic impact, because it is a universal language, mirror and world without barriers that unite and connect people. Thus, every artwork can be felt, appreciated and signified from different perspectives and contexts. Jennifer Stoor explores her creativity with multiple techniques and creates detailed, colorful and expressive artworks that transmit powerful emotions, energy and a dreamlike feeling. Their abstraction makes possible to distinguish between two opposite states due to the brushstrokes and details: calm or pause and despair and strength. Her paintings' aesthetic, shapes, bright colors and contrasts let the spectators reflect, live and go through different sensations, ideas and memories of their own stories during contemplation, but, at the same time, identify the ones of the artist. Jennifer's abstract art calls for a real introspection and connection between the artistic elements, details, freedom, flow and the own senses motivating a pure and mystical experience that transcends space and time.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Jennifer Stoor

Letting go of fear

Jennifer Stoor

Spirit

Jennifer Stoor

Explosion

Joshua Scranton

Joshua Scranton is an artist born in the midwestern United States. Scranton's artistic experience began at a very young age, then followed courses in art and design at college. Today, for the first time, he is the guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" he exhibits three works of art that seem to tell of a parallel world. "Dreaming of Shenzhen" takes the viewer into a reality made up of cyborgs, technological psychedelics and future fantasy. The predominant color is purple added to the blue and all the shades that may derive from it. There is a clear line of connection to Asia and the culture of souls, as well as in "Renewal" in which the protagonist of the work is a hybrid between a human being and a machine, in which gender identity becomes secondary and not relevant. The artist represents future, dystopian and science fiction realities, in fact it almost seems to be in front of real characters, protagonists of incredible stories and adventures that the observer is lucky enough to be able to imagine. Finally, "The Deep Dive" is a work that is both romantic and nostalgic at the same time, rich in communicative power and pathos, deeply impacting and transcendental. Joshua Scranton consecrates himself as a digital artist who expresses all his imagination and fantasy by conveying it through psychedelic colors and subjects.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Joshua Scranton

Dreaming of Shenzhen

Joshua Scranton

Renewal

Joshua Scranton

The Deep Dive

Joy Lachat JSL

What immediately stands out to the eye of the observer, when admiring the works of artist Joy Lachat, is the dominant use of the colour blue, which combined with yellow here and there gives the works a brilliant atmosphere. The artist lets the scene dialogue with the title that represents it, to make the meaning she wants to convey more understandable.

Lights Offering', similar to a fairy-tale scene, radiates its magic through the circle of yellow light, somewhat suffused, that the artist carefully places in the centre of the canvas where the focus of what is depicted there converges: a sea creature rising from the stormy waters below a piece of log on top of which is, standing, a very small human figure. The two figures, despite their appearance, seem to converse with each other in a sunny manner, as also specified by the title itself. The use of the thinking, colour-laden brush is a constant in Joy's painting that we also find in 'Path' and 'Suns': the same blue background, or its shades, and yellow to represent the most significant elements of the scene. Despite subjects that are often interpreted as negative - the dragon and insects - the artist is able to create a positive atmosphere around them.

Art Curator Martina Stagi

Joy Lachat JSL

Offering Lights

Joy Lachat JSL

Suns

Joy Lachat JSL

Path

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra "Surrealism does not aim to subvert realism, as well as the fantastic, nor does it seek to transcend it. Look for different means by which to explore reality itself."

(Michael Richardson)

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra is an extravagant, innovative and surreal artist capable of representing the most remote and hidden sides not only of the human unconscious but also of the dream world. The series of works entitled "Dream Circus" contains a real need, that is the will to go beyond things, people, reality, to immerse yourself in a more distant and unknown dimension, accessible only through a slow and deep reflection within ourselves. The surrealist exploration of textures and aesthetics is conducted through the study and representation of the world of the circus, a world that is often mysterious and curious in the eyes of many. The various figures, from the clown to the mime, appear distorted, disoriented, as thoughts related to our unconscious are often stored. Twisted, surreal images, how surreal and extravagant the inner world of each of us is shown, our own dream reality. A magical reality, difficult to penetrate but wonderfully engaging, once you can discover it, as indeed is the world of the circus and who is part of it.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra

Dream Circus-Fire Juggler ́s Portrait

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra

Dream Circus-Shouting Mime

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra

Dream Circus-Succubus

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra

Dream Circus-The Equilibrist

Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra

Dream Circus-The Sad Clown

Jules Frkovich

Jules Frkovich is a Canadian abstract artist. Her works are created using the Fluid art technique, which consists of pouring colours onto the canvas and letting them flow freely. What she likes about this technique is its unpredictability, the impossibility of knowing in advance the final appearance of the work, which changes rapidly even though the movement of the canvas is guided by the artist. Nature and the different forms of our universe influence her art. Indeed, to represent the sparkle of precious stones and the rough textures of the earth, with which she is particularly fascinated, the artist combines acrylic colours on canvas with materials such as gold or silver foils, crystals and glitter. As the title suggests, Silver Liquid Earth is an abstract representation of the earth. Colours are mixed on the canvas to suggest, with their different shades of silver grey, the idea of an earthy, muddy terrain. The viewer's gaze is immediately caught by the central luminous trail. Obtained through the application of rocks, silver foil and epoxy resin, this concentration of small sparkling crystals runs through the painting, recalling with its brilliance another earthly element, the geode, whose crystal-rich interior has always fascinated the artist.

Through this work, Jules Frkovich lets the viewer into her inner universe, offering him a privileged glimpse into the forms and sources of inspiration that influence her art and demonstrating that she has perfectly interpreted the concept of this exhibition that asks artists “to be donors of their own experience, of their own interiority”.

Art Curator Marta Graziano

Jules Frkovich

Silver Liquid Earth

Julia Knop Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world (Albert Einstein) Julia Knop is a young and active artist from Poland. Her vocation for art began as a child, when at 3 years she painted the walls with colors and brushes. Creativity was her life’s inspiration: her artistic activity came to life with painting, with a sparkling and colorful style made of abstract textures, shapes inspired by nature and her personal interiority and also with fashion design, creating her own brand. Julia participates in "Guardians of dreams" in M.A.D.S. Art gallery with a sublime work entitled "Angels and Demons". An angel and a demon are the subject of the painting: the first is on the far right of the painting and is represented by a sweet female figure dressed in shades of pink and the second we see in the center of the work, as a dark shadow. The representation is highly imaginary, inserted in an indeterminate space made by a bright blue sea that pours into a cloudy sky through huge waterfalls. The use of blue tones accentuates this feeling of dream. Sky and sea, angel and demon, good and evil in their eternal opposition come together, meet in the same space. The scene appears as a dream, a revelation, an inner emotional sensation, a vision. Julia Knop’s imagination amazes the viewer and opens her mind to imaginary, dreamlike worlds, where everything is possible. Julia Knop is introspective and dreamer, creative and enormously expressive...invites the viewers to read their own mind and be influenced by their own thoughts.

Art Curator Giulia Dellavalle

Julia Knop

Angels and Demons

JuliEtta “Reality is for people that lack imagination.” (Hayao Miyazaki)

JuliEtta is a contemporary German visual artist. Her works take us into small worlds inhabited by personalities who have particularly marked her life. Each painting is a faithful portrait of these people, whom she depicts immersed in settings that appear as surreal, almost dreamlike. At the same time, her visceral passion for the underwater world is also a fundamental source of inspiration. The contact with nature is necessary. In the three works ("Cousteau"; "Dancing with the jellyfish"; "Jane") exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery during the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, we immediately feel enveloped by pleasant atmospheres, reminding us of childhood. In fact, the figurative style and the choice of representation contribute to making her works very fairytale-like and vibrant. Smiling, proud faces emerge from the surrounding darkness full of light and joy. For example, in the work 'Cousteau', JuliEtta tells us about Jacques Cousteau, the great French explorer, navigator, oceanographer and filmmaker. He dominates the work with his smile and his red cap, while all around us the beauty of the deep sea opens up to our gaze. This work is intended as a tribute to the man who enabled the discovery of the underwater world, contributing to the creation of new equipment for the exploration of the deep sea. Many of her portraits are created as a tribute to those people whom the artist deeply esteems, transporting them to surreal landscapes where their relationship with nature comes to life. In JuliEtta's works we find the beauty of childhood, muffled and quiet, made up of fairy-tale and playful imagery that comes alive beneath the surface, as if floating among the wonders of the seabed, like silent dreams.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

JuliEtta

Cousteau

JuliEtta

Dancing with the meduse

JuliEtta

Jane

Kalale Kalale is an innovative and extremely creative artist. The technique she uses, that of assembling images through collage, allows her to never be banal or monotonous because the combinations she obtains by combining different elements are always creative and original. The viewer is captivated initially by a detail and later, by the vision of the whole. Kalale tells of unexplored, parallel worlds. She tells fantasies, magical and non-magical visions. The combinations she can create are infinite, the artist gives herself no limits. She allows herself to bring a new vision to the world, to escape from the monotony of reality. In 'London's Nights' her artistic concept is en evident. The chosen location, the mysterious city of London, is not accidental. A dreamlike vision populated by spirits of other times and ghosts. A dream or a distorted vision of reality? The colours are on the same chromatic range of greys and browns, except for the characters emerging from the streets and looking out from the buildings. Kalale also reflects on the theme of the functioning of the psyche in relation to the visual image. What fascinates the viewer most is that his works are open to multiple interpretations. Everyone is free to give their own opinion, to see what they want to see. Art has no boundaries or unambiguous visions. Art is pure and simple art. Everyone can mirror themselves in it without feeling judged. Kalale invites the viewer to explore his imagination, to enter new worlds and to change the perspective of his visions.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Kalale

London's Nights

Keisui “It is at night that faith in light is admirable.” (Edmond Rostand)

The sun lights up the day and the moon shines in the dark sky. The stars show us the way to follow, and the light of destiny suggests our future. Joys, satisfactions, and goals achieved are the lights that make our life a whirlwind of emotions that fill the heart. Keisui is a Japanese contemporary artist who, through a few colors and written in Japanese language, creates works of art with profound meanings. "Light" was created in 2021 with the acrylic on canvas technique. The background is blue - the color of the sky - and on the left the artist has represented a star through a few simple strokes. Sometimes it is difficult to break down the obstacles that life puts in front of us, sometimes we don't understand how to get out of a dark tunnel whose end we cannot see. Through this work, Keisui invites us to always find the willpower, courage, and energy to overcome any situation, even those we never imagined facing. Live to the fullest and don't be afraid of the challenges you will encounter every day: follow the light and, if you don't find it, be the light yourself.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

Keisui

Light

Kim Esty

Dreams are the main creative motive of artist Kim Esty, who, for this exhibition at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery has decided to represent and present four works, different and with equally different meanings, but all with the same motive, the dream, which can be a positive or negative dream. 'Melancholy Colourful Dream' shows how dreams can often keep us stuck to our thoughts, to ourselves and isolate us from what is outside. A colourful canvas, with a main subject at its centre: the head of a woman with sad eyes, well treated by the artist, through the use of colours, lying on a flowery meadow that gives her a crown of orange roses. The beauty of the landscape and the melancholy of the woman's face are the elements that give meaning to the work itself, as if to say: appearances are deceiving. What is beautiful outside and seen, is sometimes not the same as what is perceived inside. Similar in composition and main subjects, but different in tone is 'Sleep with one eye open'.

Kim Esty

Here again, the artist wants to remind us that not everything around us is good and, however much we can and should dream, we should watch our backs. The woman's head is in fact less melancholic than the previous one, but the blackness of the background suggests something negative in the atmosphere. The beauty that surrounded the face before has now withered and given way to negativity, albeit with some hopeful symbols, such as the small angel in the lower left corner. The depiction of 'Royal Chain' and 'Ocean Dream' is different. The former depicts a mature woman, the queen proudly wearing the crown on her head and looking straight out of the painting with those ice-coloured eyes. The dream, in this case, is the awareness of being a person of a certain importance, but with the weight of this importance on her shoulders; hence the representation of the black background. 'Ocean Dreams', on the other hand, relates to the first painting, in which the ambient atmosphere is clean, fragrant and clear, just like a summer dream.

Art Curator Martina Stagi

Kim Esty

Melancholy Colorful Dream

Kim Esty

Sleep with one eye opened

Kim Esty

Royal Chain

Kim Esty

Ocean Dream

Klaus Broking And finally we went out to see the stars again. (Dante Alighieri)

Where the eye cannot reach, the gaze of the imagination makes up for it with a deeper intent, which is not limited to the simple replication of reality, but enriches it and fills it with mystery and fascination. If astronomy has explored the foundations of our solar system and the nature of the stars with crystalline clarity, the works of Klaus Bröking for Guardians of Dreams represent an ideal "telescope" on the artist's personal cosmic vision, which ranges from figurative to abstract, from the metaphorical to the symbolic. Coldfusion borrows a scientific terminology (that of nuclear fusion at low temperatures) to give life to its vision of space, in which the planets do not rotate in the sun but in a snowflake, which extends its icy embrace to everything. Just as the rays of the luminous star radiate their warm touch, so the ice surrounds the planets with its perfect crystals, starting from the closest ones, up to - with slow inexorability - even the most remote celestial bodies.

Klaus Broking

The artist lets himself be inspired by reality to exercise his own experimental and imaginative will on it, to the point of completely deconstructing it. reachoutforstardust is a singular example of Klaus' abstractive ability, who is able with a few quick strokes of black ink to create a superb play of lines, spirals and swirls, and to transform it into a bewitching "shadow theater". It seems to perceive the fiery tail of the comets in the streams of ink that branch off from some spherical elements, and to perceive the wonder that their sudden appearance arouses. The artist captures with a few quick strokes the essentiality of an unrepeatable moment, whose fleeting appearance does not allow to dwell on accessory details, but pushes to shift the focus on the substantial importance of an instant, in a sort of "carpe diem" which sounds like a resounding hymn to the priceless preciousness of the present time.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Klaus Bröking

Coldfusion

Klaus Bröking

reachoutforstardust

Komatsu Rikako “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” (Albert Einstein)

Nature is our adviser, it is our friend, it is our faithful confidant. We were born from it, and we are joined by a bond that will never break. We run on green hills, swim in a blue ocean, sit on a rock and look at the beauty from the top of a mountain. The Japanese contemporary artist Komatsu Rikako pays tribute to the strength and infinite grandeur that nature possesses that surrounds us every day through the three works exhibited at the "Guardians of dreams" exhibition. The series "The Green Guardian" (2020, mixed media on board) has as its protagonists, children who, immersed in immense expanses of lawn, talk to the trees, listen to the voice of the wind, look at the sun and the moon trying to understand what their light wants to mean. Each man has been entrusted with a task: observe nature, learn to know it, live in harmony with it, but above all, preserve it. Through these works, the artist wants to remind us how important and necessary it is to respect what surrounds us: it was given to us at our birth and like every gift it must be carefully guarded. Komatsu Rikako invites the viewers to immerse themselves in the green of the brushstrokes, letting themselves be overwhelmed by the whirlwind of emotions; at the same time these paintings want to represent the starting point of an important issue: treat nature as you respect anything that deserves love.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

Komatsu Rikako

The green Guardian 1

Komatsu Rikako

The green Guardian 2

Komatsu Rikako

The green Guardian 3

Kristy Lee “What does a mirror look at?”

(Frank Herbert)

The basis of any correct understanding of reality, no matter whether it is nature or society, is the recognition of the objectivity of the external world, i.e. its existence independent of human consciousness.

Any interpretation of the external world is nothing more than a mirroring, by human consciousness, of the world that exists independently of consciousness. This basic fact of the relationship between consciousness and being obviously also applies to the artistic mirroring of reality. Thus the life of the artist becomes the mirror in turn of the work of art. The changing identity, the multitude of subjects that the human being embodies, the mother and the artist in the case of Kristy Lee, become the subject of investigation, study and research, just as they become the thinking subject, the creator and the pulsating soul of the exercise of painting. The search for compositional balance on a large scale faithfully portrays this dual identity of the artist, the apparent chaos, the chaos within, the noise, the silence, the fatigue and the joy; everything merges and finds balance. Painting becomes yes, a mirror but also a magnifying glass that can work in reverse, resizing the imbalances, enhancing the whole.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Kristy Lee

COMING OUT OF THE DARKNESS

Kristy Lee

CRACKDOWN

Kristy Lee

BREATHLESS

Kyoko Mitani

On occasion of the international art exhibition Guardians of dreams the artist Kyoko Mitani presents the artwork titled Ruminate. What emerges at the first glance of this work is the particular way the artist uses the colors. As she says: << My passion is portraying all of life and soul of various primitive pure energy, emotion and most importantly with humor to interact the relationship with color is my way of life and work of essential source. So I enjoy communicating with every soul every time with every color.>> In the painting presented we can see this process of using color. In fact it is as if the artist with primary colors wants to connect her sensibility with that of the observer. With the pretext of drowning a cat Kyoko uses vivid and brilliant colors to give to the composition a powerful energy and attract the viewer completely from the other side of the canvas. Watching the artwork of Kyoko Mitani is an opportunity to enjoy this color and also this strong energy.

Art Curator Elisabetta Eliotropio

Kyoko Mitani

Ruminate

Lang “How you draw is a reflection of how you feel about the world. You're not capturing it, you're interpreting it.” (Juliette Aristides)

Paintings and photography are the main artistic languages that Beijing-based artist Lang uses to express his vision of the world, emotions and moods that, as he states, “become unseen due to our social attributes sometimes”. Because of this, the true self is often forgotten, hidden or simply walks away from us. It is this true self that Lang wants to surface by creating Hirono: a living and emotional world mainly inhabited by toys and cartoons. Lang’s world reflects the reality of things while recalling Plato’s myth of the cave: just like the prisoner of Plato’s myth discovers the true world by walking out from the cave and seeing the light, the inhabitants of Lang’s world make us discover the reality of things that surround us, the very nature of reality, the true self. Many, different and single pieces make up the true image of the world in the same mosaic of Hirono, and the painting “I Want to Go Out” is a piece of it. Here, everything is pretty clear and nothing is left to the imagination, except for the personal interpretation of the viewers. A child holding a yellow duck toy is represented behind a black net, surrounded by fishbones and other indistinguishable things. His gaze is sad and lonely, his mouth shut and his body motionless; upon his head the sentence ‘I WANT TO GO OUT’ stands as his silent scream. In this painting, words are translated into images with sharp outlines, marked by deep blacks that sometimes melt with the black of the net. The chromatic contrast is perfectly balanced as the artist combines different colours in such a way as to produce light and darker spots: while parts of the child’s face are highlighted by a light yellow and rose paint, the colours tones through the rest of the painting are darker and less bright. Through these dissonances, Lang expresses the condition of the suffering of the protagonist, and through the reconstructed reality of Hirono, he invites the viewers to reach certain truths and to feel unnoticed feelings and emotions.

Art Curator Martina Lattuca

Lang

I Want to Go Out

Laura Marzola The collage technique has as its generating principle the taking of extra-artistic elements and their assembly in the space of representation, which is less and less illusionistic. The decontextualisation and recomposition into other forms is divided into a game of decomposition, decomposition, recomposition, actions that open up remarkable reflections on the self, on others and on the world. Collage is a reflective tool through which the artist invites us to think about our own knowledge, to rework what we know in order to create new connections and give birth to other lives that would otherwise never be experienced. Laura Marzola's self-portrait, the choices she has made, the images she has resolutely stuck together to describe herself, remind us of the fact that each of us is a collage of different roles and faces held together by a glue that is sometimes of excellent quality, sometimes less stable. A collage manages to hold together seemingly disconnected parts, to embrace scraps and make them into precious details to be highlighted, to give a well-rounded view of an experience. Marzola's artworks thus show and lay bare the very concept of identity, stopping its most surreal formations that would otherwise be lost.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Laura Marzola

If the Sky Was Made of Oranges

Laura Marzola

Times are Changing

Laura Marzola

Self-Portrait with Machine

Leeroy Rivera “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

(Nikola Tesla) Leeroy Rivera is a contemporary Puerto Rican visual artist whose artworks are mainly composed of portraits. His subjects often come from the world of show business, cinema or art history, which he transforms into magnificent, colorful icons. The turbulent brushstrokes make these images dynamic, psychedelic and extremely impactful to the eye. Arranged vertically, they seem to envelop the subject in flames or swirls full of energy. In the work "Le Roi est mort, vive Le Roi!", displayed in the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, Leeroy Rivera shows himself in a self-portrait in the guise of a king. He makes an interesting analysis by transforming his human form into something divine and leading the viewer to question the concept of transmutation. The flesh dissolves here, leaving the spirit free in its expressiveness, which can now rise up to reach new worlds. Blues, violets, reds and oranges surround his face as if in perpetual motion, communicating a profound energy. Vibrant and confident with his proud gaze turned towards new horizons, the artist seems to be ready to reach new destinations. The difficulties of earthly life vanish in Leeroy Rivera's paintings and the physicality of our bodies changes towards something better. The choice to depict himself as a king is symbolically meant to be a metaphor for life; he wants to remind the viewer not to struggle with the problems created by our minds and today's society, because this leads to dark places. This is why his works are tinged with a thousand colors, radiating light and energy and showing how much beauty we have within us.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Leeroy Rivera

Le Roi est mort, vive Le Roi!

Leigh Witherell “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” (Edgar Degas)

Describing strong emotions sometimes feels like there is no word that is accurate enough to convey the physical and mental experience that somebody is going through. It’s like trying to describe the indescribable. So abstract, yet so real. The mental states are invisible loads that we carry with us, but because of their invisibility sometimes it’s hard to share them with others. However, art is so powerful that is able to translate these deep feelings and emotions into something visible. Art can make the invisible visible. By doing so, art becomes a great medium to explore the inner mental states and deal with them. The American artist Leigh Witherell uses painting as a way to examine the feeling of grief due to the loss of a child, the emotions that arise with the first-hand experience and the necessary process to cope with these strong emotions. Invisibility and constant physical presence, the internal void, and the overwhelming lack of control are concepts that Leigh conveys on the canvas in order to make us reflect and understand the inevitable parts of the grieving process. In the artworks here displayed, Leigh visually projects the most vulnerable side, as well as her extraordinary strength to be able to share her strongest emotions with the rest of the world.

Art Curator Francesca Mamino

Leigh Witherell

Feeling Man

Leigh Witherell

Invisibility of Grief

Leigh Witherell

Void

Liliana Angela Mircea “Painting is a means of self-enlightenment” (John Olsen)

According to André Breton, the goal of surrealism is to "turn the contradictions of dreams and reality into an absolute reality, a super reality". In this sense, it is possible to create and express the own reality through art and to reach a trance state where people can develop full awareness of themselves, in order to observe and live with a different and a more complete perspective. Liliana Angela Mircea represents this possibility creating a new world where her voice, emotions, experiences, knowledges and dreams occupy a specific place and can be better understood and shared. Liliana's paintings present a trascendent dimension full of joy, colors and shapes. They are very related to spirituality and ideas of the infinite, such as space, creation, divinity, enlightenment, ascention, but, at the same time, of the finite, as they study the relationship of the first ideas enunciated with the human beings and life, even if they present some contradictions related to feelings, actions and choices. At the end, as the artist states, it is necessary to accept all these facets and possibilites because they are "part of self evolution" and her art is a sample of this acceptance and elevation of the soul.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Liliana Angela Mircea

Interstellar

Liliana Angela Mircea

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Liliana Angela Mircea

Still life with hawk

Lon Levin

As art evolves over time, so the tools for making art evolve and there are those who, like the artist Lon Levin, not only have perfectly understood this mechanism, but also manage to get the best out of it. In his works he uses whatever tools he considers suitable for the project and so oil and ink, for example, are mixed for the creation of digital works, the future, now present, of the contemporary art. The three works under examination are part of a series entitled "Ocean in Motion" that has 12 works in total and that illustrates the relationship between man and the ocean, with a particular focus on the waves. The artist from Los Angeles chooses a particular perspective for his works: he allows us to observe the waves from underwater. As a result, this unusual point of view intensifies the monumentality of the scene and increases the viewer’s involvement. We are far from the idealized, classical and heroic landscapes of 1600, and we are also far from the landscape of 1700 that was committed to representing nature with an objectivity typical of the Enlightenment period. Here, Lon Levin, gives space to movement - the swirling of water just below its surface - and sensations. The viewer, completely immersed in the work, finds himself swimming under water holding his breath, he can perceive the fresh water on the skin and the muffled noises in the ears. The ability of the artist is therefore obvious; Lon Levin juxtaposes colors with wisdom and meticulousness, and also, he places with balance the lines and points - graphic representation of the marine current and the air bubbles that are created by the sudden movement of water. Lon Levin manages to arouse a sense of disorientation in the viewer, but at the same time the latter is irresistibly attracted by his works, as obliged to respond to a primordial call. What expressive power this artist has.

Art Curator Francesca Catarinicchia

Lon Levin

THE SOUP'S DARK SIDE

Lon Levin

UNDER THE WAVE

Lon Levin

WAVE FALLING

Lori Karamanlian

Allowing viewers to observe their unconsciousness and discover their own feelings is what artist Lori Karamanlian wants to convey through her works. Her unmatched style wanders in the space between fluent harmony and skillful distortion, drawing the viewer's mind ever closer to a place of revelation within themselves. 'Depth'; 'Solitude' and 'Polarity' are, in fact, the representation of her inner 'self', which, related on canvas, represents common emotions. Each emotion is, for the artist, a representation of something he has experienced and that anyone can experience. The titles are well suited to the individual works thanks to the use of expressive colours that the artist is able to calibrate and associate with each other. In fact, 'Polarity' shows a combination, as the word itself expresses: in the lower part black, the colour of negativity and that dark part that hides the darkest feelings; vice versa, the upper part white, a 'dirty' white however, contaminated by those negative feelings that often become more overbearing. 'Solitude', contrary to what the title expresses, is composed of cold colours that give a luminous feel to the scene almost as if the artist wanted to show that being alone can sometimes be an inner quest and thus, a feeling of positivity. Finally, with 'Depth' Lori reaches, albeit with a softer representation than one would expect for such a hard word, the most hidden unconscious. The same dynamism that can be glimpsed when looking at the canvas, is a journey through feelings. The three works, if read in continuity, can be the representation of a personal journey through feelings that the artist herself went through in the making and would like to pass on to her audience.

Art Curator Martina Stagi

Lori Karamanlian

Depth

Lori Karamanlian

Solitude

Lori Karamanlian

Polarity

Lucie Balaguer A color is as powerful as the impression it produces. (Ivan Albright)

Lucie Balaguer is a great artist from the Balearic Islands. She is an artist who in recent years has developed a style marked by pointillism and material painting, creating textures of colors, shapes and matter. His subjects are often related to the study of the sea. In the exhibition of M.A.D.S. Art Gallery "Guardians of dreams" she presents a material work, made with acrylic and pebbles on canvas entitled "Mares Enfrentados" ("Opposing seas") (2022). Lucie Balaguer goes beyond the classic representation of the marine world, looking for its essence and the sensations that overwhelm it. The immensity of the sea is in fact reduced to its essence: the sand, recreated in a material way thanks to a smear of crushed stone inserted directly on the canvas in the center, horizontally, and the water, or blue stripes, green and their shades that cover all the top of the painting vertically. These two elements, the detail of the crushed stone and the brushstrokes of color, evoke the thought of the sea...is color, its noise, its movement. And there are two seas: the sea in its real representation and the imaginary sea, in its dreamlike representation, made of sensations and inner emotions. Lucie Balaguer manages, in this work as in his other works, to involve the viewer leading him not to think superficially and banally, but to wonder about the depth of things. She created the canvas starting from what she sees, thinks, imagines, feels and has given us a new vision of the subject she has chosen to analyze and portray in her own way.

Art Curator Giulia Dellavalle

Lucie Balaguer

Mares Enfrentados

Lucinda Bryan “Everything you can imagine is real.”

(Pablo Picasso)

Imagination is a form of movement (κίνησις) that is produced in beings endowed with sensation and is capable of composing images either in relation to objects present to the senses or freely constructing them without immediate reference to the objects themselves. For Jean Paul Sartre it acquires an unrealized power vis-à-vis things, such that "through it is realized the capacity of consciousness to go beyond materiality and thus to express its freedom." In psychological language, moreover, imagination indicates a particular form of thinking that does not follow fixed rules or logical links, but presents itself as a free reproduction and elaboration of the content of a present or past sensory datum, linked to a particular affective state and, often, oriented around a theme. In Lucinda Bryan's acrylic and oil paintings, the concept of imagination as freedom is clearly expressed. The colors she uses have a life of their own and seem to impose themselves on the environment and on time, creating a totalizing and estranging imagery.

Thus, vibrations are generated from the artworks that wander freely in space to compose and break down wildly in the gazes of the audience.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Lucinda Bryan

Printemps 1

Lucinda Bryan

Printemps 2

Lucinda Bryan

Printemps 3

Lucy McNulty “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.” (George Bernard Shaw) Connection, feeling and understanding on a deep level are the building blocks of Australian artist Lucy McNulty's collage. Lucy feels that collage mimics existence by bringing the separated fragments of life and creating something meaningful and unique. Her art investigates reality and then returns it materially; hints, reflections, technique, tools and different materials that put together offer us profound images full of change. Incubator is an assemblage of forms, compositions and subjects in relation to each other that delineate the relationship between the artist's gaze, nature and the human condition. The photographs, in particular, are expressive, the result of research free of prejudice and at the same time attentive to the evolution of the languages of art and contemporary society. The research ranges from portraits, executed with typographic skill, to abstract photographs of landscapes and environments, resulting in a perfect dialogue in terms of both material and ideology. The photographs used seem to be unfinished, part of a whole that evolves, that loses meaning, form and vitality precisely from the relationships of the individual elements that compose it. The photographic series are part of a complex organic system, which is why the pictorial material is considered as such as a means of communication and representation. From an ideological point of view, the focus on the human datum, linked to spirituality, is clear, also because nature is the driving force behind her work. She intends for her work to inspire connection, sentiment, and understanding on a profound level.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Lucy McNulty

Incubator

Ludmila Vorotnikova There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself. (John Muir)

Ludmila Vorotnikova's art allows the observer to enter with a graceful and ideal world, in which objective reality gives way to symbolic representations of harmonious subtlety.

Fantasies of surrealism expresses the artist's curious and versatile approach to the fantastic element, which permeates every shade of color with vivid symbolism. This results in a mixture of elements that in the real world would be separate, such as the terrestrial and marine worlds. Instead, the artist approaches them with elegance, giving life to a coexistence beyond any logic, which nevertheless appears extremely natural. Mottled fish, bees and flowers with open corollas in delightful faces illustrate the imaginative power of the imagination, which nevertheless maintains a magnificent visual coherence.

Ludmila Vorotnikova

With Renaissance magic, Ludmila returns to one of her most recurring compositional styles, that of portraiture, created with the distinctive delicacy. Every detail seems to be created in such a way as to enclose a personal ideal of beauty: from the articulated headdress, to the branches of leaves, from the colorful parrots to the magnificent pastel-colored flowers. The artist emphasizes his preference for an imaginative dimension, which is the one in which his creative flair moves. In an external world where decay and yearning dominate, the intimate world of fantasy becomes a safe haven to refresh the spirit in search of a not entirely lost amenity.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Ludmila Vorotnikova

Fantasies of surrealism

Ludmila Vorotnikova

Renaissance magic

Luly Santos “To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Luly Santos is a contemporary Mexican artist, whose expressiveness stems from a deep connection with her own emotional journey. Her artworks are, in fact, full of meaning, carrying with them the artist's entire creative experience and her past, which is expressed with intensity before our eyes. In her artistic journey, we encounter different techniques and styles, sometimes more closely linked to color, others to a more dynamic and sudden vivacity. What her canvases have in common is precisely the need to abandon figuration, to the point of complete abstraction of the subject, in order to express her emotions in total freedom. In the three works ("City Lights"; "Radiant"; "Way of light") exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery during the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, we see how the need to embrace light is fundamental during the creative act. Often, in fact, her paintings are made with the use of gold leaf or yellow colors, symbolically referring to sacredness. Gold has always been the substance associated with the gods, with supernatural virtues, the material par excellence dedicated to the sacred sphere. Luly Santos makes art a moment of recollection with herself, transferring her emotions onto the canvas, letting her body move unconstrained. The dynamic brushstrokes, together with the materiality of the color, make her paintings overwhelming and vibrant, allowing the observer to connect with the magic of that moment in which the artist's sacredness manifests itself.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Luly Santos

City Lights

Luly Santos

Radiant

Luly Santos

Way of Light

Lybiamarie “Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time.” (Nick Hornby)

Lybiamarie is a polyhedric contemporary artist whose studio is based in Boston. Through a journey that allows her to understand the difference and depth of various expressive media, Lybiamarie is declining her art in different ways. Not only in the form of painting but also writing, poetry and music. For the artist in question, art is a fundamental means of expression for communicating to the outside world what she feels in her inner world. The colours, carefully mixed together, give life to abstract compositions that are the artist's way of getting rid of the weight and pain she carries within. Lybiamarie works by layering the materials, each layer covering the previous one by concealing it, this process continues until she feels the work is done and the work is ready. The work exhibited at M.A.D.S. on the occasion of the GUARDIANS OF DREAMS exhibition is entitled 'Cançó per a papa'. This work was created by the artist following the loss of her father and conveys to the viewer the depth of the relationship between a father and daughter. The various shades of blue of which the work is composed represent the form and intensity of the artist's grief. In addition to the work, with the same title, Lybiamarie also created a song symbolising the bond with her father. The reference to music, a form of expression and inner investigation that is very relevant to the artist, is also evident in the work exhibited in which it is possible to observe the engraving of multiple violin keys or the four in reference to the time of the piece of music.

Art Curator Laura Timpone

Lybiamarie

Cançó per a papa

Magdalena Sykut Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

(Langston Hughes)

One of Magdalena Sykut's most outstanding abilities is undoubtedly that of capturing the most intimate part of being with sophisticated elegance. Every detail of light and shadow, of sharpness and blur is orchestrated in an ensemble of disturbing beauty that makes it difficult to look away. The artist manages to use the photographic tool to illustrate the steps of an introspective process, of which Soul Geometry is an example. The blurred outlines create the illusion of a dreamy and unreal dimension, which contrasts in a balanced way with the face of the young woman portrayed, who seems to emerge from a nebulous scenario with bursting realism. With a fleeting glance, we manage to capture a sense of intense melancholy, which radiates around her figure.

Magdalena Sykut

The sharpness of the line of the wall seems to mark an inner boundary of sensations, emotions and ideals opposed to each other, but enclosed in the same circle of the soul. With Tender Dreams Magdalena once again proposes an "interior" scenario, but she deviates from the drama to approach a level of impalpable delicacy. The refinement of the collected pose sends the mind back to a tender dialogue with oneself, and with the most sensitive part of our unconscious, the oneiric one. The composition plays harmoniously between a continuous call of lines, which triumphs in that of the neckline and breaks the rigorous rhythm of the dress. But what most draws attention is the softly absorbed expression, as fragile in the changing nature as it is strong and present enough to transfigure her beautiful face to another level of consciousness.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Magdalena Sykut

Soul Geometry

Magdalena Sykut

Tender dreams

Manuel Langstadlinger "Everyone's true vocation is one, that of knowing oneself."

(Hermann Hesse)

Manuel Langstadlinger, Austrian designer and freelance artist, has managed to create a personal artistic poetics that combines aesthetic research and, above all, the desire to represent one's inner self. The impact that is created is, at first, a visual impact, given above all by the choice of a very saturated and varied color palette, which gives the works strength and expressiveness. This is combined with the desire to use an imaginary that brings out the most mysterious, disturbing and dark side of reality, which is analyzed and related to the artist's interiority. What derives from it is a complex game of shapes, colors and representations that evoke emotions, sensations of the past, memories, memories that hide in the deepest sides of his soul. What Manuel Langstadlinger aspires to is an emotional involvement on the part of the viewer, who is induced to immerse himself in the world of the artist, to browse inside his world and then to lead a more intimate reflection on his own inner world. For the artist, the creative act itself is nothing more than an escape from reality, a re-elaboration of one's own stimuli, a need to confront one's inner world and make it visible to the world.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Manuel Langstadlinger

Family

Manuel Langstadlinger

Addiction

Manuel Langstadlinger

Suffering

Maria Lorena Lehman

Maria Lorena Lehman is a visionary artist, designer, and author focusing on links between architectural design, science, and human potential as explored through her research-driven art practice. Lehman is author of the internationally published book entitled, Adaptive Sensory Environments, which won the Silver Medal Nautilus Book Award. Maria Lorena Lehman is, for the first time, a guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits three works of art made in watercolor on Arches Paper. "Hall of Humanity" is an abstract work in which the main color is black influenced by a small stroke of red that mixes with the rest. The message transmitted

by Maria Lorena Lehman in this work concerns the projection of our current choices as individuals and collectivity in the future of our existence, the artist is aware that the future that is reserved for us is our responsibility and what we choose to do now it will have implications and consequences for the future.

"Horizon House" is technically very similar to the previous work, but unlike the "Hall of Humanity" which is projected towards the upper part of the work, "Horizon House" develops its dynamism from a horizontal line placed around the center where you can glimpse a red dot, which would represent the sun.

The artist, in this work, imagines a reality in which the sun never sets, creating a real metaphor with curiosity and knowledge. The last work on display is "inner Reflection" which wants to clearly expose the essence of human perception, considered by the artist as an interior and profound capacity. The artist herself explains "Thus, this painting celebrates one's ability to go deep within, so in turn, one can look outward into the world to actualize the expression of their "Inner Reflection". "

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Maria Lorena Lehman

Hall of Humanity

Maria Lorena Lehman

Horizon House

Maria Lorena Lehman

Inner Reflection

Maria Tzanandrea

Maria Tzanandrea, Athenian artist, using dark colors, shades tending to black, gray and blue tells the daily struggle that each of us must do with the parts of himself. The dancing tones of the background and the materiality of the acrylic colors give body to the dark strokes surround the subject, oppressing it. The outline of the subject is made up of curved lines and greyish tones that recall Boccioni’s brushstrokes and at the same time Picasso’s cubism. The torsion and crooked posture of the figure recall the torsion of the space of Bacon’s portraits and attribute both physical and psychological heaviness to the subject. The subject of "The Line in Between" is tired, tired of hiding what he really feels to face life in a socially acceptable way, he is tired of repressing his identity and repressing everything is part of him in favour of a hope of happiness. The silhouette of the body in some points is more robust, more structured and stronger, the work dress he wears gives volume to his body but in other places the limbs of the subject are thin and seem weak. His arms and hands are drawn from a single black and white stroke, the lines are curved and the hands lean against his knees. The subject is bent by the fight against the passions he feels, on his face the tearfilled eye line is gently but clearly mentioned. Maria Tzanandrea captures the essence of a desperate and resilient character. She creates the true and never told portrait of a wrestler, a portrait that tells not only how a winner looks, but also of the difficulties he faces.

Art Curator Sara Giannini

Maria Tzanandrea

The Line In Between

Marianna Lehotaine Kiss “Abstract art has helped us to experience the emotional power inherent in pure form” (Anton Ehrenzweig)

Many times human beings have faced the question about what is real and what is not. Is it possible to be guided by imagination and dreams or is it always the reason the one that controls and guides? What would happen if people follow their dreams and wills more consistently and confidently? Marianna Lehotaine Kiss shows the possible existence of an alternate world where dreams, wills, ideals and imagination should have more power and voice; where there is an opportunity to go beyond the earthly world as it is known, with social and even personal limitations and barriers. Sunday Chaos is an intuitive painting where Marianna represents her alternate world in its purest form, where freedom, creation and recognition of oneself is promoted and harmony arises thanks to the mix of colors, shapes and brushstrokes. She also represents the possibility of an internal chaos in which reason tries to reign again, but Marianna's painting is a reminder for viewers to trust and stand firm on their own dreams.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Marianna Lehotaine Kiss

Sunday Chaos

Marie Calté “He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.” (Confucius)

Marie Calté is a French contemporary artist whose artworks are the result of a long meditative and deeply intense process. The artist's nomadic life has led her to encounter different cultures, especially in Asian countries, enabling her to discover new horizons and new ways of expressing herself in the creative act.

Her artworks are characterized by the type of composition, where thin lines flow side by side in what seems to be an ancient language, drawing shapes in space. Works that at first glance seem tinged with nuances and that, instead, when observed closely reveal masterfully defined signs, in a myriad of almost hypnotic details. The calmness and peace that emanate from these works tell us how intense and meditative the moment of creation is for her. In the three works ("BE YOU"; "INNER POWER"; "MARS RISES") exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery for the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, the regularity of each line requires the artist to take a cautious and precise approach, expressing a paradox, since in the design of the gesture, the causality of the instant is also concealed. Marie Calté also chooses to abstract her subjects, creating forms that leave the observer completely free to see without any constraints of meaning, inviting us to get in touch with ourselves and to look according to our experience. She transports us into a new, incorporeal and seductive dimension, to a faraway place of pure contemplation.

Marie Calté's is a mystical calligraphy, taking on the guise of a code that invites us to decipher, not with the mind but with the spirit.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Marie Calté

BE YOU

Marie Calté

INNER POWER

Marie Calté

MARS RISES

Marine Marquette Marine Marquette is a young French artist. Painting has been part of her life since she was a child and her passion has turned into a real profession. The artistic process allows her to release her emotions and get to know herself better. Marine uses art as a means of venting and sharing with the public. She is fascinated above all by her surroundings, by nature and its hidden meanings. Marine does not stay on the surface, she explores all possibilities through colours and shapes. Her art has no limits or boundaries, colours are analysed through a myriad of nuances and facets. Her spirituality is reflected in the artistic technique in 'DON'T FORGET ME' the theme she addresses is the urgency to protect our planet. An abstract artwork with an enormous life force. A manifesto of how human activity disrupts the land and brings no benefit. The green colour predominates and is fluid, expanding in every direction creating new and original combinations. An abstract landscape that reveals a disruptive emotional power. In 'THE LOST ISLAND', the artist takes up the urgent theme of saving the planet. The technique is always fluid painting, which gives a good sense of evanescence. An island lost among the waters that resists the natural phenomena that try to eliminate it. An example of perseverance and resistance that man should take seriously. We are so focused on our own things and lose sight of safeguarding the world we live in. The messages that Marine hides in her works are profound and reveal that there is more going on behind appearances.

Here the colours become darker, ranging from deep blue to shades of black and white. In 'THE COLD WATER' Marine describes the fragile situation of the glaciers. The bright colours mix with each other to create a harmonious and balanced mix. Water is the basis of life, it surrounds much of the land. An all too important theme that goes unnoticed. Marine proves to be a creative artist capable of sharing profound thoughts and reflections through aesthetically impeccable, fluid and original artworks.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Marine Marquette

DON’T FORGET ME

Marine Marquette

THE LOST ISLAND

Marine Marquette

THE COLD WATER

Mariola Wróblewski Mariola Wróblewski lets her artworks speak for her. They fully represent her because they capture her feelings and emotions. They are often colourful, enveloping swirls that tell of a human soul with contrasting thoughts, daily fears, joys, moments of happiness and difficulties. Perhaps this is why his creations appear direct and immediately enter the hearts of the viewers. The artist's life experiences, her travels, have led her to absorb more stimuli from different cultures and this is reflected in her modern and dynamic works, which are never banal. Such as the work 'Tower to heaven', which tells of a journey towards extreme happiness, an inner peace, stillness. The colours used are blue and gold. Blue is the colour of introspection, depth of soul and mystery. The colour shade chosen is luminous but at the same time bewitching. Gold is a symbol of preciousness, richness of soul, novelty and hope. The mix of these two colours makes the composition extremely luminous, capable of capturing the interest of those who look at it. The drafting of the colours is free spontaneously registering a continuous, overwhelming emotional flow. The style is abstract. Mariola reveals herself to be an extremely talented artist, capable of creating profound relationships between the visual work and the people who observe it. She enters their psyche and hearts.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Mariola Wróblewski

Tower to heaven

Martina Bugárová

Martina Bugárová, presents “Unconscious” for the “Guardians of dreams” Mixed Reality art exhibition at M.A.D.S. Art gallery. Constant motion is required to discover an unknown path. Keep on wandering so you can accomplish each task with the boldness needed in order to obtain empiric wisdom. To wait for waking up and being aware at the same time, is not an easy endeavor. “We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.” - Albert Einstein. “Unconscious” acts as a traced report while wandering and dancing in an unknown environment ready to surprise anything or anyone who passes by. For laughter, for tears, for dreaming to then obtain hope and discover new paths. Bold traces accompany bold bright tones eager to testify how daring we can be, once we have the confidence to pursue the unknown in reality. We rehearse in our dreams and we make it real because of hopeful thoughts of a hopeful beginning. Martina Bugárová, traces how to wander and make it real in perpetuity.

Art Curator Karla Peralta Málaga

Martina Bugárová

Unconscious

Masaki Hirokawa Masaki Hirokawa is a renowned Japanese artist whose wide range of activities includes digital artworks, graphic design, smartphone app development, interactive movie production and website development. At “Guardians of Dreams” exhibition hosted by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, Masaki returns to present two of his beautiful and deep artworks. "Condolences" depicts a woman in the foreground with her eyes closed, situated against a black background that enhances her features and beauty. A red headdress made of beads and precious embroidery encircles her forehead, sealing her elegance. As with all Masaki's works, this beautiful portrait hides a deep meaning: it was in fact created out of the heartfelt condolences of people all over the world: the sorrow of the bereaved families of those who died from infectious diseases is immeasurable. However, Masaki believe that all of them have fulfilled their lives and passed away in heaven, even if are very worried about their bereaved families.

It is the hearts of the bereaved that should truly mourn, and it is the suffering of those who must continue to live in this world that must be brought to Buddhahood. Heaven is a land of everlasting abode, and this world is indefinite, meaning that nothing remains the same. God created this world so that people's spirits can learn what is important. All those who have lived out their lives are equally surrounded by God's love and have returned to the fountain of the divine soul. Eternal peace is promised to all people in this world, and God exists eternally and unchangeably as the place to your eventual return. The second work exhibited by Masaki is "Distance": against a light pink background stand out two figures of a woman (the same one but doubled specularly thanks to digital techniques) entirely covered in gold.

Masaki Hirokawa A silent dialogue is created between them, they seek each other out, and seem to communicate something of which we viewers do not know the meaning. This work, too, is meant to be a reflection on our human condition in relation to the reality around us and the world in which we live. for Masaki in fact as long as we remain stuck in the structure of the individual as a single person and feel a separation between ourselves and others, we will not be able to reach a higher understanding. Modern science claims that if there is an extra dimension, it is in the microscopic world, but is this really the case? In the "Metaphor of the Cave" proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, it is said that this world is a shadow of the world of truth (Idea). In any case, Masaki believes that the present is a test to see whether humanity is able to move to the next stage and whether we can care for others as much as we care for ourselves. Moreover, is what we call "heart" really the real heart? Is it not just a cage called "spirit" that functions to protect the ego? We are currently in a complicated situation: we are in a phase of "separation," where we wear masks and distance ourselves from others, and at the same time the closed space is opened. However, when a space is closed, it opens widely, and when it is separated, it is sure to eventually come together. The number of missing people in the world that is announced every day is really heartbreaking. In spite of this, Masaki argues that all of this is a pandemic that is happening to change the world for the better, and that the day will come when we can look at the present and realize that this has all been an important process. Love is always beyond ego.

Art Curator Matilde Della Pina

Masaki Hirokawa

Condolences

Masaki Hirokawa

Distance

Maxim Timofeev "Going to the moon is not that far away. The farthest journey is the one within ourselves."

(Anaïs Nin)

Maxim Timofeev, a contemporary Russian artist, thanks to street photography manages to embrace the world of art again, managing to generate a personal artistic poetics that goes beyond the ordinary, seeking the non-conforming, the mystery, the almost dreamlike representation. Through a new analysis of the outside, the artist was able to discover a new internal world, a new dimension to be explored in order to then emerge. Reflecting on the question "who am I?", the artist has managed to give life to artworks that pose themselves as an aesthetic metaphor of its deepest sides, of its most hidden and never faced being.

Twisted figures, apparently recognizable elements with an imposing and disquieting aspect are placed as interlocutors of an introspective dialogue, as guardians of a world accessible only after having undertaken a change of course, a journey within oneself that has brought to light one's own demons interior. A journey to discover, accept and make two sides of oneself coexist, two parallel worlds.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Maxim Timofeev

He who looks at is what he looks at

Maxim Timofeev

No good, not evil, born of dreams

Maxim Timofeev

God of zero bites

Mayumi Kikuchi “Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet” (Paul Klee)

The universe has mysteries that generate interest, attraction and multiple questions in humanity. Some of them can be discovered and understood, but others can be developed, transformed or completed by imagination and dreams. Thus, the universe, just like art, shows that there is a plurality of worlds similar to ours, which can be interpreted and contemplated from different perspectives without losing their real value. Mayumi Kikuchi creates a galaxy made up of stars and nebulae that evoke an effect of motion, a sense of depth and loss of limits. Its color palette is essential because it generates a real connection between the spectator and something greater than himself: the infinite. Its beauty, strength and harmony captivate the spectator from the first glance. Galaxy encourages the viewers to always look up and dream big, to realize and be aware that one's own problems and realities are very small compared with the universe greatness, illimitation, flow and natural tuning.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Mayumi Kikuchi

GALAXY

Megumi Kobayashi “I would like to thank the curators, the company, the people at the venue, and the viewers for giving me such an exciting opportunity.” (Megumi Kobayashi)

M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery introduces Megumi Kobayashi and her work Beyond the excitement she describes "Do you like soft atmosphere? Or flashy colors? I didn't know what to do. But in the end, I thought I was fine with my favorite color, and the work was completed".

Megumi Kobayashi's art is unique; it is the encounter between the artist's will and chance that creates wonderful atmospheres charged with positivity, energy. Our artist has a great power, it is to communicate with the viewer of the work. She communicates positive vibrations that are extremely intense and belong to a universe that is not bound by the rules of the real world but detaches itself and takes a parallel, otherworldly, positive path. The colors vibrate and sing: exactly like an orchestra conductor the artist guides those who are the proponents of his suave melody. The result is absolutely creative, explosive, attractive and fascinating, our eyes are gladdened by her works. Her thecnique is drawing while stretching alcohol Ink with ethanol.

Megumi Kobayashi started drawing a year ago, but she couldn't express it well, so she didn't write for a year. During that time, her father passed away and she became mentally ill, and she felt depressed, but she wanted to do something and started drawing again. It's been about 3 months since she started drawing again.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Megumi Kobayashi

Beyond the excitement

Mercedes Grassi King "Human emotions arise from the same abyssal waters, even if on the surface they sometimes manifest themselves with wild waves, sometimes with slight ripples."

(Sándor Márai)

Mercedes Grassi King is an innovative artist, as she places herself both in front of and behind the lens, becoming at the same time a passive and active individual of the whole creative process. This choice recalls the determined will to embrace and show one's essence, one's existence characterized by chaos and order, by deep sensations and hidden thoughts. What is created are shots, artworks with a strong dark flavor, which bring to mind the immense and dark dream world. Courage and audacity come together to show the depths of one's abyss, full of tales and melancholy; an abyss left in darkness for a long time but which now, more than ever, feels the need to go out and shout to the whole world. The art of Mercedes Grassi King is a succession of changes of perspectives, which entice the viewer first to understand the profound soul of the artist, and then to lead a profound inner reflection on what is shown and on what, instead, often is left aside.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Mercedes Grassi King

GRITO

Mercedes Grassi King

ANFIBIA

Mercedes Grassi King

DIMENSION

Michelle Zarro "A glass mirror is used to look at the face and works of art are used to look at one's soul."

(George Bernard Shaw)

The artistic research of the artist Michelle Zarro is mainly based on the discovery and analysis of one's own interiority, highlighting the psychological aspect of this reflection. This research, which can be associated with a real inner adventure, brings out hidden sides, thoughts and sensations that are subsequently represented, becoming artworks capable of enticing the viewer to also undertake a personal inner reflection. The three proposed artworks recall the simple act of using the computer, but the dark colors and the gloomy setting suggest a more psychological and introspective approach to the individual works. They not only represent a cross-section of daily life, a moment very common to many, but they lead us to reflect on the present dimension of the moment, on which emotions and thoughts afflict the artist, who, through the creation of an almost surreal setting, manages to transfer her state of mind to the observer, who is projected into a suspended dimension, poised between the artist's interiority and concrete reality.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Michelle Zarro

hp1

Michelle Zarro

hp2

Michelle Zarro

hp3

MICROU The human being is a unique animal. First, he is the only animal that retains within his soul the awareness of an inner self not visible from the outside. Second, man is the only animal to feel the need to realize something that is completely unnecessary to his survival: art. Indeed, art does not present purposes that help the individual in the vicissitudes of life: it does not produce food, warm us, shelter us from the weather or heal us from all evil. Yet man, by nature, has since prehistoric times sought to express his interiority through the various forms of art. Using at first hands and then pigments and tools, human beings have understood and consolidated the methodology to express themselves and the world around them to process experience, to express themselves, and to leave their mark for posterity. There are many motivations for human beings to create art just as there are many artistic languages that a person can use to best express his inner self. Painting, Music, Poetry, Writing, Calligraphy, are just a few examples of artistic elaboration that the individual has developed, passed on and learned over the centuries. Yet, narrowing the field, we notice that only two arts exhibit a quality that is not common to the others: universality. Painting-especially abstract painting-and Music can be considered as two universal languages that retain their expressiveness when viewed and heard in all corners of the globe. MICROU combines these two arts to shape a pictorial work that takes inspiration directly from the world of music. As in an alchemical cauldron, the two arts mingle with each other blurring the contours and merging within each other.

"Vortex" is excited rhythm, it is sound that echoes in the ears, it is music that makes the ribcage vibrate. "Vortex" is pure pigment, acid color melting on the canvas, it is extremely broken, harsh, jagged black line. MICROU produces a chromatic and formal composition that dances literally resonating with music. Fluorescent fuchsia patches dripping along compositional space, blue patches and yellow patches are dappled and overlaid with black elements that invest the entire composition going on to create its rhythm. Spikes, zig-zag movements, blackish swipes and thunderbolts creep into the color obstructing and conveying its passage.

The composition acquired its own rhythm, the work transformed into musical notes. As if by magic, "Vortex" is the direct graphic representation of what the whole body perceives through music, it is note that becomes pigment, it is chord that becomes nuance.

MICROU has combined the two universal languages together to produce a work that reaches directly to the ears, eyes and heart of the viewer by making the latter resonate to the rhythm of its song.

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

MICROU

Vortex

mikidesign No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories. (Haruki Murakami) You cannot choose to become an artist. For the true artists, the creative moment coincides with themselves. The art of mikidesign perfectly represents the uncommon ability to be able to look inside oneself, and to explore the depths of the soul without reticence. This awareness inspires her artistic production, and moves the artist's brush in order to "photograph" a real cross-section of thoughts, sensations and feelings. With my childhood - the artwork chosen by the artist for the Guardians of Dreams exhibition - offers a magnificent example of this peculiar conception of art, enhanced to the maximum degree by a symbolic vision. The surrealism of the work is admirably combined with the reference to an intangible dimension, which has its roots in a melancholy childhood memory. The female figure - the artist's pictorial alter ego - is depicted in the center of the composition in an almost hieratic attitude, while she holds a ball and a baseball bat in her hands. The great passion for baseball and in particular for the Hanshin Tigers team - manifests itself in an ideal fusion between the young woman's face and the multiform tiger heads, which blend into each other. Mikidesign beautifully describes the attachment to a happy memory, which she tries to keep to herself. The two hands raised towards each other seem to be an expression of an attempt to reach a lost past, when the love of baseball was an experience shared with the father figure. The artist involves us with a look at a carefree youth, and her example leads us to do the same, retracing with the mind a nostalgic memory with tenderness and heartfelt feeling.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

mikidesign

With my childhood.

Mimi Rimonda "We are travelers in the cosmos, a whirlwind of stardust dancing in the eddies and eddies of infinity."

(Deepak Chopra)

The artistic research of Mimi Rimonda combines, with an art of an abstract type, the reflection on human existence and its presence not only in the world, but in the most immense universe. We are all stardust and, therefore, a part of the cosmos lives in each of us: this is the philosophy that prompted the artist to represent the various energies and internal connections present within the human being, of the energies that they connect with each other and that bind us in a visceral and indissoluble way with the universe.

The past memories of humanity re-emerge in a decisive way and the abstract forms and, above all, the saturated and vibrant colors recall the metamorphosis, the transmutation of these memories into real sensations, vibrations. The art of Mimi Rimonda is a set of connections, vibrations and hints to the cosmos that move, dance among themselves, generating a music that resonates to the most hidden corners of our soul.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Mimi Rimonda

Floating/Moving

Mimi Rimonda

My Inner Vision Pro

Mimi Rimonda

Creational Energy

Mitsuhiro Higuchi

Mitsuhiro Higuchi is a creative director , art director, designer , photographer and a video director in the entertainment and the advertising industries. The works of art exhibited on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" are created from photographic collages taken directly by the artist, for each work there are 500 levels, the artist used the technique of creating prototypes by leveling the photos, coloring them, by changing the gradient and adding a new layer. The three works on display are extremely different from each other. In "castle" the artist seems to enclose in a single sphere everything that makes up today's world, from music, to fame, to the awareness that consumerism and capitalism are the cultural elements that keep us linked to what we most away from our essence. "Imaginary" looks like a real work of abstract pictorial art, the atmosphere is dark but illuminated in flashes by beams of light that seem to pull it out of the nostalgic dimension in which it is dropped. The colors are perfectly combined and create a vortex that comes from darkness to light as it approaches the center of the work. The latest work on display is "Wall", an extremely impactful piece from a communicative and chromatic point of view, "The CHOICE is YOURS" is a real intimation to become aware of the importance of acting in the world and in one's life. In this case, the artist does not use hidden metaphors or interpretations, on the contrary he is very direct and clear in the message he wants to convey.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Mitsuhiro Higuchi

castle

Mitsuhiro Higuchi

Imaginary

Mitsuhiro Higuchi

Wall

Moniqqques

Monika - Moniqqques is born in Czech Republick. She has been painting since she could gold a painting brush and she never stopped. Her focus currently lies on figurative art: she likes to capture feelings, relationships, sex, deep emotions of couple during their connection. Moniqqques comes back presenting in “Guardians of dreams”, the October show by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, two beautiful paintings, all related to intimacy of human being and of their relationships. "Sexy lady" depicts a woman upside down against a dark background, whose nudity we glimpse. The broad, intense brushstrokes outline the figure's sensual and sinuous forms, accentuated more by the color red, hinting at the love and passion of the moment in which she is captured: her hair, in particular, looks like a net made to "catch" men attracted by her sensuality, making her resemble a mermaid.

Moniqqques

Of an entirely different flavor is "When You Kiss Me," which is decidedly more romantic and pure. Almost in contrast, a woman being kissed on the cheek by a man behind her is captured against a white background. The moment is romantic, sweet and intimate, portraying the couple's moment of extreme togetherness and sweet affection. Their bodies almost merge, an expedient achieved by drips of color that make two bodies like one.

Art Curator Matilde Della Pina

Moniqqques

Sexy lady

Moniqqques

When you kiss me

MOz

MOz is a multi-talented French artist who uses different types of art to express herself. From music, drawing, poetry and writing, she creates what she feels, whether manifested or unmanifested (subtle, emotional, dreamlike or symbolic); She paints as she sense and feel things; with the sensitivity of what crosses her mind at the moment. In general, her work as a painter tends to convey messages essentially inspired by metaphysics and the multiple ways in which Man conceives existence. Leaving the viewer free to receive and interpret her work however they feel it fits. What matters to her the most in the artistic path is to put in colors and textures, aspects that cross us as human beings. The main lines being for her: movement, the impalpable, time, impermanence and the illusion of duality. Through her "Craquelures collection", the cracks suggest the marks of time, they recall the cracks, wrinkles, stretch marks and scars. She want each viewer to feel challenged by the different themes of her works of art, to touch a part of their inner soul.

Art Curator Salma Eltoukhy

MOz

La magie - L'âme agit - Collection Craquelures

MOz

Dragon mystère - Collection Craquelures

MOz

I see U - Collection Craquelures

Mumzy and Zoooooz Atelier “Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world? Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it'd lose even its imperfection."

(Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart)

侘 寂

Wabi-sabi ( - ) is a Japanese term used to refer to an aesthetic view of the world. Literally, it would be 'the beauty of imperfection', so it is usually sought in natural elements and those that have an incomplete or impermanent character. Instead of seeking perfect symmetry, one seeks asymmetry, simplicity and naturalness. Applied to everyday life, this Japanese concept encourages us to seek beauty in the imperfections of life, quietly accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay, accepting the uniqueness that represents us. This Japanese term in the age of globalization lends itself well to describe the work of Mumzy and Zoooooz Atelier. Painting, the use of fractals, colour as a propagator of existential phenomena, The essentiality of these works of art lies in the artists' intentions of honesty and truthfulness. Imperfection as praise of the real, nature as sincere inspiration and introspection as a means to an eternal end. Art as life, imperfect and whirling. Light as birth. powerful and revelatory. In the artists' paintings, the story of the journey to the centre of the world as a journey to our earth.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Mumzy and Zoooooz Atelier

Tiggon

Mumzy and Zoooooz Atelier

Sunset at Volmoed Oudtshoorn, Route 62 South Africa

Mumzy and Zoooooz Atelier

Be one with nature and learn from it

MxMyA

Yasser MxMyA (They/Them) is a multidisciplinary artist from Syria/Germany, dedicated to architecture, art and activism. Their works serve an emerging community of artist newcomers in Berlin and support the onboarding process into the NFT (Non-Fungible-Tokens) world under the main frame project “Kalimat“ (Arabic for words), which ventures the metaverse and the new digital platform. At “Guardians of dreams” exhibition hosted by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, Yasser presents two videos. The first one, “Al Tamima wal Alfiya (Prologue), depicts a surrealist and metaphysical landscape, with blue pillars against a blue and gray background on which boulders resembling rocks emerge, around which green and orange Arabic letters revolve, as in a loop. The title is composed of two expressions: Al

MxMyA

Tamima (Totem) and Al Alfiya (A kind of a Diplopoda or Millipede of things).

Those idioms move around in and about our lives, alluding to the constant dilemma we live between the inner and the outer, the visible and the invisible, the existent and the meta! Each letter is a sacred object in itself, since it has the power to create meanings and deliver messages. Drones move around to pollinate KALIMAT to each others' power”. The second video presented, “Zujaj: A Glass Study”, explores the various refraction properties of the digital cast resin material. Reflections relay the colors of the rainbow. This piece is a 3D analogy to the Magic Eye III type. by N.E. Thing Enterprise and its 3D structure offers a variety of surfaces to have the magic of reflection and refraction.

Art Curator Matilde Della Pina

MxMyA

Al Tamima wal Alfiya (Prologue)

MxMyA

Zujaj: A Glass Study

Nakira Williams

Nakira Williams is a young Australian graphic designer. She started painting last year, experimenting with colours and mediums to best capture the emotions that arose within her every day, helping her to overcome them. Her art is reminiscent of maximalism, due to the visual richness of its content. An art that requires intense creative work, in which the artist surrenders herself completely, letting herself be guided by her unconscious. It is not only creative work but also self-healing. The three works that the artist exhibits for this show have a connection with water. The main colours used for these canvases, blue and purple evoke the seabed. Each emotion is represented through figures of women, divine and powerful, who occupy the entire space of the canvas, aware of their strength. The brushstrokes, given hastily, emphasise the expressionistic side of her art, giving the work a strong emotional slant. The artist depicts her reality in a subjective key, the works presenting a complete freedom of space, with the complete absence of perspective.This, together with the richness of the brushstrokes and the skilful use of colours capture the viewer's attention, prompting him to plunge into the deep waters inhabited by the artist's emotions, questioning even his own.

Art Curator Lucrezia Perropane

Nakira Williams

Estuary

Nakira Williams

River

Nakira Williams

Sunken Dreams

Nanny Kok “I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” (Frida Kahlo)

Dutch artist Nanny Kok, influenced by her training in fashion design and philosophy, creates her own unique work, resulting in intuitive and colourful paintings and illustrations. Inhabitants of places, dogs and rats are her favorite subjects and are associated with words and writing. They occur not only in physical space but also in linguistic space. The visual inscriptions are intended to render the word materialistically with the help of images and, in this way, restore to communication itself the aesthetic dimension denied by society. Thanks to these subjects and the use of avant-garde concepts, Nanny Kok creates a new language with a strong synthetic and sensorial value and a strongly allegorical flavor. A free, everyday painting and above all a further expressive metaphor, a personal technique, where drawing and colour are the main elements, pencil, charcoal and watercolor drawings are the transposition of Nanny Kok's creativity onto a surface. Her painting is delicate, reaching people through the use of soft colours and everyday and science fiction subjects. A step therefore to measure oneself against reality, to step out of the sterility of the world and to give, especially to herself, the possibility of transmitting positivity. The work Meisje met ratten represents a dialogue between reality and science fiction, a spatial dichotomy that exists and insists on the sheet, where the human side is pre-eminent, where social spaces are reconquered and where the artist finds herself.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Nanny Kok

Meisje met ratten

Naoki Hanayama Although it has existed for millennia, it was only two hundred years ago that the seven-day format became a standard. It accompanied the growth and increased complexity of society, establishing a universal common reference point. It happened to many people, in the worst stages of the pandemic, to lose their sense of time. Hours were the same, days blurred together in a continuous stream of indistinct moments. It was a phenomenon that Anglo-Saxons referred to as Blursday, or Noneday: the week, with its alternation of work and rest, seemed to be meaningless. And all things considered, it should come as no surprise: of all the ways invented by man to divide and measure time, the week is the most artificial. It can therefore be safely written that the week is the unit of measurement of modernity. While it has a history of thousands of years, its scanning had never been so exacting and precise as in the last 200 years. In China and Nigeria, it did not even exist. In the West, it was often ignored. As the arrival of urbanization and industrialization increased the need for a precise and shared time division, the week acquired a new value. It was in the 19th century that days took on their own personality: they marked out what could be done and what could not and reflected the cycle of work and leisure. The seven days have experienced rapid globalization, accompanying modernity and its rhythms in all latitudes of the globe. In Japan, for example, it was not adopted until 1873. It has had good luck, survived and established itself everywhere, a true symbol of modern life. So what if we tried to condense all the minutes, seconds and hours present in a week into one image? It is not an easy job; our lives are punctuated by commitments and vicissitudes that, day after day, accumulate, overwriting one another, occupying all our useful time. Naoki Hanayama elaborates the project of transcribing the week in images by formulating outcomes within which the overlap of events, happenings and thoughts is highly palpable. Color and forms are so layered as to create a true pictorial ecosystem. In "Monday - 36.5," we are faced with a veritable universe of shapes and colors.

Globiform, reddish spots contrast effectively with a backdrop of dark, iridescent bluish spots. Observing them, one has the feeling that these small, delightfully organic-shaped spots move slowly in a fluid like microbes and bacteria seen under a microscope.

Taccing to them, brown and orange patches harbor tiny ruby-colored organelles from which rays and tentacles branch out, sometimes resembling sea anemones, sometimes the physiognomy of neurons. White silhouettes then stand out in the midst of the whole composition. They seem to swim in the sea composed of these organelles, seeming to float in this primordial soup full of meaning. Naoki Hanayama has depicted, in a single image, her particular state of health recorded at the beginning of the week in an effective attempt to reframe the minutes, hours and days that mark the rhythm of the week. In this way, the seven days cease to be a simple time scan obligated by the rhythms of contemporary life and work and acquire a meaning of their own: that of personal experience and moods that we often, because of our hectic lives, forget to feel and remember. The week gains depth and Naoki herself has managed to give meaning and legitimacy to the passing days.

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

Naoki Hanayama

Monday - 36.5

Naoki Hanayama

Wednesday - Night, Silence and Footwork

Naoki Hanayama

Friday - Shining breathing

Nathan Downie "If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."

(Loren Eiseley)

The English artist Nathan Downie proves to be a dynamic and eclectic artist, able to use colors wisely, which stand as co-protagonists and, above all, bearers of the deep meaning of the works. In the works presented central is the theme of water, which assumes the metaphorical representation of the world of dreams: as when you are underwater, in silence, where everything is motionless and seems to have stopped in time, the world manifests itself in the same way, dreamlike, a way accessible to all, but with different facets. Nathan Downie represents the duality of the human mind through the representation of the marine world as opposed to the earthly one that is immediately above: a rational side, linked to the earthly world, and an irrational side, connected to the inner, dream world. Like a fish, the artist moves within his own interiority, looking for hidden truths, his own thoughts, past memories and tries to show them to the world. The colors chosen, warm and with a strong impact, suggest the deep bond that unites him to his inner world, a small world that nevertheless contains a very high charge of emotions and sensations.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Nathan Downie

Am I High?

Nathan Downie

Overnight Therapy

Nathan Downie

Treacherous Paradise

Nelly Gay "What escapes logic is what is most precious in ourselves."

(Andrè Gide)

French artist but resident in Tahiti for many years, Nelly Gay bases her artistic research through experimentation in the field of visual arts, more precisely drawing and digital collage. What derives from her creative mind are real journeys, adventures within her human mind, an intimate and personal dimension that recalls that of dreams. In her artworks there are frequent references to mass culture and a mysterious symbolism, which give the entire artistic creation a mystical and uneasy sense. These creations, however, do not want to intimidate the observer but, on the contrary, induce him to analyze the various elements present in the artworks to make them his own and thus be able to wander with his own imagination. Nelly Gay's art allows the mind to travel, to associate thoughts, memories with an imaginary linked to popular culture and, in particular, to fairy tales. Her art opens the doors to the magical inner world, a way close to the dreamlike one and in continuous transformation.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Nelly Gay

The shell echo

Nelly Gay

The rabbit of Joyce

Nelly Gay

Mystic Red

Nicholas Ferguson “What if art is the elixir to human suffering?” I believe art has the power to heal, transforming lives and society. ” (Nicholas Ferguson)

M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery introduces Nicholas Ferguson and his work Look no further he describes this way "So cliche you say…/But it truly starts and ends/ Within". Each of Nicholas Ferguson's works comes to life and is transformed by the communication the artist and the works establish with the individual viewer. Nicholas' works speak of man and address man, without being overly explicit, leaving freedom to question freely. Nicholas's art is light, pleasantly intricate. The British-Swiss artist treasures the artistic experiences of the past that he looks back on with great respect and innovates a strand of art that can be considered expressionist and that sometimes takes on a rather abstract strand, sometimes ties in with reality. He states, "What if art is the elixir for human suffering? I believe that art has the power to heal, transforming lives and society. My work explores this premise. Occasionally provocative and often playful, my works call attention to what it means to be human, exploring our idiosyncrasies with the intention of contributing to our transformation. I am very curious about our potential as human beings, and by delving into the human experience, I see openings to support our growth."

Nicholas makes art not only because he is driven by his instinct, for pure artistic pleasure, he sees art as a positive lever for humans, a source of personal growth. Therefore, they communicate a powerful emotional charge in his works. Another element that accentuates the great communicative talent of our artist is the skillful use of color, in conjunction with dense and decisive brushstrokes, as can be seen in the work presented at the international art exhibition "Guardians of Dreams." Indeed, we find ourselves in a context that can be defined as dreamlike, both for the palette used, which helps to render the metaphysical atmosphere, and for the shapes, as well as for the references present to architecture or elements belonging to human life and imagination. These references are sporadic, as if they were links attributable to mental images. It is evident how much the artist cares about communication with the viewer and especially about his freedom.

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Nicholas Ferguson

Look no further

Nicholas P. Kozis Nicholas Kozis is an artist who makes female sensuality and colour his artistic peculiarities.

His artistic process often starts with observations of reality, nature, landscapes and live studies of the human body. Nicholas is intrigued by the mystery of life, often combining the vision of reality with his imagination. He is very accurate in his drawings, omitting no detail, yet he likes to mix the objective view of the world with his personal subjective vision. He attaches colours to the images and chromatically decides the whole work on those hues. This can be seen in his work 'Wharf,Moor Bay' two striking features are the use of green in all its shades.

Light is another key aspect of Nicholas' work, as can also be seen in the painting 'Super Bloom 1'. Here, the ethereal and sensual body of a woman blends almost miraculously with the surrounding nature, creating an intense relationship with it. Light and shadow chase each other to create volumes and delineate forms. Nicholas often mixes naturalistic elements with human elements, creating imaginative, original and visually pleasing compositions. The artist knows how to combine colours and how to dose light and shadows. The shapes are always harmonious with each other, never in contrast, as in 'Syren 3' where the sea foam becomes one with the young woman. The artist often puts the female figure at the centre of his works, enhancing its beauty, sensuality and the soft, perfect forms of the body, as in 'Muse In The spring 1'. But he does not limit himself only to female subjects, quite the contrary. For Nicholas, beauty has no gender. It is the human body that is wonderful, as in 'Gravity 3'.

Nicholas' skill lies in juxtaposing real images with naturalistic and abstract lines, colours and shapes. A mix of elements that always proves successful, thanks to his refined modern and graphic taste.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Nicholas P. Kozis

Musein The Spring 1

Nicholas P. Kozis

Gravity 3

Nicholas P. Kozis

Syren 3

Nicholas P. Kozis

Wharf, Moor Bay

Nicholas P. Kozis

Super Bloom 1

Nidal Legendre "Nature is what we know - but we cannot express - Our wisdom is powerless In the face of its simplicity."

(Emily Dickinson )

"Nature is what we know but cannot express." Nature encompasses the simplest things that surround us daily, described as an infinite and varied world. Emily Dickinson, after the age of twenty-five, withdrew to a solitary life and began to devote herself passionately to poetry, understood as a path of spiritual growth toward intimate self-knowledge. The poet perceived the relationships between all natural things, and this keen capacity for observation helped her to understand the universality of human experience. For her, in fact, there was always a universal truth in nature.

Nidal Legendre

She accomplished a kind of revolution by isolating herself from a society to which she did not feel she belonged in order to incredulously observe and write a very careful and timely analysis of it. Nidal Legendre is very reminiscent of Dickinson in this urge to look elsewhere to find herself in a position attentive to the contemporary. It is a spontaneous movement of estrangement and observation that shows itself as solid and dense painting. Intense works of art of slow and gradual absorption. Images tell precisely our time through the emotionality of the artist.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Nidal Legendre

Coral Reefs

Nidal Legendre

Sliding into the Metaverse

NINI NINI is a young and talented artist who uses the enormous skills of digital drawing to create unique and evocative artworks. The artist sees art as therapy. She depicts images that give strength, hope and positivity, focusing on the small gestures and details of everyday life. Nini takes simple elements that convey positive vibrations and allow the viewer to break away from the monotony of everyday life, while remaining in a familiar sphere. The subjects she creates are often immersed in dreamlike landscapes, where nature reigns supreme. In the work 'Sunflower', there are few elements, but they are all juxtaposed with extreme harmony. A young woman with angelic features waits for her beloved at sunset in a field of sunflowers. The iconographic choice made by the artist is not accidental. Sunflowers express joy and happiness, love and longevity. The colours of the flowering field match the lights of the sunset and contrast with the glow and eternal beauty of the young girl. It conveys lightness and youthful beauty, like a newly blooming flower. The digital drawing technique allows the details to be realised accurately and precisely. Also very interesting is the use of perspective and the construction of the image that leads the viewer to focus more on the girl and the sun. NINI is able to create joyful and festive images, a happy and carefree interlude in a world that is always in a hurry and fails to appreciate the simple but unique, wonderful moments that nature and life itself, give us.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

NINI

Sunflower

Njord Njordson The simple act of having an inner, silent dialogue with ourselves in the third person can help us to have greater regulation of our emotions without additional mental effort, unlike when we address ourselves in the first person.

The inner dialogue helps us to maintain our identity as individuals, and to deal appropriately with various situations. From these assumptions, painting can be thought of as the body's elaboration of these inner dialogues.

The mind, perhaps fatigued by these one-to-one conversations, chooses to block out issues and questions and represent them to the hand. A hand that will inevitably draw a sign. to which another will follow and which will then continue the work begun, constructing the path that the artist will be destined to follow. Action as thought, as changeable as it is static. Njord Njordson's digital images collect and take in everyday elements, distorting them of their context to create one bordering on the surreal, transparencies and apparitions, formal invitations and brightly coloured places, an expressive and inexistent panorama. A place in Njord Njordsoon's imagination where questions are asked and answers are left to us.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Njord Njordson

時間の経過

Njord Njordson

輪巻き戻し

Njord Njordson

汲む消す

Noriko Ue When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.

(Sally Ride)

So goes a famous fable by Phaedrus. One day a frog saw in a meadow an ox and, touched with envy at such a large size, swelled its wrinkled skin. He then asked his children if it was not bigger than the ox. It was not. Again, with greater effort, he stretched the skin and asked again which of the two was bigger.

The ox. Finally, as it tried to swell even more, it burst. The artist Noriko Ue's frog, like Phaedrus's, also tries to break out of its assigned space. This frog, it does not want to inhabit that limited place. The frog, like the artist, does not accept being contained, stuck, limited in its feeling. Rebellion lies in the intentions of this painting with its fairy-tale aesthetic, voluptuous decorations and bright colors. Ue does not merely express herself through painting but gesturally turns her back on those predetermined margins that are supposed to contain and keep emotions in a predetermined position. Her intention compels her to violently turn away, as for Phaedrus' frog, read by an unruly audience, to burst out might almost even be worth it.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Noriko Ue

「unconstrained」

Ordinary Daze "The paradox of reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists only in the mind's eye.” (Shana Alexander)

The nature of reality has always been an ontological question that philosophers, artists and scientists have tried to investigate to make sense of their surroundings. Inspecting the world as it is challenged people to question every little thing in order to have a better understanding of the actual reality and alternative realities. In his practice, the artist Ordinary Daze arises and puts these questions at the center of his investigations in order to create realities in which people are not afraid to ask and dare the state of facts.

As the artist would say, “If you awaken from the illusion that the world is a trap and you can’t escape, I dare you to go deeper”. By unifying the environment around us and the idealized world derived by questioning existence, Ordinary Daze introduces us to their daydream world. Can this reality be experienced only in the physical realm? Is it an alternative, but an actual reality? The observer, by looking at the artist’s work, is challenged to reflect on these questions and, at the same time, build their own reality.

Art Curator Francesca Mamino

Ordinary Daze

State of Trance

Oscar Favaro “The exclusive orientation toward personal factors, which is required by the search for personal causality, is by no means permissible for the work of art, for here we are not dealing with a human being, but with a production beyond the individual."

(Jung) The pictorial gesture becomes pure solely if we fully immerse ourselves in the activity by manifesting the will, through movement so that inner forces influence the sign. Where the sign is the expression of the creative impetus that is experienced by producing a certain effect, with the brush, solely by being in listening to oneself. Says Harold Rosemberg, "What was to go on the canvas was not an image, but an event. The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint.' The gestures on the canvas were gestures of liberation from value-political, aesthetic, moral." The canvas is no longer̀ a space to be designed, but an arena in which to paint spontaneously, letting the unconscious and the soul act. These words of Rosenberg perfectly meet the fabulous oil paintings of Oscar Favaro, paintings for which there is no explanation except their very existence. An explosion of calibrated colors, an almost poised balance that nevertheless sends back a feeling of extraordinary centeredness. A peacock, a square, the places and fascinations of a whole life, childhood, boyhood and adulthood merge in these images and reach the viewer's heart at a whirling speed.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Oscar Favaro

Gnomes

Oscar Favaro

Peacock

Oscar Favaro

La Plaz

Painting by Intuitive Soul (By LUCIANA FREMAUX) "The greatest forces lie in the region."

(George Macdonald)

Gesture is a movement of the body and especially of the hand in accompaniment to the brush to better highlight the sign. Sign is expression or action that is manifested through gesture. Before making the pictorial gesture, the artist is looking to create that sense of emptiness that leads him to the creative act.

This emptiness is filled by what is recognized as intuitive painting. A journey of introspection through color, where the final image is not an end but the reward. In the abstract paintings that are the result of this process of intuitive painting, it is easy to find the most diverse forms that recall the most diverse moments of one's life. Literally images and thoughts latent in our minds that in this way are stimulated and brought to the surface. The process, which seems to draw naturally from proven scientific systems, is rather a process that has to do with the field of the poetic. In Luciana Fremaux's paintings we do not perceive the neuropsychiatric study that brought this system to success, but we are invaded by the poetic beauty of its forms. Sacred places, underground caves, deep waters, environments of the subconscious sometimes obscure but always accessible.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Painting by Intuitive Soul (By LUCIANA FREMAUX)

Rêve Cosmique (Cosmic Dream)

Painting by Intuitive Soul (By LUCIANA FREMAUX)

Les Premiers Jours du Nouveau Monde (The first days of the new world)

Painting by Intuitive Soul (By LUCIANA FREMAUX)

Explosion solaire (Solar Explosion)

Paris Pinky (Jirvand) “Happiness is a warm puppy.”

(Charles M. Schulz)

Mantegna's Bridal Chamber, Renoir's Bal au moulin de la Galette, Matisse's Joy of Living and his Dance, Boccioni's Laughter, and even Gaugain or Chagall. Happiness is often described in art history and is suddenly loved by all. We do not know a human who does not love a beautiful happy painting. Paris Pinky joins the masters in this case, with her quest precisely, for happiness. Her aesthetic is active, vibrant, resplendent, a riot of intertwining colors and forms. A kaleidoscopic composition that catches the eye and is dedicated to celebrating the world around us, the present time, the season. The artist chooses to take the best from experience, finding herself and thus the images she produces in an infectious vortex of pleasure, of dancing euphoria. A thousand mirrors of this much yearned-for emotion reflect endless possibilities of rejoicing. Autumn Girls comes to tell us of possible worlds, to invite us, draw us in, and welcome us. With Pinky's artwork we suddenly find ourselves going round and round with our desires that become fulfilled just by existing and immediately we are happy.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Paris Pinky (Jirvand)

Autumn Girls

Patricia RAIN Gianneschi Patricia RAIN Gianneschi is a professional Visual Artist, Musician and Teacher born and raised in Chicago, working across Poetics. In her multimedia work, whether music or visual art, the intersection of social justice and spirituality is a thread that runs through all the disciplines of her work. Her paintings, prints and drawings going back over 35+ years represent an artistic practice rich in ideas, content, creativity and authenticity. At “Guardians of dreams” exhibition hosted by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, RAIN comes back to present two paintings. “BLUE on BLUE” is a layering of blue hues that create abstract, undefined shapes: they are almost reminiscent of a tide or an icy wind that catches and sweeps over us. The artwork represents the deepest emotions and the wonder and reality of our mortality: the artist creates from the chaos of life and RAIN, as an artist, sometimes goes further and creates, at times a form of confessional narrative. A narrative that is universal in its effort to bring clarity and equality to the human spirit. Here the forms and ideas seen in "FALLEN" are transformed from collage to oil painting. Free to create space and form, these universal symbols, this visual vocabulary now continues in oil. The vastness of the blue horizon engages the viewer who seeks to connect with this color, this inspiration for the human spirit, even for himself.

RAIN’s creative process is based on listening, attentive listening that allows her to be ever present and to connect with the sounds of life around her. These sounds and sights are the tools the artist tries to use when engaged with the Creative Spirit. Being connected to this "vein of gold" is the true intention of every artist; it is the undeniable connection with the Divine.

Patricia RAIN Gianneschi In “FALLEN”, on an almost entirely clean, white canvas, RAIN works by layering paper, text, and graphite, and then undoing it all. With clear references to Rothko's universe, she adopts the attitude of improvisation in her works: the work emerges after experimenting with mediums, monotypes, collage, monochromatic color relationships and material exploration of texture, paint and surface. RAIN develops an approach to image-making that is influenced by both her painting and printmaking: the use of textured paper, embedded in the canvas, is a direct result of her monotype printmaking. In this painting,she sought to engage the viewer through painting, painting and un-painting, writing and erasing, covering and texturing surfaces that represent the multidimensional society in which we find ourselves existing as we continue to free-fall toward our unknown future. Indeed, this work well represents the artist's poetics: across different media, eras and conceptual concerns, rain remains an artist committed to spirituality and social change. Her paintings are physical, exploring paint and surface, print and voice, plastic arts and verbal expression, a painted thought or collage, a poem or song, expressing a symbolist aesthetic in the image through which to carry sociopolitical ideas. RAIN’s work communicates with the inner self and the outer world: she creates and the viewer is transformed, seeking to find clarity in this "in-between space," between social justice and spirituality.

Art Curator Matilde Della Pina

Patricia RAIN Gianneschi

FALLEN

Patricia RAIN Gianneschi

BLUE On BLUE

Patrik Horacio “Art, in my opinion, should depict the truth, the reality, and then distort it into certain forms, only then is it real art for me” (Patrik Horacio)

The international exhibition Guardians of Dreams at M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery is proud to present the works of Patrik Horacio. Our artist presents two facets of his art with The Landscape and Zoe at the bar. Patrik has the ability to capture reality and rework it in order to communicate it in a personal yet highly introspective and universal way. The Landscape is in the strand of expressionism, its figurative basis can be traced to Romantic aesthetics. The representation is at an intermediate level between the artist and the world, between the feeling and ideas that the work manifests and the environment it represents.

Patrik Horacio

He perceives the landscape as a human body in a different, more distended but equally fascinating and breathtaking form. These are mostly Spanish landscapes of the island of Majorca, where most of his family comes from. Understandably, he has a great affinity with the island itself, which he also interprets in his paintings. The second facet Patrik presents today relates to his charcoal drawings. The angular lines of the bodies he draws and the facial expressions emotionally charge his drawings. The artist presents his truth and worldview, as he himself states "I play with the truth, I bend and distort it in different ways, that's my way."

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Patrik Horacio

The Landscape

Patrik Horacio

Zoe at the bar

Peep Ainsoo Throughout his career, Peep Ainsoo (b. 1958, Estonia) has been both a designer and an abstract graphic artist, making mainly large-scale ink paintings. Lately he has turned to digital drawing, which has enabled him to seek harmony between the artwork and the space around it. At “Guardians of dreams” exhibition hosted by M.A.D.S. Art gallery, Peep presents one of his digital drawings printed on canvas, titled “Keepers of Castles in the Air”. Abstract black images stand out against a gray background, like an enigmatic code whose meaning we do not know. His works are often the result of combining pre-packaged parts from each other and new elements drawn for the specific work. The resulting digital graphic art is abstract, with spontaneous twists, and, for the most part, introspective: since he usually draws images from his mind, the different objects and shapes can be seen as reflections of what has been recorded in his subconscious. In addition, Peep's creations are strongly influenced by his favorite artist: nature itself. This source material is arranged in organized and symmetrical compositions that form windows into a world created by Peep. Because most of his drawings use a monochromatic color scheme, the viewer has the opportunity to interpret the spatiality of the work in various ways, playing with the foreground and background of the composition. The viewer is invited to see each work more than once, on different occasions, in order to observe how what we see is affected by our state of mind.

Art Curator Matilde Della Pina

Peep Ainsoo

Keepers of Castles in the Air

Peter Mages

Peter Mages is a self-taught artist from Munich, Germany. Born in 1946, he discovered his passion in painting very late, but he believed that better late than never. Colorful, powerful, joyful are the adjectives that best describe his abstract artworks. He creates portraits using strong colors in a minimalistic approach, using just few brush strokes to reppresent the shadow and light in a vivid original way. Peter’s artworks transmit hope and joy, he sets a truely inspirational example of what an artist can be, joyful and free spirited. His motto for his art is "forever young", and the viewer can truely sense Peter’s personality through his artworks.

Art Curator Salma Eltoukhy

Peter Mages

Carlos S.

Peter Mages

Dreamer

Peter Mages

Barack

Petr Hyldebrant

On occasion of the international art exhibition Guardians of dreams the artist Petr Hyldebrant presents the artwork titled Locust. The composition is really particular and fascinating because for the viewer it is like having the opportunity to enter in the imagination of the artist and enjoy the vision of his thoughts belonging to the reality around him. The language used is near to surrealism intentions, and communicates with the will to represent another reality where the worlds and the thoughts take shapes in images. In fact we can see a person that stands out with a knife on one end and a piece of flesh dripping with blood on the other hand.

This strong vision involved complitly the attention of the viewer that followed all the elements of the composition like the locust to understand the deepest meaning of the vision.

For this reason. As the artist says about his work: <<These hand-marks signify 5 major species extinctions in the history of the planet. The red one represents the time we are right now. Maybe the sixth extinction. The whole is also a metaphor for coronavirus and plague.>> So watching the artwork of the artist Petr Hyldebrant is also an opportunity to investigate and understand something else about the reality around us.

Art Curator Elisabetta Eliotropio

Petr Hyldebrant

Locust

Petra Jacenkova "Creativity, like human life itself, begins in darkness."

(Julia Margaret Cameron)

Petra Jacenkova is a self-taught artist who has always had a strong passion for art, which was abandoned and only found again in 2019. Her attention is not directed so much to the real, concrete world as to what goes beyond, which concerns a parallel world, invisible to all but accessible only to a few. Colors are appointed as the undisputed protagonists of her artworks, as they are entrusted with the arduous task of bringing light, of reflecting all the mystery and magic of the new reality: a particular emotion is associated with each shade of color, or mood, and through a different drafting of color, Petra Jacenkova manages to give life to works with a surreal flavor, which show themselves as real doors towards the unknown.

Petra Jacenkova

The desire not to provide a clear interpretation of the artwork itself, but to let emotions guide everything, makes it possible for the observer to feel part of the artistic creation, managing to establish a strong connection based on self-reflection, and on the subsequent unveiling of the most hidden and profound parts of one's being which, as for the parallel world, must be known, understood and made one's own in order to emerge and, finally, shine. Petra Jacenkova's art speaks of her, but also of all of us, of the deep connections with the universe, of an indissoluble bond to be sought first of all in the most hidden corners of our soul.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Petra Jacenkova

Out of this space

Petra Jacenkova

Emerald night

Pétur Geir Magnússon Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

(Thomas A. Edison)

Technology has relieved people of a multitude of problems: it has speeded up communications, facilitated knowledge making it usable at a capillary level, shortened the distance between one person and another, even achieving a dimension parallel to the daily one, that of virtual reality. But what is the backlash of this technological impulse? Pétur Geir Magnússon tries to answer this question with the 3D sculpture Stacked chairs. The artist starts from an interesting reflection on the concept of "utility" and how it has changed in relation to the evolution of virtual reality. To do this he started from the base, considering the chair as a piece of furniture that has always been indispensable in every place. Pétur, however, intends to ascertain how this essentiality settled over time can be modified and even replaced by the immateriality of a digital universe. What remains of the chair is a mere semblance of aesthetics. Therefore, it is given a new lymph, making it an integral part of a different world, which takes the chair as an example to demonstrate the potential of a sophisticated technology tool and the possibilities - hitherto unthinkable - of a simple chair.

Computers are vain. They can only give you answers. (Pablo Picasso)

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Pétur Geir Magnússon

Stacked chairs

Pia Casanova

The art of Pia Casanova is very fascinating in the process of creatio bu also in the final result of the composition. On occasion of the international art exhibition Guardians of dreams she presents three works titled La mar, La Muntanera and Nus mein. At the first glance we can soon understand that the essential composition presents a deeping meaning that consists in the use of the medium during the creation of the work. This means that the artist has an own technique and language that belongs just to her creativity and her way to communicate with the art. As she says: <<Over time, I began to consciously choose the motifs for my paintings.

Plants, trees, but also animals and landscapes. The composition of the picture is planned. But when working with glue and sand, not everything can be planned, which is why there are always surprising and fascinating effects.>>. So this means that the particular mediums she uses interact also with the creation, and in the final result can produce effect out of the primary intention of the artist. This way to intend the art is really fascinating in terms of resolution. So from the other side of the canvas the viewer can enjoy not just the vision but also the surprise of these unplanned elements.

Art Curator Elisabetta Eliotropio

Pia Casanova

La mar

Pia Casanova

La Muntenera

Pia Casanova

Nus mein

PonidaList

PonidaList is a Japanese artist whose practice makes use collage to recreate idyllic scenarios through the composition of colour combinations and bizarre shapes, allowing imagination to create narratives of the scene. For this current exhibition, the Japanese artist proposes an intricated utopia consisting of an infinite composition of flowers. Pure and beautiful, the flowers symbolize the deep feelings of everything that you love and enjoy doing, and that you wish it would never end, flower after flower. Even though pleasant, the concentrated composition of flowers seems to be covering the secrets behind the beautiful colours. What are the mysteries that would unveil the truth? The human presence reveals itself among the thick, flowery bushes. Almost fearful, the young lady stares in front of her towards the bushes, but soon enough she catches the eyes of her own reflection. The contrasting emotions might be the result of the astonishment of the scene surrounding her, which creates a feeling of sublime for its grandiosity.

Art Curator Francesca Mamino

PonidaList

SONO

Prudence Au “In my opinion the charm and magic of color is inseparable from substance; that is, from texture.”

(Cecilia Beaux) Colours and textures are two of the main elements of Hong Kong artist Prudence Au. Fascinated by and bound to art since she was three years old, Prudence graduated in Fine Art in Hong Kong and France; now, she benefits from a reputation that stretches beyond the Chinese borders by reaching art galleries from Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Spain and Italy. Through a vivacious and brilliant manipulation of ink, oil and acrylics, Prudence paints forms that illustrate “life’s aesthetics and purpose”, as she explains. Inspired by the beauty of nature and her passion for life, her works display imaginative forms where colours perfectly intersect with thick and thin lines, through which the artist evokes her obsession with examining the materiality of textures in art. It is easy to see how the original forms that one sees in Prudence’s works detach themselves slowly; after the first sight, the paintings start to have a life of their own, evoking a different meaning and appearance to whoever is looking at them.

The dreamy and lingering atmosphere that characterises “Dancing Blossom”, “Energy gives new life” and “Sapphire Blossom” allows the viewers to always catch new details. Pink, violet and light blue shades of colours pop up from a bright and white background in “Dancing Blossom” and “Sapphire Blossom”. As the titles suggest, the two paintings represent the beauty of flowers blooming in a delicate and sinuous way. The light lines and flowing colours’ tones are delicately placed next to each other, making the works sparkling with a harmony that depicts the movement of the flowers blooming. Similarly, the painting “Energy gives new life” is the epitome of the celebration of a new life and the voyage of a mother’s pregnancy. “The mother’s pregnancy gives birth to a new life with infinite love and care”, Prudence says about this painting. There are no figurative forms but abstract motifs that resemble a newborn child or the mother’s placenta. The paper is imbued with pinky ink that recalls the same sensitivity, tenderness and sweetness that characterise a mother-child relationship. In these paintings, Prudence is brilliant in giving the viewers a sort of tridimensionality and vividity of her works: it is as if they can see the dance of the flowers blooming, smell their natural perfume, see and live the love of a mother and her child.

Art Curator Martina Lattuca

Prudence Au

Dancing Blossom

Prudence Au

Energy gives new life

Prudence Au

Sapphire Blossom

Rachida Addou The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

(Jean-Jacques Rousseau) Rachida Addou's creative expression outlines a marked character aspect of the artist, which is then realized on the canvas. It is a strong and spontaneous desire to help others, to understand their needs with an enchanting grace. This innate predisposition has been realized both in everyday life and in the artistic reality, to which she has approached again in recent times with a renewed and deeper inspiration.

Rachida's studies on language disorders have given a further inspiration to artistic research, as we can admire in the works presented on the occasion of Guardians of Dreams, starting with Lost City. In an unreal scenario, the gaze is captured by the circular trend of the brushstrokes, which create a myriad of structures, juxtaposed one to the other. They unfold in the composition as a series of symbolic buildings, as close to each other as immersed in a dimension of their own. They seem to allude to the feeling of silent isolation experienced by personalities who do not find the possibility of expressing themselves in conventional communication. In Ascending, a disturbing whirlwind of blue-toned acrylics, solitary white figures stand out, appearing to float upwards. The essentiality of their features expresses the feeling of melancholy loneliness that stirs in the interior of those who have no voice. The artist offers each of us the opportunity to reflect on the priceless richness of the introspective world, especially of people who do not have the opportunity to explain its nature in words. The Threshold presents us with a similar image, but tinged with a fiery optimism like the shades of red, yellow and orange that blend with each other. Art thus becomes an ideal tool for making visible and communicable what cannot be expressed in words, rising to a level of strong educational impact. A virtuous example of altruism and solidarity, manifested by the universal language of art.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Rachida Addou

Ascending

Rachida Addou

Lost City

Rachida Addou

The Threshold

Rana Hatem Slim Spirituality: the art of keeping your internal fire alive. (Maxime Lagacé)

The common thread that unites the works of Rana Hatem Slim presented during Guardians of Dreams is a focus on a metaphysical and highly spiritual world, which leads the observer on a real journey towards an intimate and inner level. This concept is expressed starting from the chromatic contrasts of A SOUL JOURNEY, which seem to outline the first step of a departure from the sensible world. The brushstrokes of red and orange in the background lick the dreamed figure in the foreground like burning flames, as if to elevate it to an extracorporeal dimension, closer to an incorporeal dimension. The "spiritual story" of the artist seems to continue with SPIRITS 'MUSE, a real triumph of warm shades, which further sanction the detachment from the limitations of the tangible world. The delicate veins of color seem to anticipate the multicolored brushstrokes of OTHER SPIRITS.

Rana Hatem Slim

The artwork is based on an admirable compositional geometry, which balances the upper and lower part of the painting with a suggestive effect of alternations. The focus is represented by the central sphere, an ideal sun made of gold to enhance its hieratic function. Its unearthly light gives the impression of radiating all around with an irrepressible creative energy, catalyzing the attention of the observer with ineffable wonder. With ECUME the world of spirituality - however present seems to be perceived in a more subtle way. Despite the indefiniteness of the outlines, the gaze is able to distinguish a figure dressed in red, whose flowing hair can also be seen in the wind. Rana Hatem Slim thus concludes the journey through the spiritual realm, and represents the final point of a journey of profound change, which manifests itself in a complementarity - of substance and color - with respect to the initial one.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Rana Hatem Slim

A SOUL JOURNEY

Rana Hatem Slim

ECUME

Rana Hatem Slim

OTHER SPIRITS

Rana Hatem Slim

SPIRITS' MUSE

René Thompson "Memory is not what we remember, but what it reminds us of. Memory is a present that never stops passing."

(Octavio Paz)

Memories of the past, interpersonal connections but, above all, dualism and the connection between mind and body are what inspire the art of René Thompson, who aims to conduct a deep introspection through the artistic act. Her experience as a woman in contemporary society is what guides her within her experimentation and "All An Illusion" is the basis for deeper reflections on the condition of women today, the social pressures and prejudices suffered, the barriers that all women have to overcome every day.

Although the creative intentionality starts the artistic creation, the whole act does not follow any norm, and the artist lets herself go to improvisation, generating artworks with a strong abstract flavor, but in an almost pop key. The presence of materials of various kinds gives dynamism to the entire composition, recalling a feeling of fluidity, how fluid and elusive memories are they re-emerge, they merge with the past and reflect on the future.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

René Thompson

All An Illusion

Ric Conn

Ric Conn is an American artist known nationally and internationally for his informative and explanatory works on issues of social and cultural relevance, especially regarding the condition of women in the world of the twenty-first century. Ric Conn is a particularly expressive and stylistically unmistakable figurative artist, and on the occasion of the new exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, "Guardians of Dreams" exhibits four completely different and new works of art compared to his traditional artistic production. "A modern venus" and "another modern venus" tell the story of the conception of beauty in the modern world, Venus was one of the major Roman goddesses and was considered the goddess of eros and beauty.

Ric Conn

These are new and different works with respect to the techniques and style traditionally used by the artist, as he uses photographs thus creating a collage. "End of the road" tells the story of a journey, a real journey of rebirth in which the figure in the foreground looks over his shoulder to observe what he has overcome and what he has had to face, the work is extremely empathetic , especially for those who observe it, who can identify with it. The last work on display is "Rorschach lorynn" and, in fact, starting from the title it recalls the famous Rorschach psychological test. This particular work conveys a sense of inner duality, as if within the same individual there were two essences that remain in balance and allow the person to express himself.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Ric Conn

a modern venus

Ric Conn

another modern venus

Ric Conn

end of the road

Ric Conn

end of the road

Rmoo Rmoo's is not an easy art. Fathomless, dark chasms are offset by intimate flashes of light. Bright patches that seem to shine with their own light sink, all of a sudden, into the darkest and absolute darkness. Rmoo's is art of contrast and coexistence, at first sight conflicting, between light and shadow, between darkness and sky. It is an art that needs to be looked at, observed in all its nuances-even the faintest-to seek and conquer that depth of sign and meaning that these works conceal in their depths. For these very reasons, Rmoo's art is not easy. It is not art to look at while you are in a hurry, while you are listening to a song, while you are talking to someone and face to face with the world. These works are to be observed in silence, no voice should reach our ears, no noise should distract us from what we are looking at. Only in this way can we understand the true nature of these works, only in this way can we discern among the color spots the creative instinct of the artist. The reflection imposed by these works imposes a dialogue with the self that resides within us. They are reflective works and, for this very reason, we must respect their intimate and personal nature and listen to them quietly. Silent dialogues rise up from our hearts and resonate in the drippings, in the reliefs of color, in the bottomless recesses and luminous peaks. For its part, the work receives our emotions and gives its interpretation through its formal and chromatic conformation. It is as if Rmoo's works listen to us and shape themselves according to the desires, needs and fears of our soul. Conversely, it is as if Rmoo is naturally predisposed to deep reading of the human soul and has managed to enhance this inclination through the use of color and sign. In "Mourn" we are faced with a splendid example of this intimate and confidential dialogue between artist - work - viewer. A black blanket obscures our view. It is heavy, abysmal and at first glance disturbing. There is no light in this dark stain, no way out if you end up in it. Blackish rivulets pour out of these black, magmatic spots and into the only bright area of the work. Lead rain falls heavy and inexorable from the leaden sky. Yet, the black spot does not frighten us. It neither instills fear nor terrifies us. Dialogue with the work induces us to recognize the dark area as an inevitable and inescapable part of everything. After all, without darkness there is no light, without brightness there is no darkness.

Everything would be gray, monotonous, and we ourselves would look more like automatons than human beings. From the black abyss we glimpse light. It is a bright light, with yellowish and reddish tones that contrasts with the faint grayish and blue stain at its side. Burning light contrasts with the winter sky, golden glows rise from the darkness reverberating their brilliance even in the deepest black. In "Mourn," Rmoo's painterly skill is combined with her penchant for reflection and for creating a silence that, full of meaning, manages to wordlessly communicate its true nature by prompting us to ask ourselves questions about our innermost and deepest essence.

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

Rmoo

Dea delle Nuvole

Rmoo

Mourn

Rmoo

The Woman Who Warms The Blue Stella

Rosana Kossatz “Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others."

(Andrei Tarkovsky) Mankind has poured everything into painting: the taste for aesthetics, the desire for freedom, closeness to the divine, messages of struggle and in general all human knowledge. The artist is concerned with making visible what is invisible, with showing it through its expressive power. Painting in the history of art has narrated its own time and often predicted the future in some way, always highlighting precisely those aspects that were not yet bright enough to jump out at a 'civilized' eye. Often painting dialogues with its own history in a conversation that is almost inaccessible but which brings back to the level of experience a feeling of great intensity. In front of Rosana Kossatz's painting, we feel attracted, in a perhaps inexplicable way, because this image is tortuous, almost dirty, confused, yet luminous, attractive, pleasant. This feeling of density that the artist's painting has, comes not only from the dreamlike, metaphysical aspect it contains, but also from the reference to the history of painting, to the tearing with which frescoes were detached, to the wall painting that has been ringing our collective unconscious chords as human beings since the beginning of time. A work of art, that of Kossatz, which in its immediacy contains history.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Rosana Kossatz

Revelação moral de Morfeu

Rüdiger Carius “The source of art is being” (Rüdiger Carius)

Rüdiger Carius is a long-awaited presence in M.A.D.S. International Art Gallery exhibitions because just like the gallery, he is constantly evolving and full of new things to give to the art world. Once again Rüdiger amazes us. At the international exhibition "GUARDIANS OF DREAMS" he shows a new facet, psychedelic, colorful, full of intersecting forms that give unique sensations. Recall that Rüdiger's works are unique in that they belong to his very personal style, born in 2020 and called Split Art (a mix of colors related to psychology and neurobiology in combination with "destroyed" forms).

In the past we have known two variants of this style, one more abstract, the other having a more figurative but still synthetic feel. Today we know the psychedelic variant. Once again our artist exceeds the dimension of reality, synthesizing it as the great masters of contemporary art know how to do. Rüdiger plays with the forms of reality and creates something extraordinary, positive, new, fresh.

He immerses us in an abstraction completely akin to our energetic and innovative times. The strength of the color and forms used establish a dialogue with the viewer that is more powerful than communication because the artist communicates with the unconscious part of our mind. The following works are: Glass game and The prism (in which the shapes represented are a game of movement and shine), Spirit and Powerful expression (the most introspective and emotionally related to the exploration of the human mind and soul), Diamonds (related to attraction and luxury).

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Rüdiger Carius

Diamonds

Rüdiger Carius

Glass game

Rüdiger Carius

Spirit

Rüdiger Carius

Powerful expression

Rüdiger Carius

The prism

Salvatore La Cola

Salvatore La Cola is an artist of reality who represents, in his works and through them, what happens outside.

Sometimes through a somewhat blurred representation, his scenes are the result of a study and not of the feelings that transport him during creation, just as we can observe in 'Theatre'. The work with which the artist participates in the current exhibition at the M.A.D.S. Art Gallery is an event. Salvatore, however, makes good use of the colours, which are calibrated and not always sharp, as well as the bodies and subjects depicted, lacking defined contours, creating a blurred atmosphere that often recalls dream images. In fact, the background of this scene is barely decipherable, it seems as if we are on a wet pavement - thanks to the use of light blue that recalls puddles - or in a cloudy sky, perhaps at sunset, as the pink and yellow pastels make it seem. Even the characters themselves are barely visible, naked bodies almost close to being considered wooden puppets, intent on playing their part in an expressive manner. The artist Salvatore La Cola, through this work, wants to reach the public in a sincere way, with the concern to represent what is real/'not real' in his works.

Art Curator Martina Stagi

Salvatore La Cola

Teatro

Sandy Jian Man has been defined as that animal that thinks, that speaks, that has self-consciousness, that has consciousness of his own death, that buries his fellow men. One of the best known definitions is that of Aristotle: man is a social animal. Here also lies the origin of narrative art. If it is true that freedom as well as beauty, joy, hope can only be realised through friendship, what canonly with the presence of the other, what can happen in the moment of extreme sharing of one's story is priceless. Going to an exhibition can become a bonfire, in the evening, where we all stand around the fire and tell each other about ourselves. We will tell the others, who will then be made aware of it. What happens, in its simplicity, is simplicity, will be extraordinary. It is extraordinary because man is able to materialise, perhaps while watching the flames of the fire dance, something that is not present, but absent. He who narrates evokes a reality that others have never seen. Sandy Jian's digital paintings are the protagonists of these stories, their own and are telling themselves to us, in beauty. Colours and spots of lights and signs can be found in these paintings as little narrative expedients, dots to connect , a set of signs that tell and sing the artist's story.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Sandy Jian

Magical Staircases

Sandy Jian

Together

Sandy Jian

Eye of London

Sandy Jian

Nocturne Echoes

Sandy Jian

Cities

Sarah King "The enchantment of nature, the fascinating mystery that surrounds it are perhaps the only key we have to try to open the door that separates us from the truth."

(Romano Battaglia)

Influenced at an early age by her father, a mystery writer, Sarah King based her entire artistic poetry on personal memories. Using vibrant colors and 3D materials, in contrast with the darkness of the background, it manages to give life to artworks with a strong expressive charge, which recall past memories, the most remote memories with a more general look at nature and life. The presence of flora and fauna is nothing other than the metaphorical representation of the act of life, of being born, growing and living on Planet Earth. It is a representation of inner strength, courage and dreams. This sense of belonging is increased by the presence of meticulously worked organic material and, later, applied to artworks, as if to seal the artist's attachment to nature and, more generally, to life even more deeply.

Although everything is not left to chance, but previously decided according to a compositional scheme, Sarah King's works speak of expressive immediacy, lightness of mind, openness to the world. They speak to the observer of a dream world accessible only through the imagination, a world not too distant from the one we know, within which, however, emotions, sensations and hope coexist.

Art Curator Federica Schneck

Sarah King

tweet, Tweets

Sarah King

Ultimate Femme

Sarah King

Feels Like Home

Senju “Creativity is contagious, pass it on.” (Albert Einstein)

Travel is a key to exploring, learning, researching, and understanding one's ambitions and desires. Senju is a Japanese contemporary artist who has been passionate about the world of creativity for twenty-eight years. It is often difficult to find one's way, but sometimes it is the universe that sends us signals that we must be able to grasp to draw the map of our life. During her travels, Senju visited numerous temples and from there a strong desire kindled within her soul: to become a Suiboku artist. Nature is wonderful and powerful; nature speaks to us, and we must listen to it; we belong to it, and it belongs to us. "Torrent After Rain" was created in 2018 with the Sumi ink technique on traditional washi paper. Rocks and meadows surround the stream which, after a moment of storm, returns in peace and harmony with the rest of the world. A rainbow appears in the sky and reflects on the river, the birds sing again, the wind stops blowing. Nature is the metaphor of every man's life: serenity is sometimes interrupted by fears, pains, and obstacles, but the love that surrounds us, our willpower or destiny that changes course, shift one’s ground.

Ups and downs, victories and defeats, moments of strength and weakness: this is the cycle of nature in continuous evolution, this is the cycle of life that restarts every day. Senju's works are the mirror of her deep inner world: immerse yourself in the brushstrokes and let yourself be overwhelmed by the magic.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

Senju

Torrent After Rain

Senky Finest Surrealist art has the merit of forcing the viewer to go beyond what the eye sees, to show a different reality that exists in a universe that cannot be touched, as ineffable as a dream or as real as the world seen through the eyes of a child. Surrealism is in fact based on the exaltation of the unconscious and subconscious within the creative process, because only without the restrictions of reason is man free to express the most authentic part of his being. Senky Finest's digital paintings ride the wave of surrealist freedom without being carried away by the current. The impression is that of being confronted with the representation of a lucid dream. One can think of the waking and dream state as two different worlds that we can experience. Some spiritual traditions even state this in a literal sense, distinguishing between a physical plane and a more subtle, yet equally real, one in which dreams and other visionary phenomena take place. Thus, the desire to control life in the waking moment, seems to give way voluntarily, to an unknown personality, to a rider of our consciousness who appears to take service and a responsible role. Paintings that tell stories, that destratify consciences. In the voluptuous and aesthetically satisfying line we find genius.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Senky Finest

The door to paradise

Senky Finest

alone in the party

Senky Finest

Hope clouds observation

Senky Finest

My head was here

Senky Finest

The sea of time

Shannon Nowak Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet. (Paul Klee)

Sometimes we fall into the deceptive prejudice that the work of art must correspond to certain criteria of refinement, of mannerism. Therefore, elements that can be traced back to aesthetic standards are incorrectly sought, as “perfect” in form as crystallized in a dimension devoid of inspiration. Shannon Nowak's artistic compositions are distinguished by an extremely varied approach, which nevertheless never fails to communicate a strong tendency to introspection, which has its roots in an authentic inner stimulus. Evening Reflections - the artwork that we can admire during the Guardians of Dreams exhibition - projects us into a sweetly melancholy atmosphere, which immediately touches the viewer's heart. The fiery hues of a suggestive sunset meet the soft nuances of blue, gray and blue, accompanying the gaze into an intimate and private dimension. The apparent simplicity of the whole enhances a deeper meaning, which goes far beyond what is visible, and favors a mental but above all emotional dialogue with ourselves. Shannon Nowak once again demonstrates her unique communicative ability, all the more effective the more she is able to abandon all the accessory elements, to detach himself from conventional stylistic features to fully embrace a wonderful semantic parable without indulging in a forced rhetoric. A real triumph of emotion and life.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Shannon Nowak

Evening Reflections

Shelley Joy “Painting is a colorful act of inspiration turned in to an expressive communication that is daily” (Shelley Joy)

Energetic, vital is the abstract art of Shelley Joy. The American artist presents three of her works at the Guardians of Dreams International Art Exhibition at M..A.D.S. International Art Gallery and shows great spirit. Shelley belongs to the neo-contemporary abstract art scene and for this exhibition she decides to give us an experience of great emotional impact, her works scratch the viewer's soul with their boldness that pivots on chromatic tensions, strong, striking colors, abstract but decisive forms, confident and dense brushstrokes. The universe she manages to create is highly dramatic and is based on questioning, dialogue with the viewer, and dynamism. Her awareness of theater and music gives her paintings a dramatic and mysterious quality. Decisive, sensual but also of extreme sensitivity are Live Wire, Warm Day and Whimsical Communication. These three dynamic, joyful, strong works demonstrate the extent to which the American artist has developed a wholly personal abstract language that allows no categorization. The charisma of her painting consists precisely in the mysterious process that allows her to simplify the complex vision her paintings express. A journey into the world of color; a hypnotic journey within the work, an exciting window into Shelley's worldview

Art Curator Mara Cipriano

Shelley Joy

Live Wire

Shelley Joy

Whimsical Communication

Shelley Joy

Warm Day

Sheryl Gadiano

The art of Shirley Gadiano is a strongly symbolist art in which nothing represents only what appears, but is the call of something else, something deeper. Her painting remains far from provocative techniques and subjects, concentrating instead on a balanced expressiveness in which figuration and abstraction coexist harmoniously, without exceeding in one or the other direction. With this style and with different materials, the Spanish artist of Filipino origin, describes a dreamy and mysterious interior universe composed of images of women and animals.

In the work under examination, "Soul Revelation", we see the face of a beautiful woman who, serious and focused, looks straight at the viewer. Around her, Shirley Gadiano places some symbols and to better suggest the evocation they are reduced to their essence: a butterfly, symbol of rebirth, transformation, hope and courage; a swan, symbol of purity, innocence and wisdom; and finally, the Moon in all its phases. It assumes a symbology particularly linked to the depth of mind and to the unconscious, the most intimate part of each person. With this work, therefore, Shirley Gadiano shows herself and at the same time invites us to do the same, to show our most intimate part. She understood that art is able to touch the soul of every person and so in her work, well composed in proportional and chromatic relationships, she captivates the viewer and manages to communicate with her deepest part. The lilac to our right and the brown to our left are wisely interrupted by touches of blue and gold that reflect the light and illuminate the entire composition. Shirley Gadiano proves to be now completely devoted to art and proves to have reached a good artistic maturity; maturity that from now on can only improve to excellence because this is what happens when you chase your dreams and you love what you do.

Art Curator Francesca Catarinicchia

Sheryl Gadiano

Soul revelation

So_Bgc The best thing to do is to dive in with your imagination you can never drown.

(Karl Lagerfeld) So_Bgc's art can be considered as a symbolic universe, the meaning of which is all the more subjective the more it places the viewer in the conditions of giving his own interpretation.

These are paintings built on layers and layers of acrylic, which find their perfect dimension in abstractionism. The fil rouge is a mesmerizing play of light and shadow, made possible with the use of dense and material color, which creates a three-dimensional effect, as we can admire in Eole. What is most surprising is the artist's ability to evoke images with a skilful use of colors, of which Iceberg is a particularly successful example. The geometric veins of white that "rise" from the blue blanket of the background, immediately bring the mind to the image of the cracks in the ice, while in Pofondeurs the spectator is projected into a magnificent marine view. The artist looks into the depths of the sea, but does not seem to limit herself to the constraints of what is visible. Her creative flair, in fact, pushes her to conceive the artistic path as an ideal level to represent a more hidden level of reality, both sentimental and emotional. In this way, So_Bgc moves away from the dictates of an art conditioned by stylistic and content conventions, to remain faithful to its "muse", and at the same time to transmit its genuine inspiration to the viewer.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

So_Bgc

Eole

So_Bgc

Iceberg

So_Bgc

Pofondeurs

Som Lothong The Sun illuminates only the eyes of the man but shines into the eye and the heart of the child.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson) Som Lothong's artistic achievement is an evident sign of a profound vocation for creation, which transcends the mere pursuit of ideals or predefined canons to fully grasp the fruits of genuine inspiration. It touches the deepest chords of the artist's interiority, which thus makes visible what is normally hidden from the eye. Me And The Sun - the work presented by the artist on the occasion of Guardians of Dreams - offers the observer a precious opportunity to approach a dimension halfway between a real and an ideal world, in which stands a white figure, wrapped in an indefinite scenario. In a metaphorical desert streaked with dense brushstrokes of acrylic, the red solar disk stands out beyond the horizon, and radiates its powerful light on everything around it. The sharpness of the contours of the sun contrasts admirably with the vague elements of the landscape, giving the impression of canceling the distance between the figure and the star. The sun, a beneficial source of life, stands out in the sky solemnly, as a point of reference in the midst of uncertainty. Its immutability becomes a way forward, and it almost seems to call the individual - the artist's ego - into intimate dialogue. The neutrality of the human silhouette also makes it possible to take a further leap of imagination, and allow anyone to identify with it. The choice of Som Lothong thus makes a personal representation, and accompanies each of us in an artistic experience full of meaning.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Som Lothong

Me And The Sun

Sonnhild Kost

20th century art is deliberately anti-religious but deeply spiritualistic. What has resulted is an increasingly unbridgeable distance between art and church, marked by mistrust and fear. Umberto Eco in his essay Representation of the Sacred, in which he analyses the relationship between art and sacredness, observes that the sacred needs images to live. The presence of the sacred is something we do not see but feel, in which the theme of light plays a central role, as in the work of Sonnhild Kost. An expressive, constructed painting, almost sculpted in light and not because of light.

Sonnhild Kost

Her painting is sharp, active, cutting. God is everywhere is the finest title, it is so on point that can mostly be read as cheesy and this usually happens when something is really working. In his Letter to Artists of 1999, John Paul II stated that even when it seems far removed from the church, art has a profound affinity with the world of faith because it constitutes a kind of appeal to mystery. The viewer is asked to place total trust in the artist, the mere fact that it exists must surely mean something. Here continues the artist therefore as the parent of the child of God, as God as the only perfect and trustworthy being. Wandering distributor of his truth, therefore of light.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Sonnhild Kost

My way

Sonnhild Kost

God is everywhere

Stephan Hulliger “Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks.” (Yo-Yo Ma) The artist Stephan Hulliger recreated himself through art. Inspired by life, his history and the web, he began to create works of art with a laser, cutting aluminium or chrome-plated steel. An art linked to materiality and physicality but also focused on subjects, movements and thoughts. Stephan Hulliger works by subtraction, creating semi-real images, memories of a collective thought. Faded, forgotten memories but which, in one way or another, have characterized our experience. From apparently figurative works, they are actually moral icons. The images are simple but represent a means of restarting and not closed and forgotten objects. On the surface, they may appear to be simple images, but if you go deeper into the weft, you can discern in the warp the intensity of the artist's research who, like a photographer, takes a snapshot of today's society. He depersonalizes the images he chooses to give them new meaning. Stephan Hulliger goes further, inserting himself in the medium in that he creates works where the stylistic trait is perfectly recognizable and where reality is first recorded and above all analyzed in order to conceive a future. He does not stop at the evidence of facts, but goes further, leaving the viewer's imagination in the balance, between matter and non-matter, between empty spaces and metallic blacks.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Stephan Hulliger

Girl

Stephan Hulliger

Love

Stephan Hulliger

Womans Body

Stéphanie Melyon-Reinette

Stéphanie Melyon-Reinette — Nèfta Poetry — is a performer, poet, choreographer, independent scholar (cultural studies, political science, performance studies, Caribbean/American studies) and feminist and curator. The artist is, for the first time, a guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery and on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits three performative works of art that combine the naturalness of the body with the environment, expressing the depth of the artist's intimate connection to nature, allowing it to return to the roots of the earth and world. "BLÜD" is a slow and delicate work, the colors are those of the earth, they are soft and romantic. The female body is the protagonist and the artist moves resulting in harmony with the environment in which he finds himself, so the sounds and background music create a magical and ethereal atmosphere. The artist explains that "In this video, the dualness of an allegory of nature, motherly and cosmogony of existence." The second work on display is "MWEN PA PRIYE ZACCA" a performative work in which the artist always seems to dance in nature, in the midst of banana trees which, as the artist explains, are representative of the Haitian spirit Zacca, spirit of agriculture and of the collection: “In this ritual dance, holding the demi-john of memories, I cry on my land under the animist God's oblivion…”. The last work on display is "CRYING WATA MAMI WATA" a different work than the previous two, especially for the environment in which the artist expresses himself, as we are on a beach. The artist has his face and head covered in plastic and this immediately brings to mind the complaint about the conditions of our seas and oceans. “… Superimposed is also a sea creature grounded on the sand to die. This is a repeating semantics in the performer’s work: shaping analogies between woman and nature to question political, feminist and ecological issues. "

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Stéphanie Melyon-Reinette

BLÜD

Stéphanie Melyon-Reinette

Crying Wata Mami, Wata

Stéphanie Melyon-Reinette

MWEN PA PRIYE ZACCA

Stephen Cruz Transporting the observer into a world apart, oneiric, in which every feeling and emotion is free to express itself without restraint: this is the goal of the artist Stephen Cruz when he creates a work of art.

This is perfectly visible in every single work of him, because they really speak with the viewer and manage to evoke strong emotions, sometimes indescribable, that overwhelm him. He has precisely the gift, through his works, of leaving an indelible mark on those who observe them, who will inevitably see the world with different eyes later on. Stephen, through his works, gives us his personal vision of the world he lives and observes with an attentive and scrupulous eye, also giving us a new interpretation and, transmitting his emotions to us, they are infused also in the viewer, with whom he thus creates a bond that manages to remain in the mind and heart. This is exactly what he managed to do with the work presented here, entitled "Ukraine", in which he makes us pause for a second to reflect on what is happening to those poor people. Men, women and children who see each other, from one day to the next, deprived of their home, of the place where they were born and raised, but above all of their freedom, not only physical, but above all of thought and spirit. Stephen with this work, as he himself tells us , wants to honor the heroes of this war who fight for their lives and for the lives of those they love. This formation of clouds, crossed by the twilight of the sun, is just a representation of this heroic battle for freedom. The clouds, with the their changing shape, their moving slowly in the sky, are the perfect symbol of freedom, that same freedom which is now attacked, but which struggles to defend itself, at all costs. In those clouds we read the hope and strength to get it back which is l gold.

Art Curator Silvia Grassi

Stephen Cruz

Ukraine

Stephen Linhart “One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” (Henry Miller)

Contemporary New York artist Stephen Linhart lives his art as a constant quest for beauty. His works, a mixture of algorithms, photographs and masterpieces modified in post production, aim to distort and manipulate the contemporary aesthetic vision of the world, creating a new one to be sampled and discovered. The original image, reworked several times, seems to disappear in the eyes of the beholder submerged by psychedelic colors and changing shapes. Observing the work more closely, one realizes that the starting drawing is often not just one, but a collection of works from the past. An example of this technique is 'Saturnalia' exhibited at the M.A.D.S. Art Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS. This work is a digital collage composed of Raphael's 'Cherubs' and 'Details of the Sistine Madonna', Titian's 'Venus of Urbino', and Botticelli's 'Allegory of Spring'. The masterpieces, jumbled together and hardly recognizable, can only be observed in their smallest details, and it is precisely through the details that the observer is fully engrossed in the entirety of the work and the multiplicity of its facets. Even the other works exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery ("Cobweb", "Medusa", "Night Moves" and "Spectre") give the perception of being in relation, by observing them, with another world, with a dreamlike and hidden reality that cannot be perceived by the careless and fleeting glances of distracted passers-by. By breaking the defined lines of drawing, Stephen Linhart invites us to reflect on our deepest emotions and to break out of the pre- constituted patterns of the society in which we live.

Art Curator Laura Timpone

Stephen Linhart

Cobweb

Stephen Linhart

Medusa

Stephen Linhart

Night Moves

Stephen Linhart

Saturnalia

Stephen Linhart

Spectre

Steven Gamella “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” (Vincent van Gogh) In his personal narrative, Steven Gamella works by abstraction, his subject matter and his painting drawing the imagination back to another era. The simple drawing, the coloured strokes, are the beginning to reconstruct a future at a time of falling moral and real values. But memories have also undergone a metamorphosis. The colour strokes create an effect of disorientation in the viewer's optical perception.

Yellows and reds dialogue to realize that material and nostalgic encounter that Steven Gamella wants to present. They are not real images but rather memories of a collective thought. Faded, forgotten memories but which, in one way or another, have characterized our experience. What the artist hopes for is an end to this terrible time, to return to life, where everything finds its place. And he does this with the images of his childhood. The images of childhood are a firm tool for restarting, and not objects locked in the drawer of memories and forgotten. Empire Triumphant - Haruna Otohime has, for this reason, a strong political and social charge. A small drawing contains images that on the surface may be distancing, but if you go deeper into the weft, you can discern the intensity of the artistic quest in the warp. He seeks to recover ancient values. Thus, Steven Gamella depicts the sacred image, now compromised, but strenuously defending its figure. A continuous struggle, between good and evil, with the tools now left at his disposal that are not always sufficient. The fight against false myths and against the need to appear different from who we are, determines a falsehood that must be relegated and defeated. Steven Gamella does not stop at the evidence of facts, but goes further. By presenting images with a strong social impact, he does not criticize society in a negative sense, but in a positive sense. Presenting the current state of affairs for the artist is a positivist impetus to send out a reassuring message.

Art Curator Giulia Fontanesi

Steven Gamella

Empire Triumphant - Haruna Otohime

Stewart Davison “Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you.” (Jackson Pollock)

The artworks by Stewart Davison, a contemporary visual artist, lead the viewer into a deviant psychedelic world, on a journey of unpredictable colors, decompositions and recompositions. The subjects of his works manifest themselves as elusive and disturbing presences, sometimes scathing, provoking contradictory feelings in those who approach his paintings. Art takes on a very special value for Stewart Davison, becoming the bearer of multiple meanings. Influenced by the Expressionist movement that spread through Europe in the first two decades of the 20th century, his canvases are tinged with penetrating colors, depicting distorted subjects, to the point of complete abstraction in some cases.

Dynamic brushstrokes also engulf the space in the three works ("49,000"; "El Tajo"; "Three") exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery during the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, completely enveloping us in an emotional whirlwind. Stewart Davison wants to challenge us to understand what viewing his works can trigger, what his images can unleash in us. Will they lead us towards the light or towards the abyss? The fascination of his paintings attracts us and a moment later the viewer finds himself as if in front of an enigma to be solved, an enigma whose correct answer is not actually in the possession of the artist, but lies solely within ourselves. Stewart Davison roots his artistic research in the light-dark dilemma, investigating the human soul in search of truth. A truth that, in reality, can only be discovered by those who solve the enigma.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Stewart Davison

49,000

Stewart Davison

El Tajo

Stewart Davison

Three

Sunny Altman “We are like water, aren’t we? We can be fluid, flexible when we have to be. But strong and destructive, too.”

(Wally Lamb) "This land is sacred to us, this sparkling water flowing in the streams and rivers is not just water; for us it is something immensely more significant: it is the blood of our fathers. Just water; for us it is something immensely more significant: it is the blood of our fathers. Every reflection in the clear water of the lakes speaks of events and memories of the life of my people. The murmur of the water is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers." Thus replied (an excerpt) Grand Chief Suwamish Seattle to US President Franklin Pierce's proposal to purchase his land. A long love letter to nature, to his land.

Sunny Altman with her series of watercolours "Earth and Sea" seems to re-propose Grand Chief Seattle's letter, seems to have absorbed every word of it by osmosis and made it into a vivid and brilliant image.

Nature for the artist is a source of inspiration and the creation of a circle of purity. In her painting there is a celebration of the sacredness of the passage of time, the evolution of experience and the feeling of the real as a mystical matter. At this very moment the Earth is beneath us, around us and also within us, its elements inhabit us beyond the time in which we inhabit them. Here, in front of these watercolours, we too remember that we are water.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Sunny Altman

Tidepools

Susi Rog “If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.” (Leo Tolstoy)

Susi Rog is a contemporary artist from Honduras, whose artwork is extremely varied in style and form, allowing herself to be influenced by various artistic currents of the past, especially modern and contemporary art: from a Pop-Cubist figuration to Abstract Expressionism. It was precisely the latter and its gestural freedom that accompanied the creation of the work "Gloriosa", exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art gallery during the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS. Rapid brushstrokes stretch across the space of the canvas, enveloping the viewer in a visual and vibrant whirlwind. Yellows, reds, greens and browns intertwine, merging and colliding to give shape to the subject: a flower called 'Gloriosa Superba'. This plant, native to the tropical zones of Africa and Asia, is an entirely toxic species. It proves to be an interesting subject for the artist to portray, as it encapsulates the union of opposites. The beauty of this flower, so rare and elegant in its forms, clashes with its toxicity, generating a conflict and a turbulent inner struggle, described here with profound intensity. The energy emanating from the painting in its convulsive and stormy movements conveys to the observer the unease of this duality. It is interesting to discover that 'Gloriosa' was painted over an old work, which Susi Rog had painted entirely in black and white, thus intensifying its meaning. The artist's intention is to lead us towards a reflection on the concept of perfection. Even what appears to be absolute perfection will in reality always have its flaws. 'Every rose has its thorn' the artist tells us, because nothing is perfect by nature, at least as we understand it.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Susi Rog

Gloriosa

Sylph Painting is one of the main modes of expression and representation of spiritual content. The colors, in their various hues, the tools and techniques used create a system of representation, communication and interpretation. Each painting carries with it something of what has taken place in the artist's psyche. Art is a recording of stories, life moments and personal experiences. Through the canvas the individual can land, often unconsciously, to those archaic places of the soul that until then have not found a way to express themselves. On the canvas he can discharge his emotions, choosing the colors and the tools through which to fix them brushes, palette knives, or directly his hands - and has, in this way, the possibility of leaving an indelible trace of himself. Above all, color is rich in affective and emotional valences and meanings. It can be considered the revealer of the deepest layers of affections. Paintings, for all intents and purposes, can be the ultimate expression of the soul, and so when we look at a painting with some attention, all we are doing is trying to capture the whirlwind of emotions that pervaded the artist at the time he was painting and that, through observation, are transferred to us, making us participants in his moods. Thus, a trivalent relationship involving the artist, the artwork and the viewer takes shape in the process of making and enjoying the work of art. A relationship of sharing experience and energy that flows out of one element, into the other and vice versa, feeding an eternal and evergreen cycle. Sylph bases the production of her works precisely on these dynamics of "energy" exchange, and the work of art in this sense is nothing more than the vehicle by which two or more individuals exchange sensations, feelings, emotions; in one word: energy. In "In a Dream" a crystalline atmosphere illuminates our vision. All of a sudden we find ourselves surrounded by a whitish, vaporous cloud. It is not cold rather, a gentle warmth envelops our limbs as if we were sleeping under a tree on a summer afternoon. The air is crisp, energetic and, at the same time, calm and soft. Our eyes strain to catch a glimpse of some familiar silhouette; something in the composition that is recognizable. Nothing. There is nothing we can discern in that blue sky housing a white cloud. Yet, once the eye becomes accustomed to the scene, we are able to discern silhouettes, shapes that characterize "In a Dream." The white spot gains identity and its snow-white appearance begins to reveal yellowish spots, pink streaks, and even reliefs. Indentations and encrustations of pigment are embedded within the white cloud creating a strong contrast to the flatness of the blue flaps on either side of the work. Although we have been able to identify elements, so many questions remain, the calm, blurred and muffled atmosphere allows us to think and imagine what lies within the white patch. Sylph's work, in its sheer calmness makes us crank the engine of imagination. The latter, by creating stories and subjects, allows the viewer to create a close connection with the work and inevitably with the artist producing that infinite circle so dear to the artist.

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

Sylph

In a Dream

Sylvia Martina Malikova

As well as Pablo Picasso, before reaching cubism, went through different artistic phases, experimenting with different colors and different subjects, similarly Sylvia Martina Malikova, artist of Slovak origin, resident in the Czech Republic for a long time now, she comes into play by creating works with always different techniques. In this way she eliminates the risk of being imprisoned in repetition and becoming a copyist of academic works as well as of herself. She does not paint mechanically, but from time to time she listens to her inspiration and paints with her mind. Tangible examples of her creativity are the three works under examination. In "Contemporary still life" fruit, objects and a sunflower are represented by breaking them down into flat geometric figures. In this work reign the staticity and the pure color and the final effect is joyful and playful, but not for this childish. Sylvia Martina Malikova implements a partial abstraction of the objects that are then used as pretensions to experiment a new pictorial language in which the subject and the identification of the subject by the viewer passes into the background.

In "Eternal connection" objects disappear completely and occasional geometric shapes occupy the scene. Here the brushstrokes become expressive, the colors fade and the tones are lowered. The sense of stability given by squares and rectangles wobbles in front of the motifs rich of curves in the background, the same motifs that we find in "Bronz". The acrylic color here becomes fluid and mixes on the canvas as in a love dance. The orange and blue, both very bright, leave us in a state of wonder that makes us feel alive. The works of Sylvia Martina Malikova whatever the style she uses, create a healthy and optimistic environment around us, able to bring joy and peace in the minds of viewers.

Art Curator Francesca Catarinicchia

Sylvia Martina Malikova

Bronz

Sylvia Martina Malikova

Contemporary still life

Sylvia Martina Malikova

Eternal connection

Taabeer Malik A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. (Michelangelo)

The works presented by Taabeer Malik on the occasion of Guardians of Dreams clearly show the versatility of the young artist, who is able to range with ease between different techniques and styles. Taabeer's creative talent is clearly visible starting with Dreams and Longing, two works in which the artist's more purely graphic vocation stands out. The compositions, executed with black marker, are ideal representations of a suspended and idealized world, whose imaginative aura immediately catches the eye of the observer. What is surprising is the meticulous attention to detail, as we can admire in the glimpse of the winter setting of Dreams or in the magnificent geometric decorations that adorn the eye depicted in Longing.

Taabeer Malik

Alongside this trend, Taabeer combines a more dreamy and romantic perspective, of which Paradise and Sunset are an expression. In particular, Sunset unfolds as a set of four canvases, and portrays a magnificent natural scenery of extraordinary beauty. The moment of sunset makes the landscape even more glorious, enhancing its charm to the utmost. With Paradise, on the other hand, the artist dares something more, and involves the viewer in a sublime daydream, unfolding an ideal vision before the eyes. Taabeer Malik demonstrates a remarkable ability both from a technical and content point of view, involving the viewer not only for the formal refinement, but above all for the uncommon emotional connection he creates with those who approach her works.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Taabeer Malik

Ascending

Taabeer Malik

Longing

Taabeer Malik

Paradise

Taabeer Malik

Sunset

Taisha Brehaut Taisha Brehaut, was born in Australia to New Zealand parents, where she grew up before travelling to the US. She has explored a plethora of subjects from her youth to the present. As a student, Taisha drew the anatomy at the Auckland Medical School's Museum of Anatomy and later; worked with Sol Le Witt and Jessica Stockholder as a master's student at Yale. She has developed an emblematic personal style, ranging from linear conceptual sculpture, both outdoors and indoors, to the dreamlike landscape of her “Landmarks” paintings and drawings.

Taisha exhibits and is collected internationally. Her works have been featured in notable exhibitions at Mass MoCA, The Stamford Museum, and the Aldrich Museum, in the US, St Cyr Ecole, France, Bolognano, Italy and the Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand. The artist has received notable reviews in The New York Times, The Stamford Advocate and the New Zealand Business Review. For "Guardians of Dreams" hosted by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery, the artist presents "Landmark III,” one of a series. These paintings encompass a metaphorical landscape occupied by a single white flag. On what appears to be a theatrical backdrop of dark hues, a solid brick wall stands, with a clear blue sky above, before the dark back drop, the white flag takes center stage. The fabric is rendered transparent, capturing the magic of the instant when it is caressed by the wind, enhancing its sinuosity.

The depiction of the subject and its placement in an undefined space enhances the alienating and dreamy sense of the scene, transporting us into a dreamlike dimension.

Art Curator Matilde Della Pina

Taisha Brehaut

Landmark III

Tammy Campbell

Conceptual art has taught us that contemporary artists operate by focusing their work mainly on the processes, attitudes and ideas that are behind an artwork and not only on the finished result. Similarly, while Tammy Campbell creates her artworks, she focuses on the artistic process: she moves her idea from her heart to the "canvas". In the work under examination, "Transformative Shine", the American artist uses different materials, some even threedimensional such as precious stones, which are then attached to the background but emerge from it, thus creating a wonderful effect of depth. Therefore, the work assumes a tactile quality that reminds us of the high-reliefs of Greek and Roman art. The totalizing component in this work is the light; it strikes everything creating games of reflections and sparkles and, as if it were not enough, the use of gold thread by the artist further embellishes the entire composition thanks to its natural brightness. Tammy Campbell has thus created an artwork that literally emanates light from anywhere a person looks at it, thanks also to the fact that the surface is transparent tempered glass and is not the classic white canvas. "Transformative Shine" is a hymn to change because the seven vertical panels that compose it, tell the seven stages of pain and loss (shock, rejection, anger, denial, depression, acceptance and hope) and it is therefore also a hymn of optimism. Through the fragments of precious stones, each with a precise meaning, Tammy Campbell invites all of us to take the broken pieces of our lives and continue to find the strength to build something new. In this way she proves to be not only an excellent artist with an infinite creativity, but also a deep person, sensitive to the most delicate issues. Art is not an end in itself, but, in this case, it is a means to remind us to fight and not to give up our dreams.

Art Curator Francesca Catarinicchia

Tammy Campbell

Transformative Shine

Tayhe Munsamy “Creativity takes courage.” (Henri Matisse)

Tayhe Munsamy's art is the expression of her courage. Her art practice extends from her identity as a mixed-race woman and consists of the use of different visual forms such as paintings, videos, performances and digital media. As Tayhe explains, these means help her “to unveil themes such as construction, displacement, transformation and fantasy in relation to notions of the self”.

It takes courage, indeed, for Tayhe to use visual narratives as a way to reflect on her own identity, on her body, on a selfknowledge journey that leads her to explore elements of the Coloured and Indian communities in South Africa, and how different people see her as a mixed-race woman. Through a combination of realms of speculative thinking, fiction, mythology and folklore, Tayhe investigates herself and her community as an object of knowledge and a subject of narration. This is a form of narcissism that does not stem from vanity or egocentrism, but as a way to perceive the other from oneself and understand it. The representation of Coloured and Indian communities in her works is, thus, a way to invite the viewers to perceive, understand and accept the other from themselves. The topics of representation, reflection and identity are central in her works, as in the painting “We’ve always existed here, reflected under the lemon tree”. On an orange and dark-pink background, a coloured woman is looking at herself in the mirror, while another one is making braids in her hair; at the left edge of the painting, a beautiful lemon tree stands in front of the women. “This piece is inspired by mythologies on reflections; specifically, ones about how monsters (such as vampires) usually don’t have one. The lack of their reflection often symbolizes their inhumanity and otherness”, Tayhe explains. What happens when you do not feel represented? How can you find comfort in a world where you do not see a connection and feel like ‘the other’? Through this painting, the artist wants us to understand that, although we might not feel part of the world we live in, there is always a way to reflect ourselves and see ourselves represented. Our quest is only to find what connects us with this world, and to use these connections to try and see ourselves through the mirror.

Art Curator Martina Lattuca

Tayhe Munsamy

We’ve always existed here, reflected under the lemon tree

Theodóra Sebestyén “Ideas are the source of all things.” (Plato)

Theodóra Sebestyén is a contemporary Hungarian artist whose artworks accompany the viewer into a metaphysical world imbued with emotion. Influenced by the Abstract Expressionism art movement that spread in America after World War II, the artist lets her body move freely during the creative act, imbuing reality with emotion. The color palette is varied, embracing both warm and cool colors in each shade. The materiality of the paint dissolves on the canvas thanks to long curved brushstrokes - a detail that characterizes Theodóra Sebestyén's work - making the vision vibrant and hypnotic. In the three works ("Trip to Fairy World"; "Trip to Heaven"; "Trip to Solar") exhibited at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery during the exhibition GUARDIANS OF DREAMS, we see how this curved movement is present with intensity, allowing the artist to express her emotions and sensations in complete freedom. The idea behind the Abstract Expressionist thought was precisely to break with the mould by including the movement of the body and letting the canvas become a place of release. Theodóra Sebestyén appropriates this ideal, transferring her being into her paintings and completely abstracting the subject, giving the viewer the freedom to read and interpret, in a continuous creation of new ideas. The three-dimensionality created by these tortuous lines completely absorbs our gaze, taking us to fairy worlds, to paradises and even to the sun. Theodóra Sebestyén's is a journey to unknown places where form dissolves, leaving space only for an infinite world of ideas.

Art Curator Francesca Brunello

Theodóra Sebestyén

Trip to Fairy World

Theodóra Sebestyén

Trip to Heaven

Theodóra Sebestyén

Trip to Solar

Tim Gotschim

The young artist Tim Gotschim has in mind what 'making art' means to him and what art, for him, should represent. The works exhibited at the M.A.D.S. art gallery are in fact a representation of what the artist wants to combat: the consideration of art as decoration. Through the use of bright, primary colours, Tim creates canvases that resemble frames, inside of which there is the representation of subjects, deformed and geometrically similar to human faces, which are very similar in their features to the faces created by the artists of Art Brut. All three works have an important and emblematic element in common: a crown. This very significant object is in fact the representation of a power that has now overwhelmed art itself, which is considered a work, often even a commission. Tim's characters are even frightening faces created by the interweaving of several lines and small symbols such as circles; crosses; pointed teeth that all assume their own meaning enclosed within a frame, thick, large and very visible thanks to the use of bright colours. It is this decorative element that interests Tim and it is this end of art that he wants to denounce through his works.

Art Curator Martina Stagi

Tim Gotschim

There will be palaces

Tim Gotschim

No more sunset in the Empire

Tim Gotschim

King of Neptune

Tine Wermuth You see things; and you say: ‘Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say: ‘Why not?' (George Bernard Shaw) There aren't many things that elevate the mind as much as the imagination. It allows you to explore extraordinary places and dimensions, to give shape to the most sublime visions and the darkest nightmares. There is, however, an even more inaccessible level, that of the dream. If an ordinary person can do nothing but receive the images born from the unconscious, the artist can capture them, relive them and share them with others. And this is part of Tine Wermuth's talent. The Danish artist shifts the focus of her artistic production on a oneiric level, in which elements of the sensible world are combined in a metaphorical whole of suggestive wonder. Sunshine Jack Rabbit fully represents Tine's ability to recreate the intelligible world of dreams with amazing ease, of which the rabbit is the herald and keeper. The two canvases that make up the artwork are the access doors to an otherworldly sky, whose vibrant notes of blue and blue immediately recall an ideal vision. The powerful streams of light that surround the rabbit create a persuasive play of geometries with the delicate lines of the cloud that stands out in the left part of the work. They also accentuate the gap between a bright sky and a hazy one, streaked with acrylic dripping similar to tears of rain. An unreal coexistence, yet made vivid and possible by the exuberance of an imaginative mind, made even more daring by the freedom of the dream experience. In this apparent whimsy of images and colors, Tine manages to bring before the eyes of the beholder a real cross-section of REM sleep in a playful and fairytale metaphor. And she does it with an almost childlike innocence, reaching what should be one of the great goals of an artist: looking at the world and its facets (real and imaginary) with the astonished joy of a child.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Tine Wermuth

Sunshine Jack Rabbit

Tomoko Saito With the definition of Buddhist art we can refer to artistic practices that are influenced by Buddhism. Buddhist art originated in the Indian subcontinent following the historical life of Siddhartha Gautama, from the 6th to the 5th centuries BC, and later developed through contact with other cultures as it spread to Asia and the world. It developed to the north through Central Asia and East Asia to form the northern branch of Buddhist art while to the east through Southeast Asia to form the southern branch. This iconic art has been characterized from the beginning by a realistic idealism, which combines realistic human characteristics, proportions, attitudes and attributes, together with a sense of perfection and serenity that reaches the divine. This expression of the Buddha as man and God became the iconographic canon for later Buddhist art. The Japanese artist Tomoko Saito has made this art the center of her artistic production. The passion for art has marked Tomoko’s whole life but it is in adulthood that matures in her passion for Buddhism, because painting subjects related to it, gives her happiness and serenity. Her production of works, made with Japanese oil pastels shines with joy and color that start from the heart of the artist. In "Green", the subject is easily recognizable, made with a very sculptural light dark. The green background conveys an idea of peace and hope. Wave movements lull us into the quiet of our soul. In the work "Smile" instead, the figure of a Buddha smiles at the viewer with kindness and calm, inserted in a garden of lotus flowers (sacred flowers). The general set suggests us to investigate within our soul and to find serenity. The work "Nirvana" closes the series by depicting a figure in a triumph of animals and creatures of the earth.

Everything is in harmony and order. The ecstatic condition corresponding to the pure enjoyment of the spirit or the annulment of every concrete reality is represented here in the work. All of Tomoko’s works are an invitation to seek harmony, peace and tranquility within us in this hectic world. Her visions encourage us to take a path of introspection so that from our soul can spring the light.

Art Curator Eleonora Varotto

Tomoko Saito

Green

Tomoko Saito

Smile

Tomoko Saito

Nirvana

Tomoko Tezuka “Art is a harmony parallel with nature” (Paul Cézanne)

For many years art was conceived as an imitation of reality and nature. As time passed, the artistic creations moved away from this notion, however, although these elements are no longer properly imitated, the inspiration or abstraction of them can be maintained. Tomoko Tezuka drives spectators through her colorful and harmonious world created by the mixture and interaction of art and botany using and recontextualizing natural materials, in this case leaves. The artist generates an aesthetic experiece where the viewer will perceive and feel different colors, geometric shapes and textures. Also, her artistic goal is to represent and show cyclical and natural changes during the four seasons in Japan: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Tomoko externalizes those seasons and changes through colors, which evoke different moments of the year, ideas, feelings and sensations rescuing that importance, need and delicacy of nature. Her artworks allow people to take a deeper glance into complexity and beauty of nature.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Tomoko Tezuka

Mind Pattern

Tomoko Tezuka

Snowflakes

Tomoko Tezuka

Late Autumn

Tracy White “No living organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”

(Shirley Jackson) "When he can no longer struggle against the wind and the sea to follow his course, the sailing ship has two options: the swashbuckling gait that sets him adrift, and the escape in front of the storm with the sea at his stern and a minimum of canvas. Escape is often, when far from the coast, the only way to save the boat and crew. What's more, it allows one to discover unknown shores. "This is the preface to a successful 1970s book, In Praise of Escape, by French biologist Henri Laborit. The interpretation of escape, as opposed to the custom of considering it with negative characters, of cowardice and even cowardice, as instead the means of evading the logic, the system, that governs human relationships, which imposes predetermined routes and the only means sometimes of keeping oneself alive. Escape then in a positive and balanced sense. Tracy White and her pictorial work fit perfectly with the biologist's vision.

Art and painting as escape routes, as generators of non-places where to repurify, recharge and take refuge.

Images that become happy paths and pleasant vistas. A wide-eyed immersion in the deep waters of the ocean where to encounter the most amazing vegetation, without the salt having the power to burn the eyes.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Tracy White

Carly Whimsy

Vaida Kacergiene Vaida Kacergiene realises works that are overwhelming, both emotionally and visually. The colours and shapes she juxtaposes are evocative and allow the viewer to explore innermost, inherent feelings. Vaida reveals herself to be an abstract artist who finishes her vision and perception of the outside world through new forms and by offering different points of view. She lets herself be guided by instinct and spontaneity. Nothing is constructed but everything is created from her heart. In 'Glory to the sun' he plays with contrasting warm and cold colours. She starts with the horizon line and then creates the whole environment. Reality is mixed with fantasy.

Vaida Kacergiene Quick brushstrokes draw the outlines of the plants in the foreground. Nature awakens and shines in its colours. The sun is the element that decides the rhythms of life. Vaida focuses on it to reconstruct the story of his artwork. With this image, she generates hope and those who have lost it, she invites the viewer not to be afraid of new beginnings. Every day the sun rises and represents a new day, a spiritual rebirth. In 'Path to the light', the artist focuses again on the concept of light. She creates a focus and a path to the goal. A road that is travelled every day by human beings who pass through the darkness in search of the light. The brushstrokes are soft and the colours well blended together.

Art Curator Ilaria Falchetti

Vaida Kacergiene

Glory to the sun

Vaida Kacergiene

Path to the light

Valentina del Campo Escárate You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. (C.S Lewis)

The peculiarity of Valentina del Campo Escárate's art is found not only in the superb compositions, rich in bewitching color combinations, but above all in the intention that lies at the basis of them. Acrylic painting, in fact, constituted a therapeutic means for Valentina, which over time became the keystone for positively elaborating the difficulties of real life. The focus on one's inner cosmos is realized in an abstract painting of great emotional intensity, starting with A perfect World. The work unfolds before the eyes as a combination of contrasting colors, shapes and motifs, which chase each other on the canvas in an ensemble of mesmerizing beauty. This skilful alternation is also taken up by Minds on the run, and is taken to the extreme by the chromatic choice centered on shades of gray and black. The intricate maze of circles, spirals, lines and shadows gives a visual dimension to the frenzy of thoughts that pile up in the mind, recalling the shape and color of the brain's gray matter. The result is a set of extraordinary effectiveness, which highlights a remarkable technical skill on the part of the artist. But not only. Valentina demonstrates an uncommon versatility from juggling works adorned with meticulous decorative motifs to more distinctly abstract works, in which the interest in geometry gives way to a real explosion of colors. This happens in Don Quijote, in which colors are made the absolute protagonists. The warm shades of orange, pink and yellow of the background seem to recreate a fiery sunset sky, on which some black veins stand out. Like dark thoughts that shatter the surrounding magnificence, so the dark figures break the joyful rhythm of the scenario, without however altering it. Perhaps in this work more than any other, the artist allows the observer to delve into the most intimate sphere of sensations and emotions, welcoming even the most negative ones to transform them into a renewed creative energy.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Valentina del Campo Escárate

A perfect World

Valentina del Campo Escárate

Don Quijote

Valentina del Campo Escárate

Minds on the run

Valeria Fuentes “Art is a line around your thoughts.” (Gustav Klimt)

Lines that meet and colors that mix tell a story: thoughts, emotions and memories make the canvas full of life and energy. Valeria Fuentes is a Chilean contemporary artist currently based in Valencia. Linked to the world of painting since her childhood, growing up she never stopped cultivating this passion; in her works there is a contamination with her studies and her profession as an architect, so much so that an absolute protagonist is geometry. "Fractale" was created in 2022 with a mixed technique: the artist used acrylic and transparent primer on a linen canvas. The work is part of the ADHD collection of which the central theme is art therapy and inclusion today. Picking up a brush and letting yourself be completely transported with your instincts and feelings can be a cure for the soul. And then ... how much it can mean to feel part of a group, to feel understood and not judged for what one is and what one does. In a complex and constantly evolving world, it should be understood how diversity is an opportunity for knowledge, comparison and personal enrichment. The lines cross the canvas: sometimes their paths come close, sometimes they overlap, but then each continues its way following its own rhythm. Through the work, Valeria wants to sensitize viewers on two contemporary and difficult issues, inviting reflection and introspection. Look at the painting, immerse yourself in the colors and start your journey.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

Valeria Fuentes

Fractale

Valérie C. “Art is endless like a river flowing, passing, yet remaining” (Jorge Luis Borges)

Alchemy refers to the transformation capacity and process of an entity. Usually, this transformation occurs from impure properties to pure and valuable ones. Nature itself has this dualism and human beings have been confronted to it. Similarly, Valérie C. calls herself an alchemist in relation to her creative process with abstract cyanotype technique, where there is a transfiguration of the inmaterial, such as her beliefs, values, visions, emotions, thoughts and feelings, into the material, that is, her artworks.

Valérie C.

As a result, Valérie's artworks captivate the viewer's gaze. The Prussian blue, the blurred shapes and color contrasts refer to nature; they create an atmosphere that transports to another reality or world that seems to be limitless, full of life and unknown things, such as the sea, the universe and the sky. There is a need to focus on details that could be considered essential elements of the artworks and life. The artist states that there is an energy of creation that crosses her, transports her and makes her free. This energy generates the same effect on the viewers and shows how Valérie's creative and artistic process reach materiality without loosing the beauty, cycle, flow and freedom present in nature and life.

Art Curator Liliana Sánchez

Valérie C.

F.O.A.M

Valérie C.

M.O.S.S

Vanessa Wenwieser "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

(Franz Kafka) Surrealism is a figurative but not naturalistic art; an art that does not deny reality but mutates it. The aim is the transformation of images leading to a different reality, surreality. Breton defines Surrealism as a "pure psychic automatism" because, he states, in sleep and during dreaming we are free from inhibitory brakes, rationality and morality. In Vanessa Wenwieser paintings, the use of the critical-paranoid method typical, for example, of Dali's Surrealism, consists of looking at an object and seeing a different one depicted on the canvas. In this case we have a female image that merges and confuses us with the memory of a rose. These images feed the notion of the artist as an alchemist, magician or visionary, looking at magic as a form of poetic and philosophical discourse, linked to processes of personal emancipation. We look at these paintings with the desire not to be the person depicted in the painting, but we yearn to be the originator of the thought that has succeeded so well in narrating emotional transformations as a scientific treatise of extraordinary simplicity.

Art Curator Federica D'Avanzo

Vanessa Wenwieser

Crimson wings of passion high res copy

Vanessa Wenwieser

Under a blood red sky

Vanessa Wenwieser

A head full of dreams

Verneda Lights The surface of things gives enjoyment, their interiority gives life. (Piet Mondrian)

It is not easy to look at one's own interiority. Our mind often tries to shy away from a deep introspection and a sincere analysis of our own distracting elements of the external world, as numerous as they are ephemeral.

Looking away from superficiality and focusing on what is essential presupposes a vigorous display of courage, and Verneda Lights uses the instrument most congenial to her - that of art - to be an example herself. The portraits and self-portraits that run through a large part of her artistic production are true testimonies of this, starting with Gullah Me: Galaxies. The superimposition of the artist's portrait on a photo of constellations brings the mind to a transcendent plane to open a dialogue about the afterlife with the viewer. The features of her face blend in with the luminous scenario, and lead to face the theme of death with a serene acceptance. This ideal is also the basis of Winter Wonder, which shows the highest point of a process of accepting death, which can only be achieved by a strong celebration of life. In the soft contours of the face shaded in shades of blue, art thus realizes the possibility of not rejecting pain, but of living it and catalyzing it in an experience of inner growth. If in Winter Wonder the artist has portrayed herself wrapped in an ethereal and soft aura, in Mask Verneda she places us in front of a work divided into three photographic self-portraits, digitally modified to give the appearance of real "masks" . This triple vision embodies the three elements (medicine, faith, and Gullah culture identity) that best represent the essence of the artist. They act as defenders of her individual personality, drawing on a shared concept with an original approach. If often the idea of the mask is understood in a negative sense to imply the falseness or emptiness of the individual, Verneda Lights emphasizes his own intellectual autonomy, which cannot be reduced to a single level, but which draws its strength from a multitude of aspects that make up her personality.

Art Curator Chiara Rizzatti

Verneda Lights

Gullah Me: Galaxies

Verneda Lights

Masks

Verneda Lights

Winter Wonder

X-Gen ”The most beautiful and fascinating emotion is the sense of a mystical.” – X-Gen

X-Gen is a long-time musician, composer and guitarist who uses his knowledge in music to compose fascinating artworks with a sense of mysticism. Fascinated by the hypnotic elements in music, he uses them in his art to create rhythmic paintings that mesmerize the viewer. He believes everything is energy, and tries to transmit this energy flow through his masterpieces. The artworks reflect something that we cannot see, feel or hear with our normal senses. It can best be described as a universal rhythm, a wave motion or energy. Just like in music, he uses visual arts to express the different emotional states and views of the world. His artworks are a perfect visualization of music, a true synesthesia, just by looking at the artworks one can hear their melody.

X-Gen ”The most beautiful and fascinating emotion is the sense of a mystical.” – X-Gen

X-Gen uses different techniques to depict the energies in his paintings. Even though the end result of his work is digital, the beginning is a handwork. The original sketch can be anything from colored pencil, watercolors, wax chalk or ballpoint pen. The process depends on letting go, trusting the process and allowing the universe to guide his intuition. The end result is not known beforehand, although it describes an experience sensed by the artist himself. Through his work, he hopes to transmit to the viewer the same feelings and states of mind he experience.

Art Curator Salma Eltoukhy

X-Gen

Enter the subconsciousness

X-Gen

Phoenix in the labyrinth

Yasuko Kuromiya

The Japanese term 'sumi' means black ink, 'e' means painting and indicates one of the art forms in which subjects are painted with black ink in varying gradations from pure black to all the shades that can be obtained by diluting it with water.true Sumi-e must respond to certain typical characteristics, such as sobriety and spontaneity that go directly to the viewer's sensitivity. This type of painting already includes drawing, there is no need for any preparatory strokes, all superfluous shapes and details are left out. This school is also called Zen Painting, and Yasuko Kuromiya follows one of them. Her paintings completely involve the artist, her whole body, mind and soul. In this technique, which is not just a technique, in the idea of painting a bamboo, there is the feeling of bamboo, there is the possibility of passing through the door of paradox, where one can feel free and chained at the same time, where the rules are rules of life devoted to the beauty of the spirit. All on paper.

Art Curator Erika Gravante

Yasuko Kuromiya

azzurro e blu

Yasuko Kuromiya

giallo

Yasuko Kuromiya

novembre

Yichiao Chen

“My works explore the ideas behind the relationship between human and natural aspects of consciousness”, Yichiao Chen explains. Yichiao is one of those artists who experiment with different tools: from paintings and photography to installation and video, and does so by combining abstract and figurative and exploring themes such as mother and child, natural elements, energy and personal emotions. Her art is, in fact, personal and universal at the same time; a moment of reflection where her own history and emotions interlace with energy and with others’ stories and emotions. If, in her figurative works, the artist refers to a physical and recognisable reality that the viewers can easily refer to, her abstract series, on the other hand, is much more complex to understand, since it does not represent something physically real. Here, the surface is colours and nothing else: no shapes, no forms, no recognisable lines, so that it is impossible for the viewer to find a concrete meaning. Inspired by Renoir and Kandinsky, Yichiao explores and experiments with colours, changes of light, shadow and tones by expressing their rhythm on canvas. The painting “The blue of outfall” is part of her abstract series. Here, variations of blue dance and interweave with each other: there is nothing concrete, just light and darker tones of blue that fill the empty canvas. However, surrounded by an immense and dense blue universe, nothing becomes everything; the painting manages to capture the viewers’ eyes, hearts and souls just after the first sight. The sinuous and rounded brushstrokes make the image look like a wave swept by the wind or the texture of a cloth’s soft drapery. The flow and the variations of the blue acquire a life of their own, where the space of light and shadow interlock: here, you can see a blue of serenity and tranquillity, a blue of freedom, a blue of perseverance and a blue of dream. “The blue of outfall” is just like Kandinsky said: “[it] is born from the ‘artist’: a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation. It detaches itself from him, it acquires an autonomous life, becomes a personality, an independent subject, animated with a spiritual breath, the living subject of a real existence of being”.

Art Curator Martina Lattuca

Yichiao Chen

The blue of outfall

Yoshie Koshita “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” (Edward Hopper)

Dig into your inner world and give shape and color to the thoughts that crowd the mind and to the emotions that light up the heart. Yoshie Koshita is a Japanese contemporary artist whose works are identified with a map of the memories of her past. Starting from an imaginary landscape, she begins the process that leads to the creation of works in which matter is a great protagonist. “The way it is” was made in 2022 with mixed media technique. Cold colors such as blue and green in different shades are illuminated thanks to white and yellow brushstrokes creating a strong and pleasant chromatic contrast.

The work is the mirror of the artist's soul, but Yoshie also invites the viewers to reflect in it. What do you see? What do you feel? Where does your imagination take you? Art is powerful because it is universal and free from any constraint: art is immense. When we are faced with an endless expanse of grass, a calm ocean or in front of snow-capped mountains, we feel alive. This is the same feeling that the artist experiences when she paints the landscapes that her thoughts suggest. Yoshie and art are one: she belongs to it, and it will belong to her forever.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

Yoshie Koshita

The way it is

Yuiko Amano

Yuiko Amano is A London-based emerging multimedia artist with a science and engineering background.

Born in 1990 to a scientist family in Tsukuba City in Japan’s Ibaraki prefecture, the artist grew up in the US city of Boulder (Colorado) and in Nara City, in the Nara prefecture of Japan. Yuiko Amano is, for the first time, a guest of an exhibition organized by M.A.D.S. Art Gallery on the occasion of "Guardians of Dreams" she exhibits "Experience of the Alternatives" a work created with Digital Painting and moving images. The work exhibited by Yuiko Amano is a series of works that represents a prospect of future integration as artificial intelligence develops more every day, the artist imagines a future in which machines and computers could be united and integrated. The artist herself explains that the work was created by combining a series of images made up of paintings created thanks to the use of computer code.

The theme is therefore that of the creation of art through artificial intelligence, enjoyed by the individual, would somehow make us fused in this alternation of construction and use, leading to the question of how much more man can be considered artists as creators. The work is dynamic and insistent, the colors are bright and the geometric element is predominant, the musical choice rhythms the creation and allows the artist to keep the attention high.

Art Curator Martina Viesti

Yuiko Amano

Experience of the Alternatives

Yuko Stain of color upon stain of color, sensation upon sensation. A union between the physical world and the world of ideas, the work of art is the juicy fruit between matter and the artist's creative expression. Idea becomes color, feeling becomes pigment and together they are shaped in a formal and compositional dance that has, as its driving force, the artist's individuality. Sometimes, one feels the desire to paint and does not know why. At other times, one feels the need to play with matter to slowly shape something imbued with meaning. What underlies the creation of a work is simply the pure desire to externalize something that slowly layers itself on the support. Pigment by pigment, the work comes to life almost by itself in the artist's hands. Yuko senses the need to express her creative inspiration by paying homage to those who are her guardians: the moon and blooming flowers. Silent and omnipresent, these two elements keep watch day and night above her-the moon-and below her-the flowers. Yuko's, therefore, is not a self-referential painting. There is no reworking of the artist's desires but rather there is a splendid and gratifying act of deference to these two entities that both fascinate and protect her. Protected within a chromatic frame stands the composition in all its chromatic wonder.

The profile of a woman occupies the center of the work. All around her is a dense, fragrant blanket of blooming flowers.

Yellows, pinks, reddish and blues dance swirlingly around the woman's physiognomy, coloring the latter with numerous chromatic reflections. She, protected by her floral shield, reveals herself among the darkness of the night by turning her face to the nocturnal star, the moon. The white mirror rises high into the sky, diffusing its cool, milky white light and thus unraveling the abysmal darkness of night. And so it is that woman is painted by the light and color of her two dearest guardians, the moon and the flowers. Pinkish and purplish reflections unravel on her lips, cheeks, and chin; cold, bluish glares illuminate her profile, flooding it with cold, crystalline moonlight. Yuko with " - Gekka" pays homage to the presence of the two elements by making tagible through pictorial representation the bond that inextricably binds herself with her guardians. A bond that is impossible to break, a bond that she will feel and sense throughout her life, whether day or night. The iridescent blue and pink light bathes her limbs, leaving the trace of this unbreakable and mysterious relationship.

月華

Art Curator Lisa Galletti

Yuko

月華 - Gekka

YUQUI “Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I’d crawl…And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there’s something all glorious and gracious in the wind.”

(Herman Melville) The ocean begins to stir, the red leaves of the trees fall on the lawn, the sun becomes warm, and our face receives a caress: the wind is rebirth, revolution, and a shock of energy. YUQUI is a Japanese contemporary artist whose works want to identify themselves with an important means of sending messages to the whole world: images and colors come together to give life to paintings with deep meanings and unique symbology. "God of wind" was created in 2021 with the watercolour technique, kraft paper on wooden panel. The protagonist - as the title itself states - is the wind that overwhelms us with its impetuousness: it passes between our fingers, shakes our hands making its presence felt strongly.

The wind moves our bodies, but also our spirits. When it arrives, nothing remains as before: the seasons follow one another in a circle; the past steps aside to make room for the present; the pain subsides, and the pursuit of happiness begins its journey. Against a blue background like the sky, the artist painted two hands tied by an infinite thread: it is the metaphor of the wind that enters our lives and upsets them.

YUQUI invites viewers to immerse themselves in her works by giving a personal interpretation of what the eyes see, the thoughts suggest the heart feels. Let yourself be swept away by the whirlwind of emotions - by the whirlwind of the wind.

Art Curator Camilla Gilardi

YUQUI

God of wind

Zak Yates Art should always be an expression of its time, hic et nunc. So, digital art tells us about the most interesting thing of the moment: technology. The creation of works of art, or the implementation of more complex artistic activities by means of digital technology, is an integral part of the creative process and/or exposure of the final work. It is a new way of exploring creativity; that is nothing more or less than what the greatest artists of every historical era have done. Today, thanks to the technological progress that has brought digital technology into everyone’s homes, the development of systems such as apps and online sharing, digital art is continually receiving new impulses. The American artist Zak Yates investigates the infinite possibilities that technology offers to create works aimed at moving consciences on important issues that concern the relationship between man - technology. His job is to investigate, research and get to the bottom of this issue by experimenting with the infinite possibilities that artificial intelligence offers. In the work "Adventures in Birdwatching" we can see a black crow that famously symbolizes the passage from ignorance to knowledge, from life to death, from evil to good, that observes us with big black eyes. However, it is not the only one to stare at the viewer. The whole body of the animal is in fact covered with eyes that in turn observe us. A work of great visual impact created to ask the viewer: "how closely do other intelligent forms of life observe us?". The work of investigation and experimentation typical of Zak’s poetics is also found in the work "Stygian Signal" where the artist challenges the technological rigor deforming the sparks of light on the camera. It is an exercise aimed at rediscovering a new creativity despite the countless stimuli that every day we receive from mass media or social networks. The artist’s task in these times is precisely to preserve creativity from the technological heat. The series ends with the work "Supercell". In this case Zak once again intervenes on the technology using various data-corruption techniques. The final work consists of exposing various textures hidden in data from different photographs. What follows is a work that recalls, albeit artificially, the forms and movements known in real life: fingerprints, circuits, roads... How many other things could we find on our hard disk? Zak Yates’s poetics serve as a digital archaeologist to discover new worlds and new creativity beyond the screen.

Art Curator Eleonora Varotto

Zak Yates

Adventures in Birdwatching

Zak Yates

Stygian Signal

Zak Yates

Supercell