Curated by Art Directors Greco Carlo and Magni Alessandra
Critical texts by Art Curators Dottoressa Abbuonandi Erminia Dottoressa Bianchi Maria Cristina Dottoressa D’Avanzo Federica Dottoressa Grassi Silvia Dottoressa Gravante Erika Dottoressa Scaccia Elisabetta Dottoressa Scantamburlo Elisabetta Dottoressa Viti Vanessa Dottoressa Zanesi Giulia
Ana Sneeringer
Vitality and power of suggestion, in the subjects of Ana Sneeringer's works. An art which highlights the artist's abilities and brings out, with her strong creative independence, what enters into a kingdom that is sometimes unknown: that of the unconscious. An artist who brings with her a world of visions with the ability to tell an inner state without ever exasperating. Search for beauty, charm of simplicity and authenticity: this is what her art reveals to us. Elaborations of a thought that is based on the essentiality of life. Meticulous and accurate research performed not from any glance, but from an observation that joins a deep vision. Her works are composed of selected moments that leave us all the task of interpreting them through our imagination and our own state of mind. Ana's art mixes with her life and her way of being. An artist who knows how to discover in art her deepest value is certainly an artist who not only lives for art, but who makes her life a work of art and I believe that Ana Sneeringer is exactly that. We are what we see, but we no longer see who we are. Thus the artist dreams, lives and paints her deepest authenticity. Her works are never predictable, bringing with them the enchantment of the true, the gift, the hallmark of art because from the particular the artist knows how to bring out the universal. For our lives. With simple and decisive gestures the canvas becomes a living body with its history and a memory to discover and to live.
Art curator Giulia Zanesi
Ana Sneeringer
Pancakes on my mind
Andjela Milenkovic “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream” (cit.Edgar Allan Poe) Andjela Milenkovic was born in Serbia and since she was a child she started expressing herself through art, her true passion. Her nomad culture led her to travel constantly from town to town, Country to Country, gleaning from a source of different and crossing traditions, ways of living, landscapes and souls: an endless basket that the artist uses to immortalise memories, the beauty of the world and nature. She graduated in Fine Arts, Visual Communication & Interior Design at the Altos de Chavon School, Dominican Re[public, where she had the chance of focusing on the use of visual elements and flows in telling stories through pictures. She lived for a period in Florence, where she studied photography and after she moved to New York, where she attended a course in Music Video Making at the New York Film Accademy. A creative journey that allowed her to merge various input in different fields, growing and improving as a true visual artist. This polyhedric kaleidoscope of lived and observed experiences, filtered by the delicate and light eye of poetry, flows into a puzzle made of impressions, dreams and feelings which are then transferred on canvas. Andjela sees art as a non-stop exploration, as a continuous inner research inside the subconsciuos mind, the psychology of dreams and the mistery of Mother Nature. Her canvas and the used recycled materials become tools to open that door that gives access to freedom and spontaneity in creating new personal worlds: here the emotions can float free from any external influence and unchained. In Andjela’s artworks the dreams are, like any psychic process, an act of creation in which consciousness, archetypes, past events and sometimes buried cultural aspects live together in an environment which enhances her growth and proliferation. The rhythm of her compositions and the combination of colours show a vibrant sense of light-heartedness, a positive attitude towards life which allows her to absorb every single moment without any preconception. “Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams” (cit.Paul Gauguin)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Andjela Milenkovic
As they say
Andjela Milenkovic
Brat
Andjela Milenkovic
Flowery Danessa
Andjela Milenkovic
Melting Emotions
Andjela Milenkovic
Puesta del Sol
ArpVerdeacqua “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing” (cit.Marc Chagall) ArpVerdeacqua, a name which combines the acronym of Alessandro Ramella Palumbo with Arp “Verdeacqua”, the light green colour that characterises his grandmother’s kitchen, is a self-taught artist who lives in Biella, Italy. Alessandro studied piano and worked as a songwriter before realizing, about two years ago, that he could find in painting the most immediate means of expression; as opposed to music, in which a melody needs to be listened from the beginning to the last note, paint can be a sudden creative form. Notwithstanding the lack of a specific artistic background, his creative drive, like a burning flame, leads him to throw himself into the need of transferring his message on canvas, with absolute spontaneity: he decides to leave his feelings flow free with no rational intervention. ARP’s works are instantaneous snapshots that impress thoughts, ideas, visions and his personal emotional sphere on any type of material support. Because of this, his artworks become portals, direct gates to the artist’s mind, dreams and desires. The use of bright and vibrant primary colours is in line with his poetics of the liberating and unexpected artistic gesture: painting becomes a therapeutic moment during which ARP draws from the well of the oniric images that populate his subconscious mind. In this painting, titled “Our dreams dream about how to run way from us and with us”, ARP imagines dreams as living entities that use us to express themselves, trying to escape from the physical dimension and float freely in the universe of ideas. In this imaginary world, the central concept of creation is expressed not only by the natural elements, but also by the woman, who is the cradle of live, and by the baby, who is seen as the” gardener of the Earth” and the carrier of love and hope for a better Planet. There is also a third figure which accompanies the others, a superior guardian who flutters impalpable. In this oniric environment full of metaphors and symbols, the sun has a central role in the composition as it represents the primary source of light: like an egg, which opens up and shows the mistery of life, the sun embraces us and gives us the possibility of “cooking” the ingredients that we have inside our soul. “Art is a line around your thoughts” (cit.Gustav Klimt)
Art curator Erika Gravante
ArpVerdeacqua
I sogni sognano di scappare da noi...con noi
Bogdan
“One must not only transform the creation of paintings or sculptures, but the entire social form. It's a gigantic program” (cit.Joseph Beuys) Bogdan is an artist of Bulgarian origin who expresses his creativity through paintings and sculptures. His conception of art is not materialistic and recalls the revolutionary theories developed by Joseph Beuys, one of the greatest artist-philosophers of the last century. Art is a form of energy, which passes from the artist to the work and which belongs to every human being in society. "I believe that art is a form of energy and the role of the artist is to materialize this energy, to give it shape. It is a kind of flow of information that passes through the artist as if through a portal. When the portal it's open for me, I start to create. Information flows, time is not enough and I often paint several images at the same time". It is necessary to understand Bogdan’s words and his vision of art, because each detail of his work represents an element of his theory. "Expectation” is an abstract painting that comes from the combination of chromatic shades linked together in a harmonious way. The colors of the earth are a reference to the force of nature that is an input for the creative act. The work is the long-awaited moment for the artist to use his imagination and enclose his positive energies in a painting. Although it is an abstract painting, observing the work you can see shapes that suggest the idea of small cocoons, caterpillars, concentrates of vital energy ready to transform into beautiful butterflies. And in the end a dream is a desire still imprisoned in the mind that waits to be realized concretely. The artist knows that in nature you just have to wait for the right moment, because every little idea turns into something wonderful.
Art curator Elisabetta Scaccia
Bogdan
Expectation
Bruno Planade “Reality forms part of art, feeling completes it” (cit.Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot) A stylist by training, Bruno Planade collaborated with many textile companies before becoming passionate about digital design. In the continuous search for a new graphic alphabet, he returns today to express himself through traditional media such as canvas and paper. As an artist, Bruno chooses to move away from figurative painting, allowing himself to a very strong abstract form of painting. His canvases are material and show a deep sensitivity, typical of the artist, who leaves aside the figures and images, since they are unable to really express his unconscious nature. A relationship, this, between art and the language of the unconscious that represents a path between dreams, visions and symbols. A relationship that goes to the heart of the psyche, inside the deepest and darkest part around which the human soul revolves. If the dream, as Freud remembers, is the main way to access this unconscious world, so the art wanders, around the aesthetic visibility of the dream experience, within personal, historical and cultural scenarios. The work of the artist, therefore, projected on the scene of art, investigates the depiction of unconscious content and its techniques. An artist, Bruno, sometimes too restrictive, who uses his pictorial tools to express his inner feeling. He chooses the body as a means of expression, as he is able to make explicit energy and movement, as in Bath Dream. A work characterized by intense shades of blue, whose association with natural elements, such as sky and crystal clear water, makes it among the colours universally preferred by artists. Commonly associated with harmony, loyalty, trust, distance, infinity, imagination, cold and sometimes sadness. A set of visual elements mixed with the intensity of modern life, create a very intense visual experience. “An artist is somebody who pproduces things that people don't need to have, but that he — for some reason — thinks it would be a good idea to give them” (cit.Andy Warhol)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Bruno Planade
Bath Dream
Caroline Daumas
“I try to apply colours like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music” (cit.Joan Mirò) Caroline Daumas lives in Tolouse, France. She started painting in 2010. Being a self-taught artist, she focused on an artistic project based on the spontaneous and immediate expression of her emotions. The instinctive aspect of Caroline’s work becomes evident during the creative process: different layers of colour are freely applied on the canvas in order to generate abstract forms which are then highlighted by the play of colours. The visual result is a series of bright coloured compositions in which different figures in movement weave together freely, with no rational order. The research for a balance in the relationship between the space and shapes, the choice of a precise range of shades are aimed to create a dynamic effect similar to the one that we experience in dreams, going through the various oniric phases. The suspended atmospheres originated by Caroline’s colorful formations make us feel projected into a dream room in which every element becomes alive, transforms itself and surronds us in an endless dance. In addition, the factor of gesturality plays a fundamental role and guides the eye of the observer through a journey that follows the evolution of the picture. directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, “Colour di the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul” (cit.Vasilij Kandinskij)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Caroline Daumas
Untitled
Catalin Constantin “Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once we grow up” (cit. Pablo Picasso) “When I was a kid, drawing was my greatest pleasure. Somewhere along the way, this kid got lost. Recently I rediscovered him, cleaned him up and gave him time and space to create. My need to paint is visceral and my works are the result of my emotional experiences”. This is the way the Romanian artist Catalin Constantin describes himself: art is an emotional experience at a 360-degrees vision. He represents a parallel world in a fantastic way, a dimension that is both mysterious and symbolic. His artworks are characterised by many illusions, suggestions and perceptions that create a geography of feelings, as we can observe in the artwork named Miss Butterfly. Among all the vivid colours, given through marked brushstrokes in a perfect distribution of spaces, Catalin Constantin is able to compose artworks that transfigure reality by combining the subjects with implicit symbology. A game of shapes, symbols and colours that is formed by pure suggestions. In his canvases, the creative process is organised through personal constructions marked by a vivid expressiveness. The artist’s works are characterised by a formal and aesthetic research that reaches a quality of peculiar interest. Through his artistic language, Catalin shows a precise expressive exploration, an accurate interpretation that is never trivial and that is obtained with a certain harmony in the forms in a highly symbolic way; he is very skilled at developing a language of enigmatic and poetic abstraction. He stands out as a very eclectic artist who loves to experiment new techniques and expressive languages. His artworks “shine” of an intense communicative power based on a strong conceptual structure. Thanks to the union and interaction of the different elements he uses in his artworks, Catalin is able to show a peculiar executive skill and, above all, an interesting balance of signs and symbols that tend to characterise them. “If there is on earth, and among all these things of nothing, a belief worthy of adoration, if there is anything holy, pure and sublime, anything answering that immoderate desire for the infinite and the vague that we call the soul, it is art” (Cit. Gustave Flaubert)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Catalin Constantin
Miss Butterfly
Celina Jerzmanowska
Celina is above all an investigator, her artistic work is aesthetic and formal research. The artist gives the observer a new way of looking, not only from the point of view of the subject, but also through the instruments she uses. Celina creates a surreal scenario, makes us protagonists of the work because the viewer feels inside it. Her work, with continuous motion, completely envelops us. However surreal it appears, in truth, we can recognize real and natural elements, perhaps a seabed or rippling water, it is certainly a vibration for the soul of the observer. Without a doubt, the artist draws inspiration from the natural world, from which you can grasp details to reproduce, but above all from nature you get the uniqueness and the highest level of beauty that you can ever find. If perfection and beauty exist, they are surely traceable in nature. So Celina's work tends to reach the sublime. The work of the artist Celina is the integration of various genres, from video art to digital art and generation art. Her work refers to the art that put in place the famous couple Steina and Woody Vasulka, pioneers of what will be all video art, not surprisingly they were the ones who devised the "morphing" technique. Furthermore, the sinuous and slow movement brings to mind the works of the great master DalĂŹ and allows us to live a unique and surreal moment. Celina creates a new aesthetic, gives a moment of silent beauty, her work is a real starting point, it is the point for reflection, it is also the meeting place between the viewer and her unconscious. Through the work "Morph", the artist gives us the opportunity to bring back dormant memories, dreams and emotions.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Celina Jerzmanowska
Morph
Chanterax
Eclectic artist, original and with an innovative trait all wrapped in an atmosphere of Pop Art style. The use of a refined chromatic/compositional technique combined with enchanting poetic impulses, give her painting deep inner reflection. In this work is the color the real bearer of emotions and the dream of a very special encounter. What I value the most about her art is the extraordinary inner solidity that allows her to consider art as a condition and instrument of truth. Chanterax captures the beauty of color as an objective poetic act representing the feelings of her inner world and thus making her stylistic figure recognizable. Her expressiveness is of natural elegance and is combined with her extraordinary ability to confer magic and strength to let us savor and live the images she has created. A natural instinct for color that has allowed her to arrive in an autonomous creative world where the emotional drive from which her inspiration comes, emerges. In her work nothing is left to chance, her work is characterized by a strong structural balance combined with the use of colors of considerable expressive scope. Stopping in front of a work of Chanterax is like having the opportunity of a magical encounter with the mystery of a visual narrative linked to our daily life and our inner most self The vibrant force of the color, the brushstroke, the vitality, the lyricality, the energy and melody of the work are all very well cared for by the artist. A class and an superfine elegance pervade in her work in which the brilliant coloristic touch of the inspired artist is denoted, which revives the form through chromaticism and reveals her pictorial quality in the externalization of a sensitive soul, ready to grasp the diversity giving atmospheres and moods that dwell in our unconscious. The art of Chanterax understood as the transformation of visible reality into a conceptual symbolic meaning that goes beyond reality. A rare sensibility that in the expressiveness remains faithful to a clear and readable figuration.
Art curator Giulia Zanesi
Chanterax
Dreaming of You and I
Cho Hui-Chin
Artist attracted by the forms and the human soul, with accents of postcubiste suggestions within her works and probably moved by the desire to deconstruct and dynamically reconstruct the real, acquiring so a psychological introspection aimed to emotion. An expressive language that has become more and more a stylistic sign and that makes her work immediately recognizable, a stimulus to creativity and human growth. The purity of the shapes and the compositional solution, the executive essentiality that characterize the artist's work, show us how it is possible to get free from the superfluous and not fundamental. Cho Hui-Chin's creative vein translates into pure contemporary painting by performing an original and non-emulative study with a varied and articulated score. Sometimes the concept softens and acquires a delicate metaphysical consistency highlighting the artist's constant desire to let emerge a stylistic evolution increasingly aimed at a strongly intimidating vision of making art. Her works are the result of a personal reworking ability, by analyzing with care everything around her, respecting spaces and dimensions, not without a hint of aulic poetic lyricism at the bottom. A personal vision of reality that shines through with special care for balance and harmony in order to enclose small details, or better, choices according to her own exclusive ideal vision of things and life. Her work represents a piece of the construction of a thought, being able to communicate an emotion without attributing something definite. An artistic language conceived as an expression and self-projection. An active dialogue between technique and poetry in a dreamlike, psychic, performative and structural dimension to outline a story woven of desire and continuity of a research very rich in artistic preparation and passion.
Art curator Giulia Zanesi
Cho Hui-Chin
The painting is Not “Dirty”, it’s about Sweet nervous of being an “OCD”; maybe it looks a bit savage but it’s the humanity.
David Ortiz Fuertes “Keep your feelings measured, dreams calibrated, risks calculated. I choose the dives to the heart, the chills in the stomach, the races on the clouds and the colors out of the margins" (cit.Fabrizio Caramagna) The world we create in our dreams during the night is influenced by our way of being, by the experiences lived in life and during the day. But inevitably dreams also influence the thoughts of the next day, our desires: we would all like our dreams to take shape in the real world. For the Spanish artist David Ortiz Fuertes, dreams inspire the works presented here. With his works David opens a window on his world and on the most intimate part of himself. The inspiration is extremely evident in these works, in which David seems to transport us to another world, with unclear outlines and lines. The choice of colors and their shades accompany us on this journey. It seems to be right at that moment when you are having a beautiful dream, but slowly you are about to wake up and the contours, so clear and bright before, gradually become blurred, until the moment you open your eyes. The works entitled "Astral" and "Nebula" refer to the world of the universe, even with the titles chosen by the artist. Its vastness and its being a total mystery for us so small, in our small planet, which is only a tiny speck in its immensity, has always led man to imagine it, to dream of the wonders that he could have encountered during its discovery. David's paintings in their colors, in the lines and in the hinted forms transport us precisely into those images visible with microscopes, in which we can admire great galaxies of remote space and beautiful nebulae, which release magnificent colors. Even the title chosen for the third work, "Eden", refers our mind to a distant and beautiful place, where nature shows itself in its most dazzling beauty of colors, precisely paradise. So also, the work slowly brings our gaze from the outside to the center, where the colors of the earth and the elements that compose it, previously blurred, now light up: the yellow of the sun, the red of fire, the blue of the sea. Now it's up to us to sit down and be transported to this astral, heavenly world, where colors speak to us and envelop us with their light and positive energy.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
David Ortiz Fuertes
Astral
David Ortiz Fuertes
Eden
David Ortiz Fuertes
Nebula
Doris Waelchli
“Art does reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible” (cit.Paul Klee) Doris Wälchli Giraudi is a Swiss artist who, since she was a child, was attracted by the art world. She won her first prize for drawings at the primary school. At 20 years old she began to study and pratice ceramics and oil painting.Then she decided at 50 years old to start painting again, this time by focusing on the use of acrylic colours. She has always been fascinated and influenced by Swiss and Italian design too. Her artworks are characterised by the combination of very bright colours and pervaded by a magic atmosphere which is expressed through a play of shapes, tones and settings where the matter seems to become alive in a swirl of dreamy and unworldly impressions. Abstract but at the same time identifiable by a linear style, Doris expresses herself through direct and spontaneous representations and she moulds geometries without time by pulling together simple elements that increase the enigmatic and mysterious connotation of her works. Elementary constructions and essential motifs are used to generate complex compositions charged with symbolic value and intensity, like portals showing oniric and cosmic backgrounds. The relationship between forms, ideas, places and shades leads to the creation of a new evocative visual language in which the borders between the abstract and the figurative, the descriptive and the surreal, the morphology and the intangible become evanescent. “The knowledge of which geometry aims, is the knowledge of the eternal” (cit.Plutone)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Doris Waelchli
Atlas
Doris Waelchli
Barge
Doris Waelchli
Bridge
Dral
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them” (cit.Henri-Emile Matisse) Julie Dral is an artist who lives and works in Martinique, Carribean. After graduating in economics and business, she has worked for 17 years as a specialised employee in improving and rationalising the working processes. Finally, she decided to follow her instinct and engage in her true passion: art. Julie’s peculiar style can be defined as a “ contemporary Fauvism” because it takes inspiration from Julie the simplification of forms, the use of vivid and innatural colours, the attention for immediate figures which used to characterise this movement; the artist translates all these elements in a modern form of interpretation of our reality, in a symbolist and non-naturalistic key. Her bright coloured, vibrant and sometimes contrasting flower compositions, where the sense of perspective is voluntarily ignored and reduced to a one-level glimpse, seek the essential inherent armony of the image itself, and nothing mo more. The idea, intentionally in contrast with those artists who use sadness and alienation to express their concepts, is to represent a cheerful world, dominated by the positive desire for life. The aim of this artist project is to convey, through simple and easily accessible structures, pleasure and a way to escape from a world of shadows and “chiaroscuro”. Julie’s suspended atmospheres refer to an ideal level which is close to the one of dreams: a place where the petals of her flowers land on canvas free as our fantasy and thoughts usually are while we are sleeping. “Count the flowers in your garden, never the leaves on the ground” (cit.Romano Battaglia)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Dral
Bouquet 9
Dral
Bouquet 11
Dral
Bouquet 44
Elena Dobrovolskaya “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night” (cit.Edgar Allan Poe) Literature and art have influenced each other over the centuries, with the same need to communicate Literatu through the experimentation of new creative languages. The historical Avant-gardes of the twentieth century contributed to social progress thanks to the joint activity of artists and intellectuals. Futurism, Dada and Surrealism have completely renewed the artistic and literary world and still today the visual arts celebrate the mixture of different languages. "Poetry reading" is a work presented at the Art Expo in New York in 2019 by Elena Dobrovolskaya, an artist of Russian origins and internationally renowned. This time, literature is a source of inspiration for the artist, with the ability to transporting each reader to a fantastic, albeit illusory, dimension. The subject is immersed in an abstract dimension, reminiscent of Impressionist painting “en plein air”, while the woman's face and the book in the foreground are made with well- defined brush strokes. Furthermore, while the background suggests an idea of movement, the subject instead suggests an idea of static: the artist portrays the dreamers’ atemporality, when everything seems to stop, despite the world outside. The simplicity of the work and the technique used make the effectiveness of the message more direct: attention should not focus on pictorial virtuosity, but on the sensation transmitted by the work. The lost gaze and the half-open book give a dreamy atmosphere. In fact, contrary to the nocturnal dream experiences that can be negative and disturbing, daydreaming gives the pleasure of fantasy. Elena Dobrovolskaya teaches how art and literature manage to be an escape from everyday banality, nourishing the life of dreams, aspirations and hopes. The artist calls contemporary society to escape from chaos and frenzy, from negativity and from the loss of certainties, to stop for a moment, thinking about the beauty of art.
Art curator Elisabetta Scaccia
Elena Dobrovolskaya
Poetry reading
Ellie Lychele
How many places to explore, how many suggestions to live, how many trips to do? Endless! Our unconscious offers us endless possibilities, it would be enough to rely on the dream world to live new and countless experiences. Ellie's work is a real story, it is a postcard of an intimate journey, it is the memory of a surreal place. A landscape presents itself before us and we recognize its traditional illusions of figurative painting, therefore its depth, space, figures, shadows and lights. But in what reality have we ended up? A dreamlike setting, where each element hides a meaning, playing a fundamental role in reading the work. Clearly Ellie's work is inspired by the great masters of surrealism, to DalĂŹ but in particular there are similarities with the art of Yves Tanguy. Tanguy himself tells and describes landscapes that have all the real characteristics, but in fact belong to the unconscious imagination. The dominant element of the work "Dreams" by the artist Ellie is the figure placed in the upper area of the canvas, it seems to be a big eye. It brings to mind the famous 1929 short film "Un chien andalou", produced and played by Luis Bunuel and Salvador DalĂŹ. Without doubt the most significant film of surrealist cinema. All these details make Ellie's work a real homage to the aforementioned movement. In conclusion, the artist creates the possibility of grasping in her work a dimension not tied to the contingent reality, but rather to an inner world, in which the observer can discover hidden memories and feelings.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Ellie Lychele
Dreams
Eric Cariou
“You don't just take a photograph with a camera. You put in the photograph all the images you saw, the books you read, the music you heard, and the people you loved" (cit.Ansel Adams) The arrival of digital photography has allowed photographers to have a new and effective work tool, which allows a great deal of artistic freedom. Photography was born with the desire to want to represent reality exactly as it is, over time it has instead become a tool to be able to give a personal interpretation of this reality that surrounds us. With the digital age, photographic shots of elements and real images can be transformed with countless different techniques to create real abstract works of art. The French photographer Eric Cariou creates his works through symmetrical associations of the same shot, giving life to what he calls "autonomous zones of onirism". In fact, observing the images that are created, they really seem to be within a parallel, dreamlike reality created by the imagination of our mind. In the shots presented here, sea and sky, but also man and nature, meet. The two sides of the same coin that is Earth come into contact, touch each other, communicate and finally merge to create a new surreal and magical vision of the world. In Eric's works the concrete elements of our daily lives and of the world that we see every day are mirrored in each other, they look at each other and dialogue creating a symphony of images. The works thus tell us a story through images. Each work contains different points of view, different perspectives of observation, different levels of meaning.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Eric Cariou
SEE III - Entering the vortex - part. 1/2/3 & 4
Indira Meckes
“First of all, emotions! Understanding comes after!” (cit.Paul Gauguin) Indira Meckes is a French artist born in 1985 who lives and works in Lyon. She’s a flute teacher at the conservatory and since she was a child she was surrounded by beauty and She art being part of a family of silk designers. Her creative research is based on collage as a form of portrait: the characters that she chooses, through their personality, determine the creation of the artwork and the combination of the images. The peculiar and recurring element of Indira’s art is the crossing of different styles, ages and perceptions with the result of creating a mixture of feelings and components that apparently look unmixable. This process makes her creations be close to the oniric world, expressed with pictures, visions and figures that seem to emerge from the free unconcious flow of dreams. Her predisposition to the use of bright, sometimes contrasting colours, comes from the influence of her favourite painters such as Gauguin and Matisse and it generates works that look like sophisticated prints on fabric depicting a metaphysical and enchanted world. The rooms of Indira’s mind tell us fairy tales where poetry, joy and spirituality merge on various levels of interpretation and reading keys: projections of places of the soul and memories. “Nothing that is mentally in our own can ever be lost“ (cit.Sigmund Freud)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Indira Meckes
Moonlight
Indira Meckes
Silent hurricane
Indira Meckes
Harmony
Inesa Antanauskiene “The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them” (cit.Victor Hugo) According to Inesa, who comes from Lithuania, art has always been a means, a fundamental vehicle of inspiration in her life. Many difficult situations and peculiar experiences have led the artist to get closer and closer to art, to the realisation of artworks that allow her and the spectator to escape and become estranged from reality. It’s a proper form of wellness therapy. Her love for art melts with her curiosity towards nature and, in particular, the animal world that includes cranes and other birds; this, led Inesa to the creation of unique artworks that transcend the reality and in which the animal world approaches the oneiric dimension. Inesa’s artworks appear as delicate and impalpable representations. Graceful forms, almost inconsistent, emerge from dark backgrounds, floating with elegance like a sensual dance performed by stylized birds, as it becomes obvious in the representation called “Embracing the world”, a diptych that has been realized through the acrylic on canvas technique in which the artist transposes emotions and sensations in order to recreate oneiric and suggestive atmospheres. It’s a language that ranges from the immense panorama of feelings with harmony and balance. Author with an elegant touch, Inesa creates delicate light displays, characterised by candid reverberation and shadows for placid scenarios. The lines and contours that define her characters are well defined and marked by few intentional smudges. It’s not difficult to feel a romantic breath with an emotive-sentimental intensity. Since ancient times, animals that are represented in artworks are the clear expression of a detailed iconographic code that has come to us. The birds, symbol of the human soul, have always embodied a positive meaning in almost all cultures, except when the volatile is represented in a cage, situation that refers to a deception. In the Greek mythology the eagle is one of Jupiter’s attribute, as a symbol of power, victory, pride and superior sight, since this animal is able to grab lightning in its claws. The raven was a Minerva’s companion, described as an indiscreet and talker bird. The parrot holds different meanings; based on the context, it can be related to the theme of silliness or becoming an emblem of purity and innocence. And again the swan: a famous myth revolves around the figure of Jupiter who decided to turn into a swan in order to seduce Leda, an iconographical subject repeatedly shown in painting. Therefore, the meaning is love, purity and virtue. As Juno’s favourite birds, peacocks initially had a meaning related to resurrection, but later they became symbols of pride, while the dove is a universal sign of peace. According to this brief list of birds based on their different meanings, it is possible to highlight the positive value of Inesa’s subjects. In fact, in her poetic, volatiles have the role of proper ambassadors of her feelings and emotions; these messages will be transported to other people in need of love and hope: that’s the implicit message of this wonderful artist. “The birds of night peck at the first stars that flash like my soul when I love you” (cit. Pablo Neruda)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Inesa Antanauskiene
Embracing the world
Jane Gottlieb
“I will continue to venture, to change, to open the mind and eyes, refusing to let myself be pigeonholed and stereotyped. What matters is to free your self: let it find its size, without constraints� (cit.Virginia Woolf)
Colors surround us and our eyes allow us to see the union between perception and concreteness. Jane Gottlieb's skill in juggling them makes objects stand out and enhance. The artist captures images and glimpses of everyday life and then changes their nuances making reality a new dimension to enter. Indeed, Jane creates a sort of dimensional door in which the visitor gets lost captured by the joy of the bright colors. The technique she has developed over the years and currently uses is very particular: She paints her Cibachrome prints by hand - a process of photographic color printing with very high ch chromatic stability - then she scans them, improves them with Photoshop and finally obtains limited editions. In recent years she has discovered printing on aluminum, which makes the colors of her subjects even more vivid. Jane Gottlieb is not only a colourist, she is the link between classic photography and digital art. She exalts, exasperating it, the emotional side of reality compared to the objectively perceptible one, like exactly did the Expressionists in the early twentieth century. Through the romantic aesthetic from which Expressionism took its cue, the work of art had the task of mediating between the artist and the world, between the feeling and the ideas that the work manifested and the environment, no longer faithful reproduction of reality, but experience of ideas and perceptions, exactly as Jane does. Her works are pure energy and vitality.
Art curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Jane Gottlieb
Check it out
Jane Gottlieb
Checkerboard Square
Jane Gottlieb
Hotel Splendido
Jane Gottlieb
New Daydream
Jane Gottlieb
Santa Barbara Dream
Kana Hawa
“The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke” (cit.Jerzy Kosinski) Kazuky Yazaky, in art Kana Hawa, is a young Japanese artist. His artworks are mainly created by using felt tip pens and fine liner pens that the artist let freely flow, without any initial plan, in order to catch and imprint the impressions, ideas and images that populate his mind in that specific moment. Kana Hawa’s formations become alive with the aid of a digital device, a smartphone, through an App; this unusual and innovative form of combination between the manual and instinctive aspect of drawing and the use of a cellphone screen generates an interesting and very topical reflection on the role and potential of technology as an expressive medium for creativity and emotions. The artist does not see the smartphone as a filter, but rather as a powerful amplifier for the spontaneous creative act, like it was a natural extension of his hands, equipped with additional and effective communicational skills. The digital universe merges with the human one and it becomes a superfast vehicle to interconnect and transmit those feelings and dreams that he wants to share. The results are multi-coloured bright compositions similar to rooms of the subconscious in which patterns, symbols and optical effects combine. His works look like projections of his psyche that travel like data through the cables of consciousness to reach us and emanate their immediate and impulsive force. “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see” (cit.Edgar Degas)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Kana Hawa
Plannet
Kana Hawa
Space of brain
Kana Hawa
Water running
Leena Fredriksson “Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen” (cit.Pablo Picasso) Leena Fredriksoon is a Finnish artist and designer who graduated at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. She is also currently studying art education at Aalto University. Grown up along the coasts of the Finnish archipelago, the fascination for the cold nordic landscapes, for the wild harshness of nature and the sequence of movement and silence caused by the sea is indelibly marked into the artist’s imaginary and becomes an endless source of inspiration for her abstract artworks. Leena’s canvas represent snap-shots of memories, experiences and feelings that emerge from the contact with the suspended atmospheres of the sceneries where she immerse herself; the immaculate beauty of the territory, the gushing force of natural elements combined with the unreal tranquillity of these places are synthesized in metaphysical and oniric carpets in which lights and darkness, storm and calm, winter and summer, time and timelessness meet. The dialogue between those opposites generates a peculiar expressive code which involves the creative process itself: the delicate and light brush strokes and various layers of colours, the instinctive gesturality and the sensitivity, the black-and-white and the strong tints overlap and melt together. In this way, Leena’s paintings avoid the figurative and any recognisable shape and form in order to explore the deep abysses of consciousness and create dreams that are merely populated by memories and pure perceptions. A cathartic journey that becomes apparent in the exact instant when the artist, through calm and contemplation, exclusively focuses on her own inner moment. During this spiritual process, Leena gets totally absorbed by her own creative act and she looses track of the reality by projecting herself into a personal parallel universe where the lack of time and space bonds creates a continuous movement of “The self” similar to the incessant waves of the sea. “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul” (cit.George Bernard Shaw)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Leena Fredriksson
Hetki
Leodolf Nel “Drawing is sincerity in art. There's no chance to cheat. It's either beautiful or it's ugly” (cit.Salvator Dalì) The South African artist, Leodolf Nel, creates fictional human beings, drawing inspiration from his life in the Far East and Africa. Leodolf works mainly with coal and oil, modeling and remodeling the image, exposing the raw nature of his subjects. His characters look like restless souls, whose perception is reinforced by the contrast of black and white, predominant colours of his works. The artist chooses to portray men and women, with an abstract face. Anything but traditional. The lines are poorly defined and flow freely, without rules and technical limits. Every subject has a soul to himself, which in Man represents the unconscious part of the psyche. The soul is in fact considered a personality, and as long as it remains unconscious, it will be projected, over a woman, an object, and why not, on a canvas. The Soul is unconscious, and as such, is instinctive just like the contour lines of Leodolf. An imaginative art that presents a fantasy or an experience proper to the artist, according to unreal expressive forms, sometimes of the dream or abstract type. His works, in fact, are dictated by inner feelings, which emerge uncontrollably, going beyond the five senses and investigating a surreal and visionary perception. In 28 Breton, founder and surrealist theorist, who directed the movement until his death in 1966, published Le Surréalisme et la Peinture, where he defined the surrealist aesthetic according to which the unconscious is the region of art itself. Postulate theorized in the nineteenth century by the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. It was through this last one, that a real aesthetic and artistic revolution took place, determining omnipotent dream and unconscious. So, with a constantly evolving style, Leodolf aims to engage the public emotionally, through a creative process that can give the artist a great sense of calm and tranquility. “Surrealism is based on the idea of a higher degree of reality connected to certain forms of association hitherto neglected, on the omnipotence of dreams, on the disinterested play of thought. It tends to permanently liquidate all other psychic mechanisms and replace them in the resolution of the main problems of life” (cit.André Breton)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Leodolf Nel
The Golden Orb
Lika Ramati
“Love art. Of all lies, it is the least untrue” (cit.Gustave Flaubert) Lika Ramati is an Israeli artist, photographer and designer. She studies fashion design at Shenkar TLV. She is an artist who prefers the choice of female figures in her works. Victorian atmospheres and young girls dressed as porcelain dolls, peep out with bewitching looks, accompanying the viewer in a retro-futuristic space. The Eastern World helps to give the artist countless sources of inspiration. Her muses have graceful exotic traits and become the main characters of fascinating stories. Faces embellished with brilliant jewels as in “Palazzo", where elegance and splendour are the protagonists. Her women are proud, sensual, confident. The colours are bright and the eyes are pr intense. Lika Ramati is an artist who has made the female universe her trademark. She is a dreamer just like her muses, who seem to live in an absolute, fairy-tale, colourful world. Baroque frames on one hand, bucolic atmospheres on the other, intend to represent the vastness of the artist’s world. An energetic, happy, joyful, dreamy world. A feminist obsession that we also find in artists like Gustav Klimt, who shaped an era, showing splendours of the Austrian empire in dissolution. A world that dies, that is shaken and fascinated by the shadows revealed by Freud and crossed by new cultural adventures. An artist who conducted a long investigation into the female universe, sometimes angelic, at times tempting, tender or perverse, but almost always sensual just like the women of Lika Ramati. Author of an intense, strong and expressionist painting. “Art is either plagiarism or revolution” (cit.Paul Gauguin)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Lika Ramati
Film Noir
Lika Ramati
Lucid Dreaming
Lika Ramati
Oriental Dream
Lika Ramati
Palazzo
Lika Ramati
Venus Glory
Luisa Barba
Luisa's artistic work is imbued with spiritual strength and emotionality. The artist is able to evoke sensations and feelings thanks to her commendable pictorial technique and the choice of colors. In fact, shapes and colors are the undisputed protagonists of Luisa's art. Hands are a recurring element, Lorenzo Quinn said "Hands have so much power, the power to love and hate, to create and destroy", Luisa's works perfectly interpret Quinn's thought. Sometimes the hands are creative force, other times they are support and comfort, however they are always the expression of a meaning that spiritualit Artists of all times have confronted the symbolic theme of gestures and hands, in refers to spirituality. fact, the works of Luisa Barba refer to the great masters of history. Inevitably the mind goes towards Rodin's sculptural work "The hand of God" in which it is the molder of primordial figures. The pictorial power that releases desperation and a request for help from Luisa's work "Stuck in the mud" makes think, in some way, of the work of the Bosnian artist Safet Zec, entitled "Hands for bread": hands that seek salvation and they emerge from the bottom up. Luisa's works are a concentrate of ene energy and spirituality, the colors evoke contrasting strength and feelings, sometimes they arouse affliction, other positive energy. Without doubt they create empathy between the artist and the viewer, the works are therefore a means by which an emotional liaison is created with the artist and those who look at her art.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Luisa Barba
Breath of God
Luisa Barba
Creation
Luisa Barba
Help
Luisa Barba
Hopelessness
Luisa Barba
Stuck in the mud
Luz Sanchez All we can see in our life is thanks to the light. Light allows us to observe the world in color. Each surface reflects a color so that we can admire it. Yet the colors in life are not given by the simple physical fact of reflection of light, it is we who can and must color our life with joy, love and happiness. Yes, because a life lived in sadness and solitude is a dull life, without colors. It is up to us to hold the brush and paint it in bright colors. The expressive power of colors and their ability to give joy to who observe them with an open heart have always been a formidable tool, used by artists to express themselves on the canvas and give joy to who observe their canvases. This is exactly what happens with the works of the artist Luz Sanchez. Her canvases presented here and entitled "Otras Miradas" and "Enigma" are in fact a real explosion of life and colors. In the first work there is a game of glances: it is not only we who observe the work, but it seems, through its intense gaze, it too observes us and calls us to enter its world. The spectator feels overwhelmed and drawn into the whirlwind of colors that float on the canvas in a bright dance. In the second work, however, the title of the work itself suggests that we are faced with something unknown and not well defined. But what most attracts someone's curiosity if not something they have to discover slowly? So, on tiptoe we can enter the work and the positioning of the shapes on the canvas invites us to enter this sort of natural world, created by the shapes and colors of Luz's brush. In reality the most colorful world we can meet is not the real everyday one, but it is what we meet in our most beautiful dreams, with our mind. An almost dreamlike and surreal vision is given to us by Luz in the opera "El cuarto verde". It really seems to observe a dream as an external spectator. The focal center of the composition are the two bodies of man and woman that in the embrace seem to merge into a single body: the blue of his body joins the red of her body creating a single being with purple hues. "Is here the secret of art? Remember how the work was seen in a dream state, laugh at it as it was seen, above all try to remember. Because perhaps all inventing is remembering." (cit.Elsa Morante)
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Luz Sanchez
El cuarto verde
Luz Sanchez
Enigma
Luz Sanchez
Otras miradas
Marika Pentikainen “They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming” (cit.Hermann Hesse) In 1899 Sigmund Freud published "The Interpretation of Dreams", one of his best known works based on the psychoanalytic theory. The study of dreamlike activity focuses attention on the prevalence of the unconscious over reason. Psychoanalysis influenced the scientific and cultural sphere of the twentieth century, becoming one of the basic theories for the development of Surrealism. However, the theme of the dream has always interested the artists: "El sueño de la razón produces monstruos" is a famous work by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes that belongs to the seventeenth-century series of Los Caprichos. On the contrary, for the artist Marika Pentikainen the dream of reason produces works of ephemeral beauty, where the unconscious emerges with a sense of rediscovered freedom. "Freedom of Water, Levity" is the photographic analysis of the dreamlike human psyche, the only condition in which you can experience an absolute independence from the superego. The naked body is free from rational conventions and it is immersed in the sea, a symbol of freedom and inner depth, purification and lightness. In her works Marika Pentikainen shows a constant interest in the human condition and she portrays it through photography, aimed not at the outer world but at the inner world. The artist says: "In my photoghraphs and especially in this series, seeing people in their most natural state, together with the natural element of water, is important to me, as is the fact that my subjects can be free. Free to be themselves exactly as they are in their own perfection". The return to human instinct and essence reveals the perfection of human nature in its physical and moral nakedness in a work that recalls the image of a fetus in the womb, ready for a new rebirth. Water is the element necessary for life and the regeneration of nature, through the creative act. Photography as an artistic language becomes a universal language that speaks of feelings, positive and negative emotions that give voice to the human soul, to its being and its continuous becoming.
Art curator Elisabetta Scaccia
Marika Pentikainen
Freedom of water - Levity
Mehak Mittal “Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper” (cit.Arthur Golden) Mehak Mittal is a self-taught Indian artist who lives and works in London. Working as a dentist and practicing yoga and painting for vocation, during her life journey through three different continents, Mehak identifies the common denominator of existence in the fascination and contemplation for the bondless beauty of Nature: the grace of a flying bird, the elegance of a moving animal and the multi-coloured gracefulness of sea creatures. The use of watercolours as her primary medium is functional to catching the essence of movement and the cosmic mystery of natural life. For the artist, painting takes a spiritual dimension which is similar to a form of meditation: during the creative process Mehak’s mind is surrounded and totally absorbed by the sequence of brush strokes and colours as it travels freely into feelings and dreams. In this oniric fluid, an endless sea of images and suggestions in motion, the fantastic creatures that she creates come out of her psyche and swim through the waves of our deepest emotions. The transparency of watercolours allows the pigments to dance and melt on paper so we have the possibility to dive into the abyss of our consciousness, a parallel universe where imagination and reality live together without any border and limitation. Like dreams do, the here depicted octopus has the capability of camouflaging, hiding its presence to the external world. In the same way that every thought and decision modifies and transforms the nature of subconscious desires, the sea creature adapts and uses its tentacles to find a way through the dark journey across the oceanic depths. “Mere octopus traps: Evanescent dreams beneath, a midsummer moon” (cit.Matsuo Basho)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Mehak Mittal
Ascend
Mio Tahara “I prefer to paint people’s eyes than cathedrals, because in people’s eyes there is something that is not in cathedrals, however solemn and imposing they may be” (cit.Vincent Van Gogh) Through the use of wise lines, Tahara Mio, a Japanese artist, describes faces. She proposes a delicate Th dialogue through sign and colour with a remarkable aesthetic sense, all in a balanced distribution of light. The artist’s figuration doesn’t offer a refined image of reality but sublimates it by charging it with emotional accents and nuances of melancholic poetry, as we can observe in the artwork Over our head. In her artworks there’s a clear language, the central register is characterised by such a photographic clarity that it is able to tell a story with a rare academicism, in order to then lead to brushst brushstrokes and lines that blend into the non-formal determination of the figures. The use of colours is clever, in a peculiar balance between the full and the empty, showing a great skill also in the multiplicity of the materials used, from watercolour (I see a dog in a dream), to oil painting (Fantasy of the past), always measured with the same transparency and veiling. There’s no deepness in Tahara’s artworks, everything is set in a sort of scenic background that’s melted with nature; here the spectator’s eye is directed towards the represented subject. Everything talks about her daily life; every artwork is different and tells of a lived experience. Her artworks represent an emotional and experiential path where the artist wants to establish a dialogue, a deep and direct correspondence between her “other than herself” and the spectator. It is always a pleasure to see artworks of genre as portraiture, which takes us back without wild flights and with a great sweetness, to the reality and the beauty that surround us, as if the painter were a chronicler of his time, a narrator of the beauty of real things and feelings. “There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than painting a rose, because first of all he has to forget all the other roses that were ever painted.” (cit.Henri Matisse)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Mio Tahara
Fantasy of the past
Mio Tahara
Me and dog
Mio Tahara
Over our head
Misha Fryc
"A glass mirror is used to look at the face and works of art are used to look at one's soul" (cit.George Bernard Shaw) Looking in the mirror is a way of admiring one's external figure, but it is also the only way to look straight into our own eyes and, being the eyes the mirror of the soul, therefore to look inside, to reflect on our internal aspects, not visible on the outside. The mirror places us before ourselves, showing us the outer and inner part of our being, our body and our soul. The same happens when we observe the works of an artist: the work is a mirror on his soul, a gateway for his deeper self. The young Czech artist Misha FryÄ?, with his work entitled "Death in the mirror", shows us what he sees reflected in the mirror: the abstract and the undefined contours image of death, which also symbolizes a distant future. But he is not afraid, on the contrary, he touches it with his hand. In fact, the work takes us inside his reflection and his very intimate and personal thought: the awareness that we do not live forever and therefore, without fear of the future, we must succeed in making the best of every single moment that is granted to us. As we see in the work presented here, the communicative st strength and effectiveness of Misha's works is the ability to blend abstraction with realism, so as to unite dream and reality, fantasy and concrete events, inner thoughts and lived life in one whole.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Misha Fryc
Death in the Mirror
Monica Chen “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls” (cit.Ted Gran) Monica Chen is a Chinese artist who currently lives and works in London. Her work focuses primarily on the exploration and understanding of the various forms and perceptions of beauty: a conceptual journey which led the artist to the conclusion that beauty resides in the human soul and that going down into the depth of the psyche is the best way to allow it to emerge and develop. In Monica’s vision, the crucial factor to reach this kind of knowledge is the capability to ignore the preconceived comments and judgements from the outside world. The obstructing element to manifesting our inner grace is, at the end, what Monica defines as the monster of low self-esteem and courage which lurks in our heart. The enchant blossoms and blooms in the moment when,through the force of creativity, people can trascend the limits of the conventional social acceptability in order to let their personal, intimate vision of the world and their emotions fly free. This is the key that the artist uses to open the room of our thoughts,dreams and desires, allowing them to flow through images that seem to belong to a suspended space, far from the boundaries of body and time. The choice of black and white photography aims at catching the essential and at removing the colours and the incosistent details to enter with the camera lens directly into the nucleus of human feelings; in this way the artist crashes the tangible barriers and undresses the subject of all the labels given by the society. The “chiaroscuro” becomes a tool to enhance the subconscious forms and to highlight the turmoils of the soul. “To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul” (cit.Andri Cauldwell)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Monica Chen
Untitled
Nisha Kapoor
Nisha's artistic work represents a sort of mystical journey in which the artist achieves balance through the skilful use of colors. Nisha leaves, if not in some cases, the use of form, preferring the centrality of matter freed from formal schemes, a matter that simulates reality in the making. The swirling of colors pervades the viewer's soul in a totally positive way, in her works there is something magical and spiritual. Colors and shapes move in harmony, as in yin and yang everything finds balance. In particular, the work "Cross connection" appears as the intersection of emotions and sensations, the sea that touches the sand, the sky that kisses the earth. Nisha's works can easily be compared to informal art where the speed of execution and meaningless signs were the foundations of the movement. Furthermore, the works are pasty and material, reminiscent of the informal masters, such as Antoni Tapies or Marc Tobey. Nisha, without a doubt, overcomes all barriers, her art becomes for the observer the encounter with peace, it is the discovery of balance. The artist condenses reason and feeling, good and bad, hot and cold in her works. "I want to achieve that condensation of sensations that constitutes a painting" (cit.Henri Matisse)
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Nisha Kapoor
Cross connection
Nisha Kapoor
Green wave
Nisha Kapoor
Radiant Buddha
Nisha Kapoor
Seascape
Nisha Kapoor
War shoe
Oblivion Yes ÂŤSo on his Nightmare through the evening fog Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog; Seeks some love-wilder'd maid with sleep oppress'd, Alights, and grinning sits upon her breastÂť (Erasmus Darwin's poem entitled "Night-mare", shown on the engraving of the work "Nightmare" by FĂźssli created by Burke) The dream world is not only made up of beautiful dreams that bring happiness, but we all know that bad nightmares often nestle in our dreamy mind at night. They leave us with a strong sense of anguish and anxiety upon awakening. The nightmare theme has always been present as an evil creature in the mythology of all ancient peoples. And even the history of art was never immune to trying to represent this distressing reality. Today we know how a nightmare is created in our mind and what is caused by it. But it will never cease to arouse great charm, especially in artists, because its representation in works of art allows us to concretize fears, anxieties, anguishes, thus having a physical tool to exorcise them.In the works presented here, the young South Korean artist Mun Ei Su, aka Oblivion Yes, wanted to explore the various aspects of this dark part of the dream world. By observing the works together, we manage to take an intense journey through the darkest meanders of our mind and face our deepest fears. In the work "A bad dream", the artist manages to give a visual representation of a nightmare. It brings back to the mind of who observe work the nightmare that has transported us to a dark, disturbing world, where we felt lost and afraid, in which an undefined figure approached us to inspire fear. Very often, however, the subjects of nightmares are situations that we are very afraid of happening in real life. The fear of not being loved or remembered by anyone who loves us is a fear shared by every human being. Disappearing, dissolving into nothingness in a cloud of smoke, like the protagonist of the work "Disappear", which screams but no one can hear him, and having no one looking for us, is one of the most excruciating nightmares that you can have. Just as horrible it must be to feel lost, unable to face the adversities of reality, within our society so aggressive against those who are weaker. In the "Dispersed" work, the artist manages to visually represent this alienated feeling and sensation, to feel like a huge dark spot that encompasses everything around him but that cannot emit a response, a reaction. In the last two works, "Flow down" and "Sad", they also enter the vision of figures and faces. In the first work, the figure full of colors and movement is captured at the exact moment when he is crossing the nightmare threshold. He has just moved aside the curtains as a sort of stage on which he can already see himself as the protagonist of that disturbing representation. In the second work, however, the artist once again manages to give a visual representation of a sensation. Yes, because sadness is that feeling that takes away all the colors that until then we had managed to bring within us, within our life, sucks them away, leaving us in a reality now only black and white.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Oblivion Yes
A bad dream
Oblivion Yes
Disappear
Oblivion Yes
Dispersed
Oblivion Yes
Flow down
Oblivion Yes
Sad
Peter Bobbett “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream” (cit.Vincent van Gogh) Peter Bobbett is a self-taught artist born in Harrow Middlesex, near London. He loves to draw, experiment and mix together different styles, from abstract to fluid, from landscape to portrait. His art investigates the different psychological aspects that have accompanied the artist throughout his life, focusing mainly on the effects generated by his unconscious. For centuries, artists tried to find their inspiration in dreams, chasing creative input from the very unconscious. It is not by chance, that dreams were the origin of some of the most brilliant ideas in the history of humanity. It is in this euphoria that Surrealism was born, after the dark years of the Great War. A movement that involved all the arts, so much that Paris dedicated to it, in 1925, the first Exposition International du Surréalisme. Salvador Dalí and his surrealist colleagues are in fact the best known example of how the analysis of the dream is used to create works depicting alternative realities, hybrid creatures and mysterious objects, and how important it is for an artist to understand that dreams influence creativity. An art totally aimed at seeking a meeting point between dream and reality. Intent on building a higher, absolute truth, becoming a means of total liberation of the spirit and of all that resembles it. For Bobbett, painting is an expression of the unconscious that is structured in a liberating, unexpected and explosive way, without rules and programs, above and outside of any logic and rational study of reality itself. Painting for the artist, becomes the moment when the psyche precipitates in art and in which the imaginary finds form and colour. On the canvas dragons spit flames and creeping snakes, defined by red access and dark green, express the ancestral soul of the artist. Symbolically the dragon is a mythical-legendary figure with the power of metamorphosis, whose appearance has always been linked to the resemblance of a huge snake. Therefore, we could think of a strong bond that unites these two animals, as scary as uncontrollable, just like the emotions and feelings generated by our deep unconscious. “It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere” (cit.André Breton)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Peter Bobbett
Dragon fire
Peter Bobbett
Mixed up world
Peter Bobbett
The Snake
Pierre Dole “Like music my drawings transport us to the ambiguous world of the indeterminate” (cit.Odilon Redon) Pierre Dole is a French artist born in Montbrison.He started painting when he was fifteen years old Pier and he decided to begin his personal artistic journey, far from any academic background and training, aimed more at searching for the most suitable ways to express his inner universe rather than at finding a specific style. This process leads the artist to a pictorial investigation which focuses particularly on the gestural element as a tool to release his creative tension. The energetic touch, the use of vivid colours and the intense brush strokes on the canvas, together with the intentional withdrawal of any technical aspect, generate powerful and iconic images that convey a sunconscious and submerged force, dominated by the emotional sphere. Not by chance Pierre is strongly influenced by the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon, whose artorks represent a synthesis between human nightmares and dreams, often populated by fantasic figures that come out of the imagination. Pierre interprets this poetics in an original manner, by travelling through the bends of those feelings and visions that inhabit his psyche; he puts the logic of ‘ the visibile” at the service of “the invisible” by depicting evocative, metaphorical and sometimes evanescent compositions in order to stimulate the receptors of instinct and perception. With Pierre’s paintings we can enyter into the room of the oniric process, a place which is as distant to the reality as it is close to the soul. In the artwork “Le jour où mon ciel s’ouvrira” he paints, in an expressionist key, a non-place representing the steep pathway which leads to his inner” fortress”, the castle of his mind. An imaginary and trascendent doorstep which only a sensible and spontaneous human being can cross in order to perceive its mistery and appreciate its cathartic and revealing experience. The only effective way to access this world is simply to contemplate, without any prejudice and reationality, the green light that surrounds it. “We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination” (cit.David Lynch)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Pierre Dole
The day when my sky will appear
Reinhard Mauer ” On a circle, each starting point can also be an ending point” (cit.Eraclito) Since he was a child, Reinhard Mauer, a German artist, develops a certain interest towards colours and canvases, but we have to wait for many years until this passion can be cultivated; in his maturity he can pursue it as his profession at a 360-degree vision. As a lover of abstract art, his painting defines a sense of freedom, which is obtained through the use of sharp brushstrokes, coloured stripes that invade the space with a dynamism made of rhythm and successions. In his artworks, there is an expansion of the horizon in search of a universal dimension. Reinhard Mauer’s use of colour evolves in poetical and complexes evocative textures and in disturbing abstract images. The circle is his signature, his “mark”, it is an element that always appears and stands out in his artworks. For the artist, the circle is the symbol of everything, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. It is the perfect representation of the totality and its shape expresses fullness and harmony. In his centre all the rays coexist, the circumference recalls the figure of a wheel that gives the idea of movement and perfection. It could be possible to think, mistakenly, that abstract art refers to a simplification of the technique in order to express its creativeness, since it reaches an immediate fullness by refusing the concept of figure and objectivity and relying on the gestural action. Instead, there is a gestural component, a long and often difficult gestation, because it is not easy to avoid the rules of verisimilar, in order to reach the pure abstraction, trying to arrive at a final product that wants to accomplish an objective reality. Reinhard Mauer’s artworks are the proper evidence that instinct prevails over reason even if everything is organized, that emotion borders on the canvas to arrive at a metamorphic and intimate creation. In his forms-not-forms and in the colours that he uses, there are all the essences of the material aspect and his energy is interpreted by his deepest personality. Fascinations, alchemy, intrigue of signs are combined with an intense chromatic texture, capable of representing the reflection of the artist’s inner universe. Suggestive and shining colours appear as symbols of a magnificent beauty. In front of his artworks, we feel grabbed by a vortex of pleasure and exhilarating emotions. “Art is always more abstract than we imagine. Form and colour tell us about form and colour -that is all.” (cit. Oscar Wilde)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Reinhard Mauer
Dream on
Renata Łempicka “Art is what becomes world, not what is world” (cit.Karl Kraus) Renata Łempicka was born in Poland and graduated in painting and drawing. In her work she often refers to metaphysics, as the world of dreams and fantasies. For the artist, the most important thing is to provide the viewer with a meter of judgment composed of two elements: impression and expression, able to express the different depths of existence. An aesthetic investigation, therefore, that allows the artist to feel and think, revealing meanders and recesses of her own psychic life. This aesthetic investigation finds faith in the theories promoted by Freud, who uses a single word to describe the tension contained in a work of art: disturbing. The scholar, in his Aesthetics, says that emotions and feelings are an integral part both of the creativity of the artistic impulse, and the effect produced by the work of art itself. It is the result of the work of art. In this regard, the psychoanalytic perspective considers art as a whole a vehicle through which unconscious feelings are expressed and satisfied. The themes and cycles of the works, chosen by the artist, are inspirations drawn from nature such as sea, landscapes, flowers, butterflies, birds, seasons. Renata Lempicka’s constant effort is to be honest with herself and her art, showing all the importance she attaches to the truth. “Internal flight" is a very complex work from an analytical point of view, through which the artist is ready to express all her interiority. A chromatic explosion that tells on canvas the different inner conflicts that are translated into harmonious form and graceful in the eyes of the viewer. “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity” (cit.Alberto Giacometti)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Renata Ĺ empicka
Internal flight
Rick Gillihan
Rick's work "The Seabird of Life Illuminates The Darkness" is the answer to the nihilism of the present. A reality that we did not expect and that upset everyday life. We are protagonists of forced isolation and imprisonment, the only way to fight an invisible enemy. Throughout history, the artists who drew inspiration from a moment of isolation were many. Matisse on the French Riviera during the Second World War, or Durer in the Venice lagoon. Clearly the isolations may be different from each other, but in any case everyone ends up finding himself. In this regard, Rick's work fits perfectly into the food for thought with which we are called to confront. His work represents each of us, trapped in a life paused that finds exemplary description in black. In fact, colors play an important role within the work, they have meaning and symbolic value. White signs vibrate on the canvas and pierce the black, illuminating the spectator's path and thought. Beyond black, the colors of living nature and of a world we reach out to. A white bird is there to remind us of the freedom we want to conquer and which belongs to us. If the white bird has a strong link with Christian spirituality and religion, then it can easily bring to mind the great masters of the past, from Giotto to Piero della Francesca, however the value that Rick gives to the subject is comparable to the work "Stormo "by the Italian Luca Quercia with whom he talks about the freedom of birds and men. The central theme has to do with the desire to regain one's identity. Ultimately, Rick's work is the ray of sunshine after the storm, it is the gust of wind on a hot day, it's joy in a moment of sadness. With the calm and serenity that distinguish him, Rick as always, gives us moments of serenity, through a simple but not at all obvious aesthetic, gives moments of reflection. "Peace cannot be separated from freedom because nobody can be at peace without having freedom" (Malcolm X)
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Rick Gillihan
The Seabird Of Life, Illuminates The Darkness
Roberta
Roberta's sculptures are like small precious coffers. Small bodies and faces referring to classical sculpture, but speaking a contemporary language. In her search for abandoned objects and common materials, the artist is guided by her feelings rather than reasoning. Hers are special objets trouvĂŠs: small works of art by themselves, they acquire new meanings in the hands of the artist. The more their sense organs, their arms and legs are limited, the more they communicate. Threads, fabrics, ropes and adhesive tape interact with their bodies, changing them in appearance and in meaning. Mouths are taped, eyes are blindfolded, bodies are tied, but there is no violence. Each of these beings seems to be keeping a secret with the delicacy of a sigh, an imperceptible silence. The recovered elements assembled by the artists meet in the final work and give life to new creatures speaking the most ancient and profound language, the one without words. Roberta's works speak to the unconscious, sharing the limit of the inexplicable with surreal art, which was the celebration of the dream and the subconscious in the dimension of art. The artist lets go of her moods, feelings, emotions, and use them to clothes the nakedness of the sculptures. They are not men and women deprived of their senses, or castrated, but beings who live fully in the landscapes of their own inner worlds, where, if we close our eyes, we can find ourselves too. Pindaric Flight in the Late Evening is a moment of transition from the present to the past, listening to a memory or a dream which is alive in the body, even after the wings to return to reality have been worn again.
Art curator Elisabetta Scantamburlo
Roberta
Volo pindarico
Sonnhild Kost
“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint” (cit.Edward Hopper) Sonnhild Kost is a self-taught artist who lives and works in Germany. After having worked as a draftswoman for 35 years, she decided to take her artistic journey in order to be able to freely express and manifest her inner world. Sonnihld’s art, which goes from traditional to innovative digital exp painting, becomes an experience which is aimed at translating her feelings and deepest hidden tensions into colours and images: emotions that are too powerful to be expressed through simple words. Her investigation takes the form of a trip and the destination is an ideal place where reality and the spiritual universe meet and merge; this becomes a process of constant experimentation through the use of various techniques and several materials, with no fixed rule or academic limitation. The objective of the artist is to create compositions that are able to emanate light, love, power and vital energy throughout the environment where they are exhibited, like mirrors reflecting her bright and fascinating psychic and emotional dimension. In her artworks it is apparent how life is complex, multi-coloured and multifaceted and it has to be lived positively and intended as a continuous pilgrimage and renewal. In Sonnhild’s vision art, like the existence itself, represents a fluid element capable of an endless mutation and development, taking on multiple forms and meanings. In this it is similar to dreams, that are limitless containers of stimuli and images. “Creativity takes courage” (cit.Henri Matisse)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Sonnhild Kost
The Typhoon
Sonnhild Kost
Let dreams come true
Sonnhild Kost
Colorful Life
Stephan Janssens
The present historical moment is the time of reflection; if on the one hand it might seem the highest point of nihilism, on the other hand it is the ideal time to restore one's self. The contemporary artist and intellectual one, treasures the opportunity that life offers. Stephan creates a work resulting from his personal reflection and gives the user food for thought. From a black background, bright colors emerge, which stand out on the canvas and almost come out of it. Far from normality, far from consumerism, the main protagonist of this millennium, we are forced to find the happiness and harmony of simple life. The brightness created by white brings to mind Lucio Fontana's cuts, the gash that allows you to see beyond and creates a liaison with deep sensations and thoughts. In the same way, the mellowness of colors recalls material painting; the artist Stephan exploits the energetic potential of color as pure material, free from the image. Therefore, the pictorial material that comes from the dark backdrop becomes a metaphor for existential research. "In nature, light creates color. In painting, color creates light" (Hans Hofmann). Stephan's artistic work perfectly paraphrases Hofmann's thought, creates light through painting, that light that becomes a gift for the observer and a moment of reflection.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Stephan Janssens
Relief
Timothy Poe “I dream my painting and then I paint my dream” (cit.Vincent Van Gogh) Many artists of the past have used the dream experience as a source of inspiration for their works, investigating its mysterious side. For example, in his most famous paintings “Starry Night” and “Wheatfield with Crows” Van Gogh represented scenes between reality and dreams that allow us to understand his inner restlessness. Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical painting has preserved the enigmatic and cryptic character of dreams and unreality, in a dimension out of time and space, in a state of apparent calm that characterizes all the elements of the composition. The resulting atmosphere conveys an emotional and at the same time magnetic tension, because it is indecipherable. Despite the lack of recognizable figures, even abstract art has the ability to describe the dream process with surprising precision. The set of sensations and thoughts, which overlap and do not have an apparent rational logic, often creates images of dubious interpretation. The dream becomes an game of references imprinted on the canvas of our mind. abstract The artist Timothy Poe manages to retrace the dreamlike process in his work "Rest", where colors and shapes crowd, mix and give life to an incredible explosion of bright shades. The brush strokes trace the intricate paths of the mind, from which you cannot find an exit, but they guide the observer in a mysterious and fascinating pattern. "Rest" is a daydream made by an artist who keeps the memory of his dreams in reality and reality in his dreams. It is a mirror that reflects the creative ability of the mind in a thousand colors, using sensitive experiences as tools: what you see, what you listen to, what you touch, what you feel. Timothy Poe creates a work full of vitality and positive feelings, that shows the incredible fantasy that belongs to every human being, but which becomes a masterpiece only in the hands of a great artist.
Art curator Elisabetta Scaccia
Timothy Poe
Rest
Tine Mynster
Tine's artistic work is concrete strength, it is ardor, it is a shipwreck in color. When the Italian Cesare Pavese wrote "Every new morning, I will go out into the street looking for colors", perhaps he meant something similar to the works of the Danish artist. Inevitably, the viewer in front of Tine's works is pervaded by the evocative force of the emotions that the brush strokes convey. Colors are unequivocally the focal point of the works, they have life, breathe in space, pass through each other and appear rooted in the canvas. The total absence of figures and elements attributable to reality make Tine's work describable as abstract. The level of abstraction is so high that it could be close to Malevic's Suprematism. However, the colored backgrounds have romantic echoes, like the artists of that period; even Tine seems to have assimilated the painting techniques without conventions, but rather, full of moving passion, such as those of the artist Turner. Vasili Kandinskij said that each color has its own musicality and that it can be combined with the sound of a musical instrument. Tine's works are a real symphony, the brush is the dancer, her painting is dance. The artist with her works gives us the opportunity to rediscover remote feelings, while creating a link with our unconscious.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Tine Mynster
We don't know the way we have in front of us
Tine Mynster
We will be dancing soon
Tine Mynster
You turn me on
Tjeerd Doosje
“With one eye, search in the outside world, while with the other, look within you” (cit.Amedeo Modigliani) The human being has always had to interface with two visions of life, dream and reality. When are both feasible? And when to make each other prevail? Tjeerd Doosje's photos contain the magic and enchantment in the eyes of young women who, while posing towards the reality of the lens, have their mind elsewhere, far away - “far farther than the night and far higher than the day", as the French surrealist poet of the twentieth century Jacques Préverte quoted - towards a world made of sur dreams not yet fulfilled. The eyes of these young women express joy, innocence, childhood and mystery. The artist divides himself: as a professor of mathematics - his other work as well as that of a photographer - he prevails the precision of the lens and perspective in the portraits, while as a photographer he tries to capture the unconscious itself. Tjeerd has always been fascinated by mysterious and sweet faces and their features since he began photographing children: those faces so full of innocence and wonder overwhelmed him, involved him and spurred him to grow and do the search for faces and their hidden desires, his dream. The poetry and the delicacy of the female faces that he portrays allows everyone to imagine real stories. The women portrayed by Tjeerd are as enigmatic and melancholy as those of Tamara De Lempicka's Art Deco, romantic and ethereal like those of Modigliani. The beauty of women and their dreams explodes thanks to him.
Art curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Tjeerd Doosje
Catinca (0602)
Tjeerd Doosje
Catinca (0609)
Tjeerd Doosje
Resa (0313)
Tjeerd Doosje
Saar (0212)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (0302)
Varda Levy
“Art is to discover in reality certain signs and relationships, logically inexplicable, and to evoke them by communicating them; so, through them the real world presents itself to us" (cit.Massimo Bontempelli) A work of art is a key to accessing a world that is the direct emanation of the feelings and what the creator artist has experienced. By standing in front of it and admiring it, we are looking directly into the artist's eyes, what is in his deepest intimate. He is showing himself completely naked to us. The artist Varda Levy uses images of the real world and of common life to tell us about her world through her works. In fact, in them we find people who perform daily actions, objects and natural elements that we usually see around us. However, all of this almost seems to us as if it were in a parallel world and indeed it is, because what we see in the work is not its direct representation, but it is Varda's vision of that subject. We are admiring how the artist sees reality and what makes it up.
Varda Levy
In this way a bush of red flowers, which could pass unnoticed during a walk in the nature, becomes the undisputed protagonist of the work entitled "Red Bloom". But in this work, we are observing how Varda sees and interprets these flowers. Nature explodes on the canvas in a bright and intense red, capable of giving us a sense of joy and peace at first glance. Instead in the work entitled "Blue Dream" a moment of relaxation of a simple girl turns in a swirl of lines, shadows and shades of blue on the canvas. The blue of the jeans seems to spread from them around the girl, almost as if the color itself was enveloping her or as if it were her own body that emanated it. Blue has always been a symbol of serenity and balance. The girl had completely merged with the dream she was living and now, when she wakes up, she is bringing with her the sensations and emotions experienced, to give them to us, who observe her from above.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Varda Levy
Blue Dream
Varda Levy
Red Bloom
Curated by Art Directors Greco Carlo and Magni Alessandra
Critical texts by Art Curators Dottoressa Abbuonandi Erminia Dottoressa Bianchi Maria Cristina Dottoressa D’Avanzo Federica Dottoressa Grassi Silvia Dottoressa Gravante Erika Dottoressa Perone Alessia Dottoressa Scantamburlo Elisabetta Dottoressa Viti Vanessa Dottoressa Zanesi Giulia
Ana Sneeringer
The originality of the artistic work of Ana Sneeringer is a fine balance between safety drawing and a subtle colour sensibility. A paint is measured by the thoughtful rendering of the subject that stands in the space with the lightness of the face to express the sense of a particular vision of reality that is transformed into a world of meaning, concepts, moments of the everyday life in step with the times. A living example of that artistic vitality, movement and innovation, driven by ever-new experiences dictated by the talent and by the extraordinary expressive ability of the artist. Ana Sneeringer with her works is in a constant search of a “Aistesis� according to the concept of Platone, that is an imitation or mimesis of the ideas present in things going far beyond, a cutting-edge construction of kantian memory. Watching this work, we realize the extraordinary value of visual, conceptual, with a rare technical and difficult to dose without falling into the obvious or the banal. A great and a remarkable artistic sensitivity and a strong sense of color, a solid technical background and a mastery of the design are at the basis of her artistic work. The artist's expression, in the sense that her art leads us to reflect on the concrete relationship with the company and therefore of communication. A painting that is exploration of color and composition continues to transmit the messages of life that are sublimed by her art. In her work is a breath of infinite freshness, the protagonist of a creative journey worthy of the utmost consideration. Ana Sneeringer offers us images elegant offices of a poem, very sweet, accompanied by a skillful use of color, and from a disinvultura extreme in the system of signs that helps to yield emotional of her subjects, by involving us in a fascinating creative process that you can frame in a modern, realism, characterized by a clear originality.
Art curator Giulia Zanesi
Ana Sneeringer
Spaghetti is love
Asuka Ripple “Science describes things as they are; the Art as they are felt, how they feel they should be” (Fernando Pessoa) Asuka Ripple, is a self-taught Japanese artist. She began to draw since she was a child, combining this passion with the one for music. She loves to experiment and always use innovative techniques, helping herself with the use of different materials. She recently began to paint with the technique of Spray Art, activity mainly characterized by the use of spray paint. It is considered one of the most interesting and intriguing shades of Street Art, whose origin is traced back to the seventies in the city of New York. It is not possible to establish a precise date for the birth of this movement, but surely the public interest for "street art" exploded around 2000, thanks to the stencils of the artist with an unknown identity: Banksy. It starts from Pop Art and Graffiti Art, but develops deeper themes, especially by merging the typical techniques of writers, with those of spray painters; the result of this work is actually very exciting. It is essentially a form of quick art, unexpected, that catches the artist by surprise; and through the use of some spray can and some piece of metal, creates a real work of art. An unconventional technique that firmly departs from traditional artistic vision, which leaves room for fantasy, colour and innovation. Asuka and spray art is a short but well-understood story that tells how fantas the artistic progress today is able to generate products increasingly distant from the classic iconic Renaissance figure, or the peculiarity of the Bruneschelliana perspective technique. Breath of Life, made up of plastic plates, wooden boards, butter knives and paper, tells us about current events, material portraying the intense emotions of the artist. “The supreme touch of the artist, knowing when to stop” (Arthur Conan Doyle)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Asuka Ripple
Breath of Life
Atsuko Yamamoto
“I have been greatly influenced by American abstract expressionist artists from the mid-20th century. In honour of them, I expressed the vertical movements and rhythms that penetrate the heaven and the earth that I imagine today.”
Atsuko Yamamoto is a Japanese artist and defines her art in this way. She understood the importance of inspiring by the reality, using the photography and creating amazing artworks. Atsuko got away from the world of art for some years and she worked in an enterprise, because she studied Economics. But when her sons born, she dedicated again to art and in 2004 began to teach painting to children. She is a polyhedral artist and she can use different techniques and materials, she is able to paint with oil paints and watercolours. In her most recent artworks, she communicates her emotions and feelings through art, valorising her consciousness. For Atsuko art is very important: her artworks represent the th close relationship between artist and art and the force of expression. Painting can be considered as a very short story where there is intense concentration. It is also seen as a fleeting moment and a rare mental and physical condition. She also focused on abstract expressionism and this can be seen in her paintings, through the use of long brushstrokes, (for instance the artworks entitled “We are the light”). Moreover she paints artworks where there is the deformation of structural elements and also there is the combination of colours and light.
“Colours, like features, follow the changes of the emotions” (Pablo Picasso)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Atsuko Yamamoto
We are the light I
Atsuko Yamamoto
We are the light II
Atsuko Yamamoto
We are the light III
Atsushi Ohta
«What do I want to communicate through my work? Nothing other than what every artist wants, to achieve harmony by balancing the relationship between lines, colors and surfaces. Only in a clearer and stronger way» (Pieter Mondrian)
In the artworks of Atsushi Ohta there are grids of colors and geometric shapes that attract the attention of people. He is a talented Japanese artist and he is influenced by historical and social circumstances. His artworks are different and he simplifies shapes and reduces the number of colors using vivid and primary ones (for instance the artwork “Drawing a square 3 in 3. In the moment of the present. In this limited area of here”, realized with a mixed technique). In all centuries painters tried to understand the beauty of lines and colors. In the Modern art there is the pure abstract painting that includes orthogonal lines and primary colors. They are very important to reach the true essence of painting. This Japanese artist gives importance to these aspects. His paintings illustrate shapes that are balanced and he creates multiform subjects. He also goes in search of purity, painting lines and creating a geometric order. He wants to represent the immutable nature of things, considering what is truly essential. The shapes start to have a symbolic value and they become increasingly fragmented and simple. This artist looks beyond appearances, marginalizing all the emotions because he wants to valorize a universal art.
“One can exist without art, but one cannot live without it” (Oscar Wilde)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Atsushi Ohta
Drawing a square 3 in 3.In the moment of the present.In this limited area of here.
Camille Hellis
Camille could be described with the invented term "dreamtraveler", she travels in the unconscious and through her works makes us navigators with her. Her work "Ballet" is the fusion of lights and shadows, dark tones and colors that move quickly pushed by fleeting brush strokes. The glow in the center of the work gives the viewer the feeling of being in the center of a stage, it seems to be in the spotlight. In any case, the only lights that the artist intends to use are those that illuminate our self. The French artist gives the viewer an image, without any pretense of bestowing teachings, in the same way she does not intend to suggest hidden meanings, she leaves this task to the viewer. The artist seems to be inspired by informal works, her work does not have figures that can be traced back to reality like the great masters of the informal, Camille intervenes with expressive signs and spontaneous gestures. Moreover, the informal is a rebellious idea of art, and it is precisely that feeling and the desire to get out of the box to create something new that shines through in Camille's art. In particular, the work of the young artist refers to the artistic work of one of the exponents of the mentioned artistic current in Italy: Vasco Bendini. The Italian master creates a dialogue between formless and nameless forces that animate the viewer and question him, in fact, Camille's art follows this path and takes on the same value. Camille ferries us into a world of energies that merge into each other, which are sometimes impetus towards infinity, other intuitions and ecstatic instants, and yet a suspended vortex between everything and nothing.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Camille Hellis
Ballet
Chair House “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality” (Pablo Picasso) Hitoshi Yasui, known as Chair House, was born in Tokyo, Japan, alongside to his profession as an engineer, he began his creative career in the early '90s, as a multimedia artist. His main sources of inspiration are music, images, films. He is a multifaceted artist, engaged in various digital art activities. The art world has always been very attentive to technological advances, starting to become, more and more, a self-referential activity, which essentially dialogues with itself and always elaborates new expressive codes, imagining a continuous "progress" linguistic and aesthetic. Many artists have chosen no longer to reproduce the visible, but to make visible forms and images that would not be otherwise, finding themselves, therefore, to elaborate compositions of pure shapes and colours. The Japanese artist Chair House moves in this direction, experimenting with the most innovative forms of art in his works. He chooses to use three-dimensional representation to give shape to his subjects, through 3D and Photoshop software, creating totally abstract images. In Dea Ivy, the artist experimenting with new technologies, manages to recreate water and its thousand shades. The woman depicted in this work seems to swim in all its beauty and purity. As well as in Dea Cowslip, where the female body is represented naked, in all its sensuality, as a Venus. A prototype that is generally traced back to the sixteenth-century artist Giorgione and then treated by more contemporary artists such as Courbet, Ingres, Manet. A realistic digital product that overcomes all artistic limitations and that fully represents past, present and future art.
“Art, this extension of the forest of our veins, that pours out, beyond the body, into the infinity fo of space and time” (Filippo Tommaso Marinetti)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Chair House
Dea Cowslip
Chair House
Dea Ivy
Chair House
Dea Laurel
Christopher Byrne “When time stops, it becomes a place” (Chawki Abdelamir)
Chris Byrne is a Scottish artist who took his degree in Art and Printmaking at the University of Fine Arts in Glasgow. His artistic activity has to be viewed as a real exploration of relics, architectural structures, places and fragments with a particular focus on how they were used and designed in the past. Chris’ art, by overcoming the limits of specific techniques and materials, becomes a research which does not follow pre-established patterns but involves the interlinking processes of ideas, connections and meanings. This is how the fascination for those scottish iolated landscapes where the artist grew up trascends, in his canvas, the mere aesthetics or atmosphere of places and it turns his ear to the tales and the experiences of people who lived there and who passed down those stories from generation to generation, in a stream of memories and feelings. The ispiration that he takes from the contemplation of old abandoned industrial remnants, of the scarsly populated Scottish lands and of the crumbling crofts generate images that represent deep and melancholy reflections on the estehetic of decay and on the reclaiming of the space by nature and contemporary culture. A vision which also st strongly interests emotional aspects, those impressions on the photographic film of the human soul that remain imprinted when we osberve the time passing and the forms changing. His works are timeless abstact compostions,similar tiles of feelings and visual fingerprints. In the artwork named “Emptiness”, for example, the sense of solitude, abscence and vastnes conveys a mixed message of extasy and restlessness, but also of hope that these places will not be forgotten so they will have the opportunity to live a new life. In this perspective, Chris’ paintings are mirrors of our times, an age which similarly to what happend in the Twenties, is dominated by confusion and uncertainty but at the same time pervaded by a huge desire for connection, change and renewal through a complex synthesis between past, present and future.
“We leave our footprints in the place where we feel that we belong to the most” (Haruki Murakami)
Art curator E rika Gravante
Christopher Byrne
Emptiness
David Ortiz Fuertes “Art is to discover certain signs and relationships in reality, logically inexplicable, and to evoke them by communicating them; so that through them the real world presents itself " (Massimo Bontempelli) Art has always been an extraordinary means by which to understand and interpret the world around us. However, this world changes constantly and suddenly. Through their art, artists have the gift of being able to go inside and bring out its most mysterious sides. Indeed, most of the time, they even manage to anticipate new faces that reality is about to show. With his art, the Spanish artist David Ortiz Fuertes is able to give us an abstract vision of reality, of what composes it, of what guides its changes. The work here presents, that most can represent a fundamental aspect of everyone's life, is entitled "Love". Yes, because, as in the work, the word "Love" stands out right in the center, so love is the feeling that guides our every decision and thought in everyday life, the purpose of each of our gestures. Here love, symbolized by the letters that make up the word, releases a great energy of light and colors: it generates around it a white light, which is faceted in the vivid primary colors, then moving away towards the outside of the canvas, the colors are gradually becoming softer and more nuanced, because each of us, moving away from it, lose energy and life force. Similar colors and shades are also taken up by David in the work "Fantasy", in which an almost rarefied atmosphere created by the intense shade of colors is affected by a splash of red paint. Being able to imagine worlds and realities different from those in which we live, through our imagination, is an instrument that allows us to color ourselves with a sudden sketch of joy and happiness, within a world that does not always show itself to us with clear and easy to understand outlines. Instead in the work entitled "Expressions", David fully shows us the vital energy of his works: the predominance of brightly colo colored colors spread on the canvas in an almost material way give the canvas an overwhelming energy. In a single canvas David is able to express, as suggested by the title itself, a heterogeneous set of thoughts and feelings, which in the chromatic contrast, however, manage to dialogue with each other, giving life to a whirlwind of emotions also in the observer. In the other works presented here, entitled "Barnard" and "Mystic Bosque", red is the protagonist color, which permeates all the canvases. In the first work we find it in all its shades, from purple to pink, passing through yellow and orange. This explosion of colors looks like the sky when it sets on fire at sunset: the sun fills it with colors and they are then reflected, softer and more nuanced, in the blue of the sea. In the second work, however, David gives us his personal representation of a magical, mystical place. The white marks on the canvas seem to show us the way, to give us a point of reference not to get lost in this place: a place of our imagination where we can go to find ourselves elsewhere and let ourselves be guided only by our emotions, which David manages to bring out with his colors.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
David Ortiz Fuertes
Barnard
David Ortiz Fuertes
Bosque mistico
David Ortiz Fuertes
Expressions
David Ortiz Fuertes
Fantasy
David Ortiz Fuertes
Love
Elena Chukhlebova If photography has the role of telling the truth, if the shot captures a place or an object as it appears, Elena's work goes beyond these limits. The artist manages to get out of those well-defined outlines of photography, because rather than representing reality, in her works we find the means to get excited. In fact, her work is energy and passion, Elena has the great gift of absolute sensitivity, her eye sees where others do not arrive. The sensations that the observer experiences in front of his work are probably the same that Elena feels when looking at the ocean. Light, colors, tones that mix with each other are the undisputed protagonists of the work. Halfway between the abstract and the landscape, not well defined shapes, water that meets the sky, games of surprising contrasts make Elena's work unique. Her art is clearly describable as landscape photography but at the same time has characteristics that refer to abstractionism because the real is lost between colors and brightness. Her artwork calls to mind the work of the great painter and engraver Tetsuro Sawada, for the choice of places to portray and beyond, especially for the fusion of lights and shadows, of tonality and shades of color, and for the horizontality of the lines. In front of the work "Perfect end of the day" the observer is captured by it, the gaze meets that line of the horizon that makes you dream so much. We all become Ulysses, let ourselves be carried away by the desire to know and face a journey into the unknown, the one that makes us discover ourselves and our emotions.
"The sea is your mirror: contemplate your soul in the infinite turning of the rolling wave" (C. Baudelaire)
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Elena Chukhlebova
Perfect end to the day
Eric Cariou
“Life is not longevity, and beauty is the only goal” (“Pandemonium”- Killing Joke)
Each of us has beliefs and ideals that guide him, often even unconsciously, in the decisions that will inevitably change our life, as in the small ones of every day. Each has a goal in life, a goal to be achieved: even if we perhaps know to be a utopia, it helps us to trace the way forward. About his work of art presented here, the French artist Eric Cariou chose the word game "You-topia" as its title, which also wants to be a representation of the period that all humanity is experiencing. Here Eric presents us a video in which he shows us some of his analog shots, characterized by a shining central pink light, created by the camera not closed properly. The light almost seems to create a gash in the sky, a portal to something unknown, new. In life, once a state of stability has been reached, our nature pushes us to always look for something new, a new adventure, a new goal to be achieved, a new utopia to be realize. The goal of an artist is beauty and being able to express it through his works of art, to then transmit it to anyone who observes them. This beauty is perfectly described by Antonio Mercurio in Life as a gift and life as a work of art explained in 41 films: “Beauty is a very powerful field of magnetic energy that, when it passes by you, captures you… It makes you pass by world known to an unknown world; from a world impossible to abandon to a world impossible to conquer ... It is a magical power! "
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Eric Cariou
YOU-TOPIA
Francesca Rottmann “There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain” (Georges Braque) Francesca Rotterman is a Swiss artist with Italian roots. She graduated from the School of Arts and Design in St. Gallen, obtaining a strong success in the fashion world. Her art appears, from a stylistic point of view, clearly linked to the cubist representations, an artistic movement born in Paris between 1907 and 1914, whose founding fathers were Picasso and Braque. Sometime before, artists like Gauguin and above all Cezanne had started to insert different perspective points in their paintings. But it was, however, Picasso himself who brought the multiplicity of points of view and, once again, distorted the course of art. In the artist’s works, in fact, the object is represented by a multiplicity of points of view, so as to obtain a total representation of the object, getting sometimes-incomprehensible images as a result. Cubism breaks the convention scheme and introduces a new element into the pictorial representation: time. In The Beauty and Imperfection by Francesca Rotterman, this discourse on cubist perspective appears totally clear. The reference to the Dutch artist Rembrandt, unique in the rendering of chiaroscuro, is prominent in the use of light and psychological characterization, in the accuracy of description and in the rendering of details. A work in which the artist represents all the knowledge she has acquired on the object, that is not limited to the gaze but to the whole investigation of the structure of the element and its function. A face, probably feminine, with marked and angular features, with a strong geometrization, from the multiplicity of visual angles, where the decomposition and recomposition of the forms is the main key to reading. The colour is strong, dominant and able to make immediately clear to the viewer the female condition that constantly swings between beauty and imperfection. “Great art picks up where nature ends” (Marc Chagall)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Francesca Rottmann
The beauty and the imperfection
Gerrit Hodemacher “The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating” (Jackson Pollock)
Gerrit Hodemacher is a German artist who was born in Hanover. Since he was a child, he began to express his creativity especially through acting and writing poems. Gerrit then graduated in business administration but his passion for art emerged strongly again in 2019 when he decided to start painting as a way to liberate his emotions. His work concentrates on gestural freedom and it is characterised by an immediate and instinctive form of interaction with both canvas and the paint, in order to move the viewer’s eye away from preconceived notions on what art should be. Gerrit’s canvases challenge the rules of composition because they are purely driven by the instantaneous feelings that the artist is living, without any rational filter or pre-constructed thought or scheme. His hands are merely controlled by the emotional flow and what stands out is visceral aspect of his visual images and written words, a sort of silent scream coming from his deepest desires, fears and intimate vision of the world. With this technique and approach the artist is able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, something that is similar to an unorganised powerful explosion of ene energy, a moment of liberation from the aesthetic moral and norm. In “Strong Life” Gerrit plays with the ambivalence between the words life and lie, two concepts that are inherently opposite but that in our society often tend to coincide; this artwork is a potent and persuasive declaration of how identity nowadays is a complex structure, made of various layers, shades and facets and at the same time it represents a positive expression of the importance of preserving our true souls without hiding and wearing masks. The infinity symbol in the middle of the composition signifies the endless movement and change and in particular how quickly men can switch between these two existential dimensions, according to everyday life situations and convenience. In individual psychology “life lie” is term to denote the false belief, functioning as an escape to evade and avoid responsibility or circumstances beyond our control and Gerrit reminds us that, if we want to, we can embrace our inner consciousness in a meaningful manner.
“People don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Gerrit Hodemacher
Strong
Gomez Veintes “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable” (Banksy) Gomez Veintes was born in Madrid and discovered his artistic vocation only at a mature age. Today, through drawing, he is able to express and discover what he has inside. He chose not to create a unique and defined style; he doesn’t really care about it. He simply lets himself be carried away by emotions and by his surroundings. He creates images born from straight lines and curves, generated by a chaos that was previously created. From this metaphorical disorder, Gomez creates and colours his works, that are dressed in bright colours and that follow the geometric trends. A very contemporary form of art, whose compositional harmony has been adopted several times. Squares, circles, triangles and rectangles in art have always been present, both in the form of a defined Squa figure and as a basis for creating harmonious compositions, or characterized by a particular meaning. Geometric figures in art started with cave paintings: the primitive populations wanted to reproduce the world that surrounded them, for both magical and narrative purposes, and the simplest way was to use stylized strokes that symbolically referred to a real object. But that’s not all: in the art and crafts of ancient Greece, and in the Eastern and Middle Eastern world, regular geometric patterns were often used as ornaments of more complex works and, in many cases, these decorations conveyed a precise meaning. Precisely to obtain the best aesthetic effect, the most famous Renaissance artists regularly used geometric figures (such as the triangle) as a canvas for the composition, thus ensuring results that bordered on absolute perfection. Among the best-known examples are certainly works by Michelangelo and Leonardo. In Señor V the geometry follows and accurately proposes those same stylistic schemes revisited in a contemporary key with the use of markers tricolour. “The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity” (Alberto Giacometti)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Gomez Veintes
Senor V
Ingrid Gielen
“Photography is not a mere duplication nor an eye stopwatch which stops the physical world but it is a language where the difference between reproduction and interpretation, although thin, it exists and generates countless imaginary worlds” (Luigi Ghirri)
Ingrid Gielen is an artist who lives in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. After beiing a social worker all her life, five years ago she decided to take the step of attending the Accademy of Visual Arts and photography finally became integral part of her existence and activity. Ingrid’s photography, which focuses mainly on those aspects of human life filtered by a melancholic and dreamy look, often uses images that seem aged in time and it touches themes like memories, travel as an inner journey and the consciuosness of the world seen as a container for feelings and perceptions. In the series named “Mind-travelling” the idea which comes from pictures that the artist bought at the flea market in Brusselles, is to explore and investigate the concept of travel that she interprets not in a physical perpective, but rather in a spiritual and psychological manner, also in the light of the impact that the current economical and social situation will have on the way we move;
Ingrid Gielen
the combination of new images and old frames, the use of macrophotograpy and watercolours, aims at creating brand new mindscapes that represent a form of visual poetry consisting of fragments of feelings and clippings of emotions. This type of artistic meditation generates places that are non-places, supended metaphysical environments that, through the juxtaposition, create a minimalist and conceptual storytelling: her apparently dry and gaunt sceneries suggest a new vision of things, like there was the constant desire that something unexpected is suddenly going to happen, a sort of pr projection of an internal intimate glance. Ingrid gives a new meaning and a new life to the residual by saving pictures from beiing destroyed, forgotten or lost and by putting them in an original and personal context. The cut turns into a process which defines the essential, in a universe where what looks “vintage” becomes a precious element to read the future.
“For me, the act of photography is all about discovery and finding new things.” (Alec Soth)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Ingrid Gielen
Mind travelling 2
Ingrid Gielen
Mind travelling 4
Ingrid Gielen
Mind travelling 6
Ingrid Gielen
Mind travelling 7
Jane Gottlieb “The color is energy, it evokes emotions and feelings which make you feel good, and suddenly you start smiling” (Jane Gottlieb)
The Pop Art was considered the first art movement to have incorporated, in a constant and decisive way, the photograph within its message, breaking apart from the well-known “struggle for the picture” against the painting. The movement kept going forward by giving wide space to the great work carried out by Andy Warhol and by the most important artists who shared the Pop Art style, and in this framework find a place Jane Gottlieb’s representation which give a huge breathing to several objects and everyday sites. With a passion for the nature and everything that surrounds her, from cities to monuments, through the use of the camera the artist renews her approach to observe the world. The urban environment become a representation’s subject, being adherent to the several aspects of the everyday life. The pictures are taken from the reality, but thanks to the following modifications and her capacity to keep seeing beyond the concrete data, each detail reborn once again and it acquires a new energy. Throughout her great creativity, the artist takes the observer into a spiral of vitality and freshness, where the color is the primary source of her artworks, which interacts with the emotions and states of mind. Yves Klein claimed that colors are evolved living beings, the real inhabitants of the space that relate with the entire world. For this reason, introducing in her artworks new shades, Jane Gottlieb shapes a new dimension rich of nuances.
“Jane Gottlieb’s artworks refer to the understanding of the color and the natural form” (Dr. Louis Zona, Director of Butler Institute of American Art)
Art curator Alessia Perone
Jane Gottlieb
Italy Packard
Jane Gottlieb
Italy steps
Jane Gottlieb
MiamiDeco
Jane Gottlieb
NM old doors
Jane Gottlieb
Villa D'Este
John Bacon
"Don't look at the past with anger or the future with anxiety, but look around carefully." (James Grover Thurber)
John Bacon treats very simple figures through which past art is taken as a starting point to look towards the future, in search of new styles and techniques. His art brings us back with memories with his abstract forms trying to have contact with our roots and to create something new. His paintings form a sort of trail of emotions starting from their titles. Celebration of Friendship is of an almost Cubist primitivism with these figures intertwined as in a warm and friendly embrace; Rapunzel, is a reference to the famous tale of the Grimm brothers, one of the stories that our parents told us when we we were only little kids, in which he paints a woman with the hair that frames her in gold, as Klimt would do; Dressed to Kill was the title of a 1980 Brian De Palma film, a psychological thriller full of mysteries and twists, as enigmatic as the eyes painted here; Greenacres was a sitcom of the 60s where two spouses abandon New York to go and live in an immense Illinois farm as if they wanted to get back in touch with their origins despite the shadow of progress and, in the end, Center of Attention that in its symbolism leads the visitor to get lost in its shapes and colors in a sort of artistic hypnotism. Figures that intertwine chaotically in a whirl of emotions and perceptions "with one foot in the past Figu and the gaze straight and open in the future�.
Art curator Erminia Abbuonandi
John Bacon
Celebration of Friendship
John Bacon
Center of Attention
John Bacon
Dressed to Kill
John Bacon
Greenacres
John Bacon
Rapunzel
Juliet Napier
"When night falls, there are always a few moments that don't look like anything else" (Robert Musil) The moment the evening arrives, the sun goes down behind the horizon but still leaves aftershocks of light and color: this is the moment of the day when everything seems suspended. The day has not yet totally left us, but the night has not yet taken over the sky. The young artist Juliet Napier, in her work entitled "Twilight", managed to impress on the canvas that magical moment of twilight, which has always fascinated man for its mysterious and not well defined aura. The warm colors of the sun still emanate from the clear blue line of the horizon, expressed with energetic strokes of color, which create an enveloping atmosphere in the sky and on the canvas. The work, with its clear division into two parts, represents the contrast of balance and imbalance, of calm and frenzy, of light full of colors and darkness: an abstract representation of life, often characterized by moments of transition, by a state of restlessness to one of calm and the other way around. With this vision Juliet also manages to give a representation of the current historical period of transition, instability, re-evaluation of what is really important in life, what can give us serenity and what instead creates us restlessness. As twilight marks the end of the day and the beginning of something opposite and completely different, so the current moment will surely be the end of something old that will lead to something new, with contours that are still not defined.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Juliet Napier
Twilight
Lika Ramati
“Calling the woman the weaker sex is a slander; it is an injustice of man towards woman� (Mahatma Gandhi)
Lika Ramati is a versatile artist who loves to play with the beauty of female figures. In these five works of art she paints the characteristics that give strength to every woman, Goddess of the Sky is because the woman flies over the events of life with a divine grace; Goddess of the Universe, because the universe itself is enclosed in each of us; The Phoenix Rising because only women know how to rise from the ashes like never one before; Red Reality on how we face the reality of everyday cautious, but without fear and Golden Shield, where female strength and determination become a source of security and protection, just like a shield. She is an artist, photographer and designer who believes in art as an expression of truth, translating the evolution of her soul into time and space. Having studied fashion design she characterizes female figures of meticulous details from headdresses to robes, making them gorgeous, enigmatic and full of grace. Lika explores the relationships between opposites (chaos and beauty, harmony and disharmony) creating new combinations and overwhelming perspectives to be given to the viewer of which the woman is a clear example. The artistic path of Like c Ramati crosses these works starting from her inner self until reaching the peak as a woman in rebirth celebrating all women. As the world changes, it also changes with it. From the awareness that she is no longer an instrument of patriarchy, she rediscovers her depth, strong and enigmatic that no longer needs the power of feminism to make her voice heard.
Art curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Lika Ramati
Goddess of the sky
Lika Ramati
Goddess of the universe
Lika Ramati
Red reality
Lika Ramati
The golden shield
Lika Ramati
The pheonix rising
Luisa Barba
“The time steals every rarest virtue, but the beauty of art repairs its wrongs” (Antonio Canova)
Antonio Canova craved this in the sculpture, in a way to impress in history one of the essential art’s characteristic: make some “beauty” is a concept almost divine and perfect, without any defect. And this is what shines through even in Luisa Barba’s artworks are symbols of the portrait and the beauty. The artist resumes the tones and shades of the sculptures, emphasizing the particularity with white and light grey, as to give the same brightness and sanding to the marble. Her characters come to life, and they appear as pure and unspoiled subjects according to the Classicism’s principals, through an ideal and universal beauty and recalling the message of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Luisa Barba
Moreover, as in the ancient Greek and Roman’s statues, the bodies are perfect in their lines and shapes, with calm and posed gestures, the characters’ phycology remains silent, the overall compositions are truly balanced and stationary, and ultimately the deepness is given through each detail of the figures’ faces or from their physique. Each protagonist includes in himself light, color, figuration, dimensional and proportional illusion. Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed to have seen an angel inside the marble, and then to have carved until set it free: even if the sculpture is tangible, Luisa Barba uses the painting to give more emphasis to the creative act and she makes her artworks perfect models as much as the sculpture.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Luisa Barba
Adonis
Luisa Barba
Hercules
Luisa Barba
Loren
Luisa Barba
Special woman
Luz Sanchez
“Looking at something is very different from seeing it. You don't see a thing until you see its beauty” (Oscar Wilde)
Luz Sanchez’s three artworks are a clear recall to the pure and simple beauty of the human body, where every detail is emphasized through sharp lines. Through an informal pose, the characters appear from behind, as if in front of them there was actually the artist making the painting on the canvas. In this way, the observer has the chance to be participate during the realization, being placed “behind the scenes” while looking at the statuary forms. As in the portraits during the Belle Époque period, there could be found different similar details, as the characters’ postures and graceful gestures which seem to be apparently casual, emerging from the soft colored background and bearing a strong charm and physicality. Each brushstroke gives back a shape and quality to every element represented, including faces, limbs and clothes. This extraordinary lines’ ease could directly remind the Impressionism’s paintings; furthermore, there is a simplification and directness in the characters as well as in Matisse and Fauves’ artworks. Even if the prospective could be less perceived within these works, it emerges a feeling of depth triggered both by the character represented in the front and by the chromatic contrast with the background. Through these works the in-depth study carried out on the individual emerges thanks to the structure of the figures, without forgetting a great attention and ability to combine the art of the portrait with the use of light and nuanced shades, which give the paintings an extreme delicacy and a pleasant harmony.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Luz Sanchez
Belleza natural
Luz Sanchez
La espera
Luz Sanchez
La mujer oculta
Maria Vamvaka “The masses want to appear nonconformist, so this means that nonconformism must be produced for the masses” (Andy Warhol)
Maria Vamvaka is a self-taught artist, born and raised in Athens, Greece. Her painting finds inspiration in the ancient Greek poet Simonides, who once said, referring to a work of art, that poetry is a talking painting and that painting is silent poetry. Taking inspiration from this quote, the artist makes of her canvas her "silent poetry", that immediately becomes music for the bystanders. In “The Light of Italy” she chooses to pay homage to the Italian people she loves very much. The subject of the work is therefore both metaphorical and abstract, characterized by large textured brushstrokes. The dripping of the bright colours, such as blue and yellow, is reminiscent of the technique used by the great American artist Jackson Pollock, the dripping. A technique born at the end of the forties that takes its cue from the surrealist writing, according to which the colour is left to drip on the canvas. A very free art form, out of the box and always up to date. Later, between the 1950s and 1960s, the dripping was widely used in all informal European movements. This work symbolically emanates a wild energy and a strong emotional charge that manages to fully involve the viewer, by sending the same sense of love and devotion to the Italian people. A cheerful, happy and exemplary people for many.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working” (Pablo Picasso)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Maria Vamvaka
Τhe Light of Italy
Matina Vossou
Picasso said: “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun”. When an artist paints faces or objects, using some art techniques, he expresses the previous concept, where he transforms the most humble material into the most communicative face. Matina Vossou is an Athenian painter who makes unique and original portraits, breaking down artistically the facial anatomy of the characters to find the essence of movement as a child breaks down his toys to see how they really are. Her artwork “Aqua regia & the screaming fingerprints of gold” represents a lot of geometric shapes that are very colorful and fascinate all the people who look at this. The majority of her pictures are painted with delicate traits and strong meanings and she wants to express love and family values through her art. Matina often paints characters, which are completely different in the real life, because she expresses symbolic meanings that are sometimes religious. The artwork “The Severed Madonna” is very emblematic and beautiful. It expresses emotions and pleasure through many colors and shapes. We can affirm that the artworks of Matina are associated with Cubism. This art movement is part of the different avant-garde movements of the 900 and it is totally different from the representation of reality. The painting subject is taken apart and reassembled, accentuating the geometrization of total external shapes. The faces are split in a lot of parts and there are multiple points of view. The face profile and front are brightly colored (blue, yellow, red) and these types of colors aren’t realistic. These artworks represent current and social topics where art and philosophy join together, giving the possibility to formulate an implicit critique and make a judgment of the present.
“A mask tells us more than a face” (Oscar Wilde)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Matina Vossou
A Dandy's white rose
Matina Vossou
Aqua regia & the screaming fingerprints of gold
Matina Vossou
The severed Madonna
Mauricio Galaz
"The deeper the blue, the more strongly it invokes man towards the infinite, arouses in him the nostalgia for purity and finally for the over-sensitive" (V. Kandinskij) Enveloping, bewitching and exciting is Mauricio's work. The artist plunges the viewer into the water, he seems to be able to hear the lapping of the water and the movement of the waves cradle us while we observe the work. Water, which has always been the protagonist of artworks, is the most represented element of nature. Man is dependent on it, there is a deep bond between him and water. The latter arouses emotions, brings out sensations; water is life, energy, strength and the soul of man needs to feed on it. Mauricio gives the viewer the opportunity to dive and refresh the spirit, looking at his work means rediscovering the great value that nature offers us. If the subject of the work is a real element, surely the technique with which it is made cannot be called realistic. The lines and colors make the idea of water but in an almost totally abstract way, in fact Mauricio's work can be defined as abstract. The division into many small squares makes the work appear like a mosaic: pieces that create undulating shapes that somehow refer to GaudĂŹ's work. The great master preferred curved, sinuous and soft lines because they are closer to those of nature, in the same way Mauricio completely envelops the viewer, making the best energy of the water. Mauricio's artistic work is enchantment, it transports the viewer into an almost surreal dimension, where emotions and memories find the possibility of returning to the surface. The artist gives to the viewer a moment to reflect and live forgotten sensations, he makes us feel safe as in the womb.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Mauricio Galaz
In water
Maya Beck Pablo Picasso says, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up”
Maya Beck is a young artist who comes from Hungary and she conveys her deepest emotions and feelings in her artworks, which are both real and digital. At the beginning she painted pictures of many topics such as love, death, fear and peace. Before she drew on a paper and she also painted with watercolors. After she started to use new technology platforms such as IPhones, in which she only used her finger to realize her pictures. We can say that Maya is a versatile artist and that she is up with the times. Maya especially uses some colors such as red and black, which are delimited by a thick line. In her artworks there aren’t color reflection, play of light and color contrasts because only the subject dominates the scene. Her pictures demonstrate that she is a complete artist. We can deduce that her art was affected by Picasso and by the art of the last century. In fact the subjects of her paintings are very different such as fictional characters, stylized people that they hug each other, kiss and live (for instance Love is all around” or “Love is a message”), self-portraits (for instance “Maya new”), a story of daily life. Maya supports all kinds of love and one of her most significant artworks “One Love No.1” shows three people who dance to the notes of a romantic song and they have a big red pulsating heart. It is impossible to understand if they are girls or boys but this doesn’t matter. She also focuses on social issues and sometimes she paints pictures that are about challenging topics because art is an efficient means of communication (for instance the artwork “Transgender”). Her amazing stylized characters are destined to invade the world and they will continue in the future.
“People often make art, but sometimes they would not even be aware of it themselves” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Maya Beck
Guy´s in love
Maya Beck
Love is a message
Maya Beck
Love is all around
Maya Beck
One love NO 1
Maya Beck
Transgender
Minna Partto
Simple images and balanced colors appear in front of the eyes of those who meet Minna's artistic work. Her works have something primordial, the shades are in tune with the natural elements of the earth and air, thus giving a great feeling of peace and balance. The viewer discovers the great harmony that exists between people and nature, the colors that become real matter, create a link between the observer's most intimate self and the work. The artist Minna is above all a great observer, she is able to capture the beauty of the world around her and reinterprets it in her works. Her work takes on an important aesthetic value, Minna translates into art what her sensitive sight observes, her work is the result of extreme attention to the surrounding life. Minna gets rid of forms, no sign that outlines figure, the only material that becomes the subject of the work. The artist's work refers to abstract expressionism, in particular to those works that will lead the way to informal art. There is a similarity between Minna's works and Agnes Martin's "Falling blue". If modern life continually reminds us that time flows inexorably, if we are used to chasing it and walking so fast as to forget to look around us, Minna condenses calm and balance in her works. The artist gives a breath of air and the scent of the earth, and again, the feeling of being suspended between earth and sky, between the finite and the infinite, between real and surreal.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Minna Partto
Beyond
Minna Partto
Dreamy
Minna Partto
Wishpering
Miroslava “Every life is an encyclopaedia, a library, a sample of styles where everything can be continuously mixed and rearranged in all possible ways” (Italo Calvino) Miroslava was born in 1993 in Chicalyo, Perù. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture at the Mi Universidad Católica Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo and her studies have always been accompanied by her passion for visual graphics and art. Her work as an artist explores the different possibilities of expressing her personality through the creation of abstract compositions that often use the creative decontextualisation in combining fragments, architectural elements and floor plans; the result are maps for the mind that guide the observer through a journey into her vision of the world and its essence. Starting from an architectural approach, Miroslava arrives at defining a process which adds various layers to her way of making art: every project is made of components and their logical and rational combination is functional to the final result. However the single parts can also be considered individually and by modifying their meaning and characteristics it is possible to generate new associations guided by feelings and free flows of ideas. The outcome are images in which the lines and the colours melt and merge like microorganism that interact in order to form new complex structures and cells. These artworks, similar to a contemporary form of Dada, distort and put the convention and the aesthetic models in doubt, in the constant research of expressive freedom. This ironic and irreverent way of seeing things leads to a deep reflection on a reality which is dominated by uncertainty and the lack of points of reference; a universe where the logics and the order are inadequate instruments to interpret a contradictory society, built on dynamics that cannot be understood through rigid dogmas and rules. By breaking the faces apart and by mixing vivid colours with a vibrant and energetic trait, Miroslava successfully dismantles and recomposes our traditional values and she redefines the concept of beauty in a very personal, original and sometimes desecrating manner. “The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard, express their beauty abstractly” (Marcel Duchamp)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Miroslava
Instability
Monika Lemeshonok
"And you, now that you have seen me as I really am, can you still look at me?" 1984. George Orwell Monica Lemeshonok's meaningful symbolism is a bitter reflection on today's world. Through dense and colorful backgrounds she visualizes today's society through the metaphor of the mountain of sunglasses. Who are we really? Do we accept each other? How do we show ourselves outside? What do we want to show of ourselves to the society we live in? What is accepted and what is not? Every human being tries to interact with the society that penetrates our lives in various ways through the Internet, the media and even trivially discussions and gossip. All of us do nothing but analyze and judge each other and the sunglasses symbolize precisely this scrutinizing and judging continuously. Symbolism has nineteenth-century roots and was born in opposition to realism, with the aim of going beyond the appearances of reality. For symbolist artists, authentic reality should not be identified in the objective existence of things but in ideas. Monika carries on her ideas trying to go against the society that is devoted to superficiality and voyeurism, leaving us with a question mark in the mind. Where will all this take us?
Art curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Monika Lemeshonok
Watchers
Motoo Saito “Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principle problems of life” (André Breton, Manifeste du surréalisme)
André Breton is an art critic and Freud inspires him. He highlights the importance of dream, which is the essential element of human life. It is fundamental as the wakefulness because people satisfy all the facts that happen into a dream dimension. Motoo Saito is a Japanese artist and he realized two artworks (“Half in a Dream” and “Dreamland”), which show the dream and his perspective of an upside down reality. He creates an optical illusion and he also uses digital techniques. In his paintings he represents the dream, full of powerful forces of subconscious that break the chains of reason and come to the surface. Motoo especially focuses on the preconscious dimension and the drowsiness blends with the reality. He takes into account a real element such as a city and then he studies it (for instance “Memory of Ancient Town”). He is a versatile artist and he can easily paint dreamlike images. Moreover he has the capacity to paint realistic paintings. He combines thoughts and emotions, realizing different artworks such as the painting “Japanese Spring”. This artwork shows a blossoming cherry tree in spring and it is very elegant and refined. This artwork attracts the attention of people and it illustrates the flowering, which occurs in spring. This is a typical fact that happens in the country of Motoo. His artistic technique makes him a unique artist stimulating the curiosity of people.
“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Motoo Saito
Dreamland
Motoo Saito
Half in a Dream
Motoo Saito
Japanese Spring
Motoo Saito
Memory of Ancient Town
Motoo Saito
Power of Wind
Moussa Salman “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures” (Henry Ward Beecher)
Moussa Salman is a Dutch/Egyptian artist. He studied economics in Cairo, Egypt, but never approached the study of artistic education. In fact, he is self-taught and his art is linked to strong episodes that have marked his life. His artistic orientation is definitely autobiographic. Shadows is an abstract work that conveys a strong chromatic game, whose centre metaphorically represents a vortex. The condition of the artist largely involves the stylistic, chromatic and luministic qualities of the painting; the pictorial material is in fact corroded and scratched, and seems to unravel under the eyes of the observer. Meanwhile, he lighting factor holds on dark tones, cold colours that seem to emanate their own brightness. The artist chooses to imagine completely abstract figures, whose ineluctable putrefaction of matter does not intend to describe the bodies of the figures, but their souls, rendered through sketches of colour; in this way their presence is represented by matter, made of feelings and passions. This bold composition, for the lack of a drawing and chiaroscuro, is the result of a well-defined and internalized choice. His art can be seen from many perspectives, but all represent the search for beauty in chaos and despair. Many have been the artists who in the course of the history of sea art have marked epochs, like Picasso or Munch, who used pain as the main source of extirpator, of emotions, of concentration, of creativity.
“Love art. Of all lies, it is the least untrue” (Gustave Flaubert)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Moussa Salman
Shadows
Nanke “To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere” (Giorgio De Chirico)
Nanke was born in Poland and her first approach to art dates back to her youth, while attending to a lesson by a local artist and being forever electrocuted. She is fascinated by everything that belongs to the world of abstractionism and impressionism, where every element moves away from being concrete. Each representation is dictated by the deepest unconscious, out of the classical patterns of painting. Her main source of inspiration is nature, which has always been, with its mysterious and fascinating character, the object of artistic representation; just think of the first graffiti found in caves until the great artists of the nineteenth century. Caspar David Friedrich was the first German painter to enter the full atmosphere of romanticism. His landscapes have become iconic, distinguished by the absence of the human figure. Colours and shades are the main characters of each painting. The artist considered the natural landscape a divine work and his depictions were snapshots of particular moments such as sunrise, sunset, or stormy seas. In her work, Nanke, just like Friedrich, sees the landscape as an ideal background to project on a canvas her inner world; both melancholy and happy, at the same time. A world "An plain air" where the artist is able, through her painting, to create different emotions and suggestions, where serenity and beauty are readable in the flight of the swallows and in the palette of warm colours.
“Masterpieces are not meant to amaze. They are made to persuade, to convince us, to enter us through pores” (Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Nanke
Untitled
Nerosunero
Nerosunero’s works are like snapshots of everyday life’s moments represented through the mediums of both Digital Painting and New Mixed Media (mixing digital & traditional painting with photography and free hand drawing). They might appear like meaningless moments, and the artist is far from attaching to them any more meaning that the one each us can see in them. The choice of the moment itself and the choice of depicting or not the background are artistic and aesthetic choices, while still unconscious and instinctive. The couple depicted here captured the artist’s attention. Like a game we all do, the mind wonders imagining strangers’ lives, relationships and feelings. Are they like us? Do they have better or worse lives and possibilities, we ask ourselves, while unexpectedly pondering also about our own lives. What has drawn the artist to them and not another couple? Colours, proportions, light, composition. The artist communicates and reads via an aesthetic language that does not require being translated into words or codes. His connection with a subtler reality allows him to capture the moment, so that the representation of that moment, crystallized through the artistic medium, speaks to all of us. And because there are no explanations, no words, the image speaks to each of us with a unique voice, specific, personal, and universal at the same time. As the artist puts it: “the image seems already to have everything you need within it.” Like a mirror, we look at Nerosunero’s work and we can see a reflection of the world and of ourselves.
Art curator Elisabetta Scantamburlo
Nerosunero
Sunday 26, 3 PM. Jane and Paul
Niko aka Dionyss “Trees and people used to be good friends” (Hayao Miyazaki)
Niko is a young German artist and he began his work as a photographer in 2018 when he received a camera as a gift from his uncle. Hence his growing interest for the manipulation of images through dedicated softwares: with regards to the subjects, the artist focuses his attention on the exploration of nature, landscapes and animals. For Niko, the choice of these themes comes from the need to rediscover that sense of enthusiasm and wonder that he realised he had progressively ignored and neglected, being overwhelmed by the everyday life commitments. In his photographic shots, the attention to details, the use of imaginary elements and images taken from different backgrounds and the strong contrasting colours are all aspects to stimulate the observer’s curiosity in noticing the magic of those places that too often we do not necessarily contemplate and value. The natural environment, with its countless motifs, shapes and shades, becomes a medium to rekindle a spark of astonishment in front of the little simple things that surround us. Niko’s pictures combine surreal and suspended atmospheres, similar to dreams, to realistic and detailed settings: this mixture of different feelings and approaches, that are sometimes reassuring, sometimes estranging, defines his style and his unique capability of transporting us, on the flying carpet of imagination, towards enchanted lands that remind us of the ones of Hayao Miyazaki’s animation films. In the here exhibited artwork, which is a metaphor around decay and resurrection, the deer becomes the central protagonist with its blooming horns to symbolise the ineluctability of change as the engine that fuels the continuous renewal of the miraculous cycle of existence. The radiant strength of the animal’s formations rising towards the sky like the branches of the tree of life seems to refer to the concept of passage between the terrestrial and spiritual dimensions and it gives us the extraordinary opportunity to enlighten our soul and to allow our inner self to manifest.
“I would like to perceive things the same way a deer does in the forest. To be able to hear how each leaf breathes” (Fabrizio Caramagna)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Niko aka Dionyss
ψ
Nirit Gilad Ovadia “I can’t see flowers withering, that’s why I represent them on the canvas to make them bloom longer” (Marc Chagall)
Nirit Gilad Ovadia is an Israeli artist who not only has a passion for nature but also in the so-called “human landscape”: throughout the painting of a portrait it is possible to admire the inner aspect of each person. For this reason, the Nirit’s style displays a high-level of realism, being composed by different layers of personal introspection. Moreover, with an extreme focus to each detail, she is capable of transmitting through paintings her personal life experience. For every situation who catches her attention, she tries to develop around it a story, with the aim to describe it in her pictures: in this way, this can become a cure for those who are involved in the matter, hoping in something positive. Here the art turns into an instrument to raise awareness of the human being on remarkable aspects. In this artwork entitled Blooming again is only a matter of time… a tragic event is being told, concerning a woman who “in full bloom” has been hit by the cancer. This illness drives her willingness to live by all means. One of her dreams was to become a dancer, and for that reason the artist depicts the woman’s daughter while she is about to make a dance move. By doing so, the young lady represents the hope of healing, rebirth and to free herself from the disease. All the dancer’ body is in tension, trying to stand up again till touching the flower representation on the right. The girl’s head is tilted down exactly as the natural structure of the flower, with both her arms and petals lifted and stretched up to the sky, as they are trying to catch the light which stands out as the only hope over the background made by an intense black. Both the flower and the girl display to be very fragile and pure, bearing a great degree of determination and positivity. As in the transitionary period from winter to spring where flowers start to blossom, or how a phoenix reborn from its ashes, the moment when the dancer will stand up again to keep dancing is about to come.
“In nature we see a cycle of blooming, that occurs every time anew. Even in a period of fall, it is known that the flowers will bloom again when the time comes…” (Nirit Gilad Ovadia)
Art curator Alessia Perone
Nirit Gilad Ovadia
Blooming again is only a matter of time
Nisha Kapoor
Nisha is undoubtedly a researcher, she experiments different techniques and styles, weaves colors and shapes, brings abstract signs closer to real figures, creating innovative works. Color is the first medium of which the artist makes good use to accentuate the energetic power of her works, simple signs outline profiles of women and men who almost take on a mystical value. Nisha exalts her characters as divinity, in fact, some of her works can be considered true icons, as the Byzantine era has handed down to us. Bright and strong colors take the place of the gold typical of sacred iconograph iconography, human figures that become ethereal. Women who occupy the entire work appear strong and dominant, but at the same time the melancholy typical of awareness, of the life experiences they taught and marked, shines through their faces. If on the one hand the artistic work of Nisha refers to the Byzantine icons, in a totally innovative vision, on the other hand the style and taste are purely contemporary. Nisha's works have a similarity with those of the African artist Abdoulaye KonatĂŠ, each of his works is in dialogue with the reality and culture of his country. KonatĂŠ uses cloths as its main element, Nisha uses color that becomes body and matter, it is a living element. Nisha's artistic work has a link with contingent reality, but they are elevated to a spiritual dimension, in which they find a perfect balance. Her works always contain energy and strength, in them the opposites meet to give life to harmony.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Nisha Kapoor
Black Queen
Nisha Kapoor
Negative Space
Nisha Kapoor
Queen
Nisha Kapoor
Snake charmer
Nisha Kapoor
Sun kissed
Pamela Basaldella
“You are not an isolated monad, but a unique and irreplaceable part of the cosmos. Do not forget it, you are an essential element in the tangle of humanity" (Epitteto, Greek philosopher 50 a.C. - 138 a.C.)
Art contains memories, feelings, perceptions and moods that lead the human being to feel part of the universe, reconnects us with the cosmos regardless of the succession of history between tradition and progress. Pamela Basaldella with Cosmic Emotions addresses them as a universe that puts us in contact with the infinite itself. From the work shines the artist's interest in the mysterious dynamics of life. As she says "The cosmos is for me one of the most powerful gifts that nature offers us to give us the opportunity to grasp ourselves as a whole in relationship with it�. Although the vision of art changes with time and history, Pamela's goal is to safeguard what Walter Benjamin called aura, a uniqueness that extends to all existing things of creation by combining them with an invisible thread. Only by looking at the stars we can see this thread, when we realize that we are small in front of the cosmos but our presence is not an accident, each being contributes to its greatness.
Art curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Pamela Basaldella
Cosmiche Emozioni
Regina Dantas
Regina Dantas was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She graduated at the Guignard School of Visual Arts and she is currently living and working in Rio de Janeiro. Regina’s art focuses on the investigation and research for musicality and harmony by experimenting with colours, forms, textures and materials with the aim of reinterpreting the world around her in its countless facets. Through the use of stencil-based serigraphy, the artist explores repeated variations and primeval shapes in their deep, symbolic meaning and connotations: every print becomes a monotype, an impression on paper of her vision of reality in that specific moment. In this new series, Regina sees the circle as the representation of spirituality and its indissoluble link with the concept of eternity and endless motion; the absence of the opposites, the lack of angles and edges that characterises this ancestral element signifies the immateriality of the soul and the eternal cycle of life. The circular movement of this image captures the eye, kidnap the senses and transport us to a new metaphysical dimension where the idea of the centre reminds us of the point where all the energies start and converge. A timeless and imaginary space that allows to rediscover the origin of existence and to think about the magic of renewal and rebirth. In Regina’s mind this shape becomes a temple, a sacred shelter where we can keep in touch with our inner cosmic force and feel that everything is connected and related. The strong visual impact of her work resides in its simplicity and essential aspect: the dots and the lines become the universal key to open the door of feelings and perceptions, everything else is unnecessary.
“Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next” (Joseph M. Marshall III)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Regina Dantas
In life everything begins anew
Reinhard Mauer
“Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul” (Wassily Kandinsky)
Reinhard Reinha Mauer is a German artist who knows very well the world of contemporary art. His art has particular dynamics and original features. He realizes gesture paintings and he also creates complex artworks. He spends a lot of time to paint pictures to communicate his emotions through art. Reinhard draws many shapes, often not so clear and uses a lot of colours (for instance the artwork “It’s thickening, said the lisping man”). He expresses his emotions through his artworks that are very elegant and harmonic. He focuses on geometric abstraction and he paints a lot of details showing different types of chromatic balance. His signature is a circle and it is a perfect sensual symbol. diffe Reinhard Mauer is an artist easily recognisable thanks to his original painting style.
“The unconscious is a very important side of modern art and I think the unconscious drives to mean a lot in looking at paintings” (Jackson Pollock)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Reinhard Mauer
‘It’s thickening‘, said the lisping man
Rick Gillihan
Very often the coins can be considered real artworks, for the invoice, the engravings and for the use of metals. At the same time we can talk about coins in the artworks. A common object that passes into everyone's hands and becomes the subject of an artistic work. A work that immediately shines in the mind is "The money changer" by Quentin Metsys, the subject intent on his work, the wife next to him who watches her carefully and the coins on the table, maniacally described, a careful and meticulous reproduction. If the Flemish artist has told a glimpse of life, he has described a profession and the reality of his time, what Rick puts into effect, is not a mere description. The American artist, taking the photo and framing the coins, is at the same time photographing our era, giving us the opportunity to zoom in and reflect on the life and value we give it. Contemporary society taught us the value of money, taught us to spend it and earn it, how to feel different from each other based on how much we have in our pocket. Looking at Rick's work means learning to think and re-evaluate our existence regardless of money. Quoting Lev Tolstoy "Money is modern slavery", we should try to feel more free and to treasure the experiences that cannot be acquired but that are more closely linked to our feelings and that enrich the soul. As always Rick, through his works, gives us many ideas to reflect on.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Rick Gillihan
The Five and dime
SMOLOW “I call myself "anartist" instead of artist, or better yet, "breather". My activity consists simply in living” (Marcel Duchamp) Smolow Maxim was born in Russia, graduated from art school, but his main profession is jurist. His paintings are now part of some important European and Russian collections. The search for colour and shape are the main theme of his creation. He is an abstract artist who makes of abstractionism his inspiring art. If we think of abstract art it is impossible not to refer immediately to Kandinsky, the founding father of this current. The first artist who perhaps came across an art free from forms borrowed from nature, making the invisible visible. Many have called it a "revolutionary vision”. The purely pictorial element that distinguishes the artist from anyone else is colour, a sort of Ariadne’s thread that allows Kandinsky to penetrate the labyrinth of abstraction. Smolow, in his works, takes up in some ways to the harmonic compositions of the artist, but he speaks of a different abstraction. A process that sees a more careful and rigorous artistic experimentation, where the lines are not simple geometric reproductions, like those proposed some time before by Piet Mondrian in his iconic “Tableau”. In New Garden or Casa d'Oro, in fact, the artist increasingly simplifies the image, to the point of making it unrecognizable and entrusting to the individual colours and to the individual forms of meanings, no longer readable without an explanation. The painting becomes more material, the design more incisive and imposing. The subjects of the works are masters of the canvases themselves and have a strong communicative effect. The colours are explosive and harmonic as never before. Everything is in a perfect balance and the same ideal of perfection and tranquillity is perceived by the spectator, who remains motionless. A visual language capable of creating unusual harmonies f coming from the artist’s interior and his sensitivity that aims, above all, to grasp those rhythms, those cadences, those chords of which the world is so rich. “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim” (Oscar Wilde)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
SMOLOW
Casa d'oro
SMOLOW
New garden
SMOLOW
On search of a purse
Sofia Zolezzi
In the work of Sofia Zolezzi transfigure feelings and deep emotions, which are expressed in a creative process that starts from her subconscious to get us through the pictorial matter. Lines and colours create a strong dynamism and impulse. Her language is a synthesis of instinct and reason, a projection of the emotional of her deepest self, a creation of the harmonious bearer of universal messages. An art that reveals the creativity of the artist and her instincts more intimate. The discovery of the beauty in the charm of simplicity. An analogy between emotions and colors with a strong narrative, a sense of harmon harmony. Painter fast, the vehemence of the gesture, the connection between the case and the project to outline something unique, a path “On My way�. Her painting, her ideal, her reasoning, her creation through colours, which strike and illuminate the viewer's eye and make this work of art able to represent a heaven on the world, a look of hope. A never ordinary cut in the composition but always balanced by a secure attention signal and the chromatic expression of the innermost feelings. Sofia Zolezzi represents the time, probably the only protagonist to represent the life. And they are just the colors to make a decisive contribution to the creation of the atmosphere, suspended, silent and full of charm that connotes the abstract work of the artist. A landscape of the soul immediately recognizable. A great sensitivity and love for the adventure of her new world, as the revelation of a continent in turmoil between feelings and suggestions.
Art curator Giulia Zanesi
Sofia Zolezzi
On my way
Susanne Wolfsgruber
“To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim” (Oscar Wilde)
“Even within the confined borders of my canvas I am able to freely express myself and create something without restrictions. This translates into the rest of wider life, as even within said borders we are able to create, express and feel as if we were not limited by reality”. Susanne Wolfsgruber uses this expression to clearly and directly define her new artworks here in exhibition. Lively abstract landscapes that are both cold and hot represent the nature and the soul turmoil. She is inspired from lyric topics escaping from reality. In fact, in her artworks she highlights the importance of soul, the romantic feelings and emotions. Art doesn’t exist without people who look at artworks, because, according to the definition, an observer is fundamental to admire and express opinions. For Susanne art is important because she can convey emotions trough paintings. The colours of the subjects that are represented in the artworks are really important because they can express sensations. In these artworks, feelings are predominal and fundamental as well as the dynamism and the importance of thoughts because they are, to all intents, expressive paintings.
“If we more easily perceive the idea in the work of art than in the direct contemplation of nature and reality, this is due to the fact that the artist, who only focuses on the idea and no longer turns his eyes to reality, detached from the reality and free from all contingencies that could disturb it” (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Susanne Wolfsgruber
from the series “Beyond Borders“
Susanne Wolfsgruber
from the series “Beyond Borders“
Susanne Wolfsgruber
from the series “Beyond Borders“
Susanne Wolfsgruber
from the series “Beyond Borders“
Susanne Wolfsgruber
from the series “Beyond Borders“
Tjeerd Doosje "A front light, a rear light and another side light", as Nadar defines, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the photographic portrait technique. Thus, as a surrogate of the pictorial portrait, it was born a more accessible version, not only in economic terms, but also in terms of time. Having a photographic portrait made meant to capture an important moment, a special occasion. But soon the most demanding public began to look for something more than a simple representation of the subject: more intriguing poses, studied shots, details, less attention to portraying reality and greater interest instead in the expressiveness of the subject. The ultimate purpose of the photographic portrait was no longer simply to freeze time in a memory, but rather to celebrate oneself, one's identity, create a work of art like a pictorial portrait. And it is still so today! An exceptional example are the works of art that the Dutch photographer Tjeerd Doosje manages to create with the shots in which he portrays his wonderful baby models. In each of his shots Tjeerd captures the timeless beauty of the girls. The viewer cannot help but not look away from the protagonist of the shot. In the photograph entitled "Teline (1005-bw)" the asymmetry of the shot and the natural pose of the model create dynamism. The shadows accentuated by black and white instead give movement to the entire composition. Instead the shot entitled "Teline (1126)" is characterized by the perfect division in the middle of the frame: clean and geometric lines contrast with dense and interlaced lines. With her dress that recalls the nuances of the composition, the baby model Teline is the element of union of the two visions. In the photograph "Teline (1304-bw)", Teline is the undisputed protagonist of the shot, captures all our attention, nothing can make us look away from her, thanks also to the contrast between the almost totally white background and the dark dress, that she wears.
"I’m looking for truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect shape of a shell on the beach, in the curve of a female back, in the consistency of an old tree trunk and also in other elusive forms of reality� (Isabel Allende)
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1005-bw)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1126)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1304-bw)
Tracy White “An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them” (Andy Warhol) Tracy White is an American artist who owes her love of art to her grandmother, painter Plein Air, who took her with her in her painting days as a child. Technical studies have brought Tracy closer to mechanical drawing and photography. That was the period that brought her to develope a great love for everything related to art and creation. Her current work has led her to design experiences for others, creating props, sets and much more. Through art Tracy elaborates a perceptive process that every human being in their own way experiences, through the use of the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste. An exciting challenge. Painting for the artist represents her safe haven, her escape and her salvation. The bright colours make her happy. She chooses and paints her places where she feels the need to escape, whether it be a geographical space or an abstract or three-dimensional place, giving life to the world of her imagination. The chromatic richness that we find in her works is generally a symptom of existential vivacity, but also of many other feelings: a colour like red, for example, can produce both a feeling of warmth, and physical energy, like joy. In short, colours are really able to touch deep strings and instinctive stimuli. Organized chaos can be defined as a palette of colours, where each of these attaches to a particular moment of the artist’s life. An orientation that finds different analogies with Fauvism, a French pictorial movement, born in Paris in 1905 and dissolved in 1907, whose main exponents were: Henri Matisse, Andrè Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck. The term "Fauves" was first used in 1905. The feature that characterizes the painters of this current, it was not the choice of subjects or the themes of their works, but the realization that art is not just the naturalistic imitation of reality. The primary colours were used in a decidedly antinaturalistic function, purple trees and red human figures, chosen and combined freely and arbitrarily according to a coherence inherent exclusively to the harmony of the composition. What mattered for the Fauves, as for Tracy, was not so much the meaning of the work, the chiaroscuro or the perspective, but the simplification of forms, the immediacy and the colour. “Reality forms part of art, feeling completes it” (Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Tracy White
Organized Chaos
Varda Levy
"I think beauty, femininity and elegance are ageless, and cannot be artificially reproduced." (Marilyn Monroe)
Femininity of woman is an aspect that has always fascinated artists of all times, who have tried to reproduce it in the faces of the women they portray. Some of the most fascinating and enigmatic paintings in the history of art are in fact portraits of women, who with their faces, their smiles, their beauty have fascinated centuries and centuries of spectators charmed by their femininity. And precisely this femininity is disruptive in the paintings of the artist Varda Levy. The title "Femininity" of one of the paintings presented here recalls this aspect. Varda manages to impress on the canvas the moment when the girl's gaze, turned towards someone who is approaching, lights up and a sweet smile is about to appear on her lips. The artist's work is a contemporary and extremely personal transposition of the profile portrait genre, which is among the first existing art forms.
Varda Levy
Indeed, the portrait in profile is directly connected to one of the most ancient myths about the birth of painting: Pliny the Elder, in fact, in his Naturalis Historia, traces the origins of art on the day when the daughter of a potter from Corinth, the young Dibutade, to keep in memory the figure of his love would have traced the profile of the shadow projected by the light on the wall. The second painting presented by Varda is titled "Colors of the world". It is extremely interesting how the artist associates this title with the representation of a female portrait. As if to indicate that women are coloring the world. Women always have a strength, a joy of life and an energy that radiate the whole world around them, coloring it. The face pictured here in fact, with its strong and decisive gaze and its thick and curly green hair, the color of positivity par excellence, conveys the security and pride of a real woman who is aware of her strength and power over it that surrounds her.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Varda Levy
Colors of the world
Varda Levy
Femininity
WALO PLUS Eduardo Daniel Ampuero Castro is an artist who lives and works in Chile. Since he was a child he developed a deep interest for drawing, which he sees as a tool to tear the reality of things apart and open the universe of perceptions by giving access to the endless dimension of imagination. His conception of art is similar to a window overlooking the inner world, a safe space that allows the artist to escape and find a new path. Hence, his work focuses on the investigation of the mysterious secrets of the human mind and in particular on memory and the impact of the environment on the recognition of us. Eduardo is inspired by the principles of Surrealism and Dada and, through the use of various techniques and materials, he keeps on experimenting with the aim of exploring the deepest meanders of the psyche: a journey which leads him to an alternative perspective in embracing the conscious and the unconscious energies. In the artwork “Vaporous Casting, the invocation of the Snake of Fire”, belonging to the series “Metamorfo Alucinógeno”, the automatic drawing takes the shape of a vibrant movement in which everything seems to be connected like in a breath made of constant expansions and contractions. It is a metamorphosis, a continuous change of forms where the state of hallucination allows to melt the various elements, images and colours in a pot in which all the usual rules are decomposed and reinterpreted in a dense and steamy atmosphere; a place where the only limits and borders are the ones of imagination. As Andre Breton said in his surrealistic manifest of 1924, there is a superior type of reality linked to dreams, associations and the free stream of consciousness not filtered by reason, logics and preconceptions. This is the ideal territory where hidden desires, fears and impulses emerge and populate Eduardo’s paintings.
“What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic: there is only the real” (Andre Breton)
Art curator Erika Gravante
WALO PLUS
Vaporous casting. The invocation of the Snake of fire. From the series “Metamorfo Alucinogeno”
Curated by Art Directors Greco Carlo and Magni Alessandra
Critical texts by Art Curators Dottoressa Bianchi Maria Cristina Dottoressa D’Avanzo Federica Dottoressa Grassi Silvia Dottoressa Gravante Erika Dottoressa Perone Alessia Dottoressa Scaccia Elisabetta Dottoressa Terenzoni Cecilia Dottoressa Viti Vanessa
Aleksandar Apatovic
Aleksandar Apatović is a young Serbian artist. He graduated at the School of Design “Bogdan Šuput” in Novi Sad where he is currently studying painting at the Academy of Arts. His canvases depict ordinary and at the same time surreal and symbolist worlds, where multifaceted misshapen characters become the protagonist of scenes that seem to be taken from the everyday life except for the the fact that the landscapes come from a metaphysical place, the artist’s mind. It is a city of dreams, fears and alienation the environment in which the seed of Aleksandar art is planted: the lonely creatures and the outsiders that he paints are the contemporary heroes of a society that too often forgets and rejects the diversity. It looks like they are roaming around looking for something with no reason or purpose, in fact they are struggling to find a meaning in a place where values are stigmatized and there is no room for uniqueness and authenticity. Aleksandar’s Aleksanda canvases feature combinations of words, signs and pictograms. The artist’s will is to demonstrate the way in which image and text are authentically amalgamated and how the boundary between visual and verbal arts can be overcome and trascended.
Aleksandar Apatovic
He has the extraordinary capability of reconceptualising pre-existing pictorial traditions through his very personal approach to image and word that appear to be the two faces of the same coin. There is an outstanding poetic, visual and musical synthesis in his compositions, where the apparent chaos is the unifying element that determines an intimate new form of harmony and peace from a deep turmoil. Aleksandar’s potent and vibrant artworks convey the message that being partially detached from the contradictions and the ugliness of this reality is the only way that remains in order to experience life in full. "I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life" (Jean Michel Basquiat)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Aleksandar Apatovic
I am waiting for you are the square
Aleksandar Apatovic
Where are you
Aleksandra Jedynak
Aleksandra Jedynak is a Polish self taught artist who lives and works in Warsaw. When she decides to paint, Aleksandra allows herself to be imperfect and spontaneous in front of the artwork in order to let all the emotions flow unchained and in a pure natural manner. The canvas becomes a tabula rasa where the deepest feelings can be applied and transferred in a specific moment. Her abstract colorful compositions are a direct expression of the artist’s intuition and perception of the world and sometimes they represent a way to liberate the bad energies that assault the mind. In this picture, abstraction is for her the most immediate form of personal manifest against the modern dogmas, requirements and clichés which our society demands and expects. The therapeutic aspect of this work resides in the act of searching and finding a new peculiar definition of the concept of beauty as the only way to interpret the chaos that characterises our lives. The energetic and vibrant brush strokes and the use of deep colours are aimed at reproducing the variety and multiplicity of the feelings that accompany the artist’s experiences. Aleksandra’s art, in other terms, is an extraordinary example of acceptance of our own originality and uniqueness and it gives us the possibility to appreciate the power of our true soul, an invaluable intimate treasure and a source of light especially during these difficult and dark times. “Life is an abstract art, and it’s up to you to make sense of it” (Talismanist Giebra)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Aleksandra Jedynak
On The Green Edge
Anita Parys “If you can paint a picture by heart or through the resources of your imagination, photography, as a photochemical trace, can be carried out successfully only by virtue of an initial link with a material referent” (Rosalind Krauss) Anita Parys is an American artist and she lives in Los Angeles. Her works, particularly expressive, define her life in the United States. These are digital photographs, with particular attention to faces, profile or not, and bodies. Her intent is to focus on human heterogeneity and, more broadly, on the concept of promiscuity of the city itself. Los Angeles, the Hollywood city, the beating heart of Southern California, home of the film industry. An important step has taken place since the 20th century in photography, when the differentiation between "pure" photographers and artists who used photography to express themselves in their research was born. Even though photographers had already moved in this direction. In 1866 Peter Henry Emerson declared photography pictorial art, praising the techniques that led photography to a reading that was similar to that used for painting. With the establishment of the photography department of the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York in 1940, the entry of photography into the arena of contemporary art was definitively sanctioned. With the advent of digital, contemporary photography today represents a real mix of consolidated traditions, techniques, visions and past stories. A revolution that has totally modified the use of the visual. Since the seventies the American Cindy Sherman uses photography for "Untitled film still", a series of self-portraits aimed to give shape to the American imagination. Anita chooses to embrace this same artistic form, using certain subjects to express her ideas and reinterpret the world that surrounds her, America. The faces she immortalized are different, melancholic, happy, distracted, at times desperate or worried, as in "Long Night". Her photographs are pictorial, with a strong ch chromatic contrast, which derives from the juxtaposition of contrasting elements between them. The lights of the night and the faces for Anita are composed of a thousand shades of blue, green, red, pink. A chromatic explosion able to make immediately visible the mood of the subject and of the artist, at the same time.
“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together” (John Ruskin)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Anita Parys
Hear
Anita Parys
Long night
Anita Parys
Long night
Aron Pigniczki
"The sun is new every day" (Eraclito) Artists from all places and all times have dedicated time to contemplating and depicting the sun. To it, people have attributed important symbolic values, moreover it represents light, energy and life itself. Aron's work is not a mere representation, but a reflection on life, on the link between experiences and one's personal growth, moreover it is the result of a will to express his way of seeing reality. Through his work, the young artist Aron tells about a new sun, something that has to do with rebirth, with new points of view, new feelings and new experiences. Aron's sun is the meeting of colors that impose themselves on the canvas, and again, they intertwave and mix, creating lights and shadows, contrasts and dynamism. Aron can place his art halfway between abstractionism and expressionism, merging technique and expressive ability is the great gift of the artist, he is able to create a unique work of its kind but at the same time that has more hints remote. His art refers to Richter's works that have both abstract and those characteristics of abstract expressionism. Paraphrasing Jean-RenĂŠ Bazaine, painting must be able to recreate a deep feeling through violence, passion and expression that rests on a choice of colors and essential shapes. Aron puts this thought into action, creates suggestion and emotion through those shades and brushstrokes that go beyond the work and have continuity outside it, pervading space and time.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Aron Pigniczki
New Sun
ArpVerdeacqua
“Also the light seems to fade away in the uncertain shadow of the becoming” (Faber) Everything in Arp’s vision derives from the concept of “continuous making” and the subsequent corruption of things: as Plato said, this has to be with the nothing because the process of becoming and perishing, which is the making, is simply the acquiring and loss of being. Nature Natu has the peculiar feature of inherently owing the concept of endless movement; this is different for any form of human artificial intervention which is not subject to this principle if not for a natural effect and impact. This is exactly the theme expressed by the here exhibited Arp’s artwork titled “The sky in the sea, the sea in the sky” where the two elements merge and the borders between them become thin and unrecognisable. The eternal form of change that goes from everything to nothing and viceversa is the mantra of his compositions. Not by chance there is the presence of the four original natural elements that constitute every substance. The fire, represented by the colour gold, produces a sense of warmth and strength which incapsulates the principle of life and its vital energy. The fifth essential component is man and this is linked to the asrtist’s memory of a figure who was passing by at the seaside. Arp’s intention is to think about the fact that, regardless the human efforts and attempts to avoid this, the passing of time will inevitably deteriorate and consume their external appearance and we have no other option than to witness this signs and marks of development and transformation.
Art curator Erika Gravante
ArpVerdeacqua
Il cielo nel mare, il mare nel cielo
Bogdan
“We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art” (Salvador Dalí) The artist Bogdan communicates through his paintings a particular sensitivity that distinguishes the creative genius. The work is what exists in the artist's mind and it is realized through his hands, an inspiration that comes from his intuitive skills and his great technical ability in both painting and sculpture. Art uses the artist to materialize and consequently the artist represents the indispensable element for the existence of art. The work "Appendages of Motion" is a diptych made with mixed media on canvas and reflects Bogdan's personal style, characterized by colors that seek a natural harmony with various shades and light brush strokes. Cold colors predominate, with the addition of some warm tones to create a lively and dynamic contrast, without disturbing the overall vision of an elegant and delicate work. Abstract art, as Salvador Dalí argues, represents a point of return to the virginity of figurative art, because it is not filtered by codes and visual signs, but remains free from recognizable and elaborate forms. The only visible shapes in Bogdan's work are rounded or floral elements, which refer to primordial forms, a return to the past or the beginning of a new future. "Appendages of Motion" is the symbol of rebirth, particularly significant after an unusual and complicated period that involved the whole of humanity. As always, the artist manages to combine the positive or negative emotions of his own life by finding the right balance in imagination and creation, In this way he can transform even the darkest periods into amazing masterpieces for humanity.
Art curator Elisabetta Scaccia
Bogdan
Appendages of Motion
Carrie MeeRan
“Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is” (Jackson Pollock) Carrie MeeRan is an American visual artist of Korean origins. She was orphaned when she was little and she was adopted by a family from Seattle. With her step mother she had the chance of traveling, visiting museums and discovering the power of art in various cultures all over the world and its boundless creative possibilities. After a major traumatic event at the age of 19, she suddenly and spontaneously started to draw as it was a therapy and a way to get over that difficult moment. For Carrie, painting is about finding a balance between darkness and light and it becomes a tool to understand and explore life in full, to face and confront her fears and to exorcise those shadows that sometimes accompany us throughout our journey. Through her art, she constantly teaches and at the same time learns a lot; it is the common denominator of her existence which can reconnect her with her inner, intimate sphere. It is like an invisible fil rouge capable of uniting every human being, regardless the distance in terms of space and time. Rarely we succeed in processing and in living our feelings properly and this is the reason why sometimes problematic moods emerge and they do not allow us to act freely because we tend to remain tied to unsolved issues. In this case, art represents an incredibly effective soul conditioner and for Carrie it is a safe shelter where the deepest emotions can be released and directed towards a place of peace and self care. The artwork titled “Warm Afternoon Hues” shows an apparently chaotic combination of colours, lines and spots with no rational order and pattern which is the artist’s attempt to look for harmony in an reality dominated by uncertainty, external appearance and contradictions.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Carrie MeeRan
Warm Afternoon Hues
Che Mundama “The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep” (Paul Strand) Che Mundama, is a Nigerian artist rooted in France. He began to create at the age of six, inspired by the spirit of his grandfather, that was a sculptor. As a teenager, he decided to leave school and became an apprentice in a graphics and screen-printing workshop. The artist realizes his works from the canvas, incorporating in the artistic message, the process of construction to the creative. The artisanal construction of the artistic surface leaves room for imperfections, human errors that would have no way of existing in an industrial canvas, giving the works a further aura of fragility. The search for perfection, rooted in our time in continuous evolution, immersed in the virtual, is set aside in the intentions of the artist in favour of human imperfection, of artisanal fragility that finds room for acceptance only in art. The artist’s work is based on dichotomy. Through the use of wet paint and the consequent solidification, the two-dimensional appearance emerges, reaching the viewer beyond the pictorial plane. The brushstrokes of light that filter through the cracks, tend to communicate to the unconscious of the observer. The light radiation, which replaces colour, allows Che to communicate th through his conceptual and metaphorical themes that accompany a journey through the emotions suggested. His painting session becomes almost a performance as the acrylic dries and spreads. His thematic imprint is linked to the tribal art of his world, visible especially in the work "Ngwe". In the 20th and 21st centuries, tribal art had a huge impact on many Western artists: the exponents of the fauvist movement such as André Derain, Henri Matisse and Maurice de Vlaminck were the first admirers of African art. Since then, the influence of this art has determined the search for new prospective solutions. In particular Cubism, with Picasso, eager to emancipate himself from the classical schemes of representation, and in the 'essential concern to organize the volumes to express a new sense of 'three-dimensionality ' in the work, finds in African plastic that concept of balance, which is far from an aesthetic logic, and accords to an intimate logical order, in a harmonious unity of the parts. “There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun” (Pablo Picasso)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Che Mundama
Drapeu Rouge
Che Mundama
Ngarbuh Dream
Che Mundama
Ngwe
Christiane Amereller “I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart” (Vincent van Gogh)
Christiane Amereller was born in Lower Bavaria and studied art and violin at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She works mainly in digital format, but always loves to experiment with different shapes and colours. Through digital painting the artist manages to be free in artistic rendering, through which she immediately manages to make her ideas visible, beyond the technical and stylistic limits. Chance, events and circumstances are her main source of inspiration, outside of any preset scheme. She uses different layers, deforms them and turns them into space and colour. For Christiane, there is a physical theory that reality exists only in two-dimensional forms, in which three-dimensionality is only a projection. But can a work have its third dimension; can it be "surrounded", "crossed", "circumnavigated"? Piet Mondrian in his pictorial project "Inside Mondriaan" intends to explore the different plans of reading one of the simplest works. A three-dimensionality that is no longer just an effect on the canvas obtained by the play of shadows and the rendering of perspective planes, but that becomes sculpture. It takes shape in space, opens up, becomes physical, a solid body to explore. Apparently the most basic, the most playful. The artist of black lines and primary colours, of white spaces, left as incomplete boxes, wanted to bring back the potentially infinite perfection of the minimal element. Each of the paintings have, in fact, lines that reach up to the edges without their ending, as if there could be another painting outside that goes on and on. To give the illusion of other "dimensions" and to follow the trend of movement and emotion, are the bases of Christiane’s artistic research, pushing the observer to discover his own inner richness and leave space to the world of the imagination to create his own third dimension.
“The world may not even be perfect, yet perfection exists, and presents itself in simple forms, not at all flashy” (Banana Yoshimoto)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Christiane Amereller
Epiphany
Claudia Lontra
The Beatles in a very famous song spoke about a girl with kaleidoscopic eyes, maybe even Claudia somehow owns them. Her work is in fact a set of images and colors, which intertwine and overlap, giving rise to a succession of visual and emotional stimuli for the observer. Many small details create a sophisticated and refined work, Claudia places her work on a high aesthetic level. The viewer is totally surrounded and enveloped by details, lights, shadows and bright colors, it seems to enter a vortex in which the energy released by the work itself, can to twirl us. The artist uses the collage technique in a remarkable way, almost as if she had traveled through time and learned from the great masters such as Braque and Picasso who opened the way for this technique. At the same time her art comes close to surrealism, Claudia offers us the opportunity to take an inner journey, excluding reality from her work and including something that goes further. A dreamlike setting in which each element has a hidden meaning and therefore has a fundamental role in reading the work. The artist leads us to the discovery of energies and feelings, offering us the opportunity to reflect and ask ourselves questions or simply to find answers to unresolved questions. "Art is not what you see, but what you show others" (Edgar Degas)
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Claudia Lontra
Multidimensions
Constanza Mbehr “Life obliges me to do something, so I paint” (Rene Magritte) Constanza Mbehr was born in Argentina, currently lives in Santiago, Chile, graduated in architecture. Her interest in visual arts began at the age of 17, when she took her first course in painting. Today she directs her work towards abstract expressionism. Especially during the quarantine, which locked millions of people in the house, Constanza discovered the potential of the newspaper, due to the lack of materials. The newspapers became her canvas, where the artist let herself be guided by the newspaper and its novelties. Although the news was distressing, her intent was to give it shape in art, proposing a new story. "Subconscious Urban Journey" gives the chance to observe and experience the city like no one had ever imagined before. Every spectator can feel something different, everyone interprets it in his own way. In it, we can find elements of the urban landscape, synthesized with architecture, a dose of surrealism and contemporary dynamism. Here the stairs are transformed into cranes and rails; they transcend their original state, conversing with their neighbours, the bridges. Even the elements of medieval cities want to interact and are embedded in these modern cities where architecture and sculpture blend to play with perspectives. All this happens in the same place, where initially the news is dressed in gray, but the desire to want something else and the ability to create something new are imposed by the colour that transforms this scenario. The subconscious comes to life, form and colour in the urban city, symbolizing that incessant desire to relive the world as it was before. The representations of cities, whether symbolic, real or ideal, have found, since ancient times, a well-defined space in the figurative arts. The scheme of the city represented within the walls of masonry, masonr with some buildings emerging from the interior, runs through the Middle Ages. A fundamental stage in the history of the representation of the city, however, is the humanism; with the birth of perspective and the development of the concept of "ideal city". The latter is at the center of many architectural treatises, the first of all was the one of Alberti. In this long iconographic history of great importance, the city becomes an interior vocation, a projection of emotions and feelings. The impressionists will depict the modern Parisian streets and new places of leisure city. The city will be the image of metropolitan discomfort in the canvases of Kirchner and Otto Dix, testimony of progress in futuristic works and theater of suspended and disturbing atmospheres, in the De Chirico’s ones. The images of the cities will therefore absorb the most varied emotions of contemporary artists: social hardships, a sense of loneliness and so on. “I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality” (Frida Kahlo)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Constanza Mbehr
Subconscious Urban Journey
Cora Mak “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing” (Marc Chagall)
Cora Mak was born, lives and creates in Hong Kong. Her poetics are based on the artistic analysis of perceptions. The opera is called "Do you see what I see?" and in it, Cora intends to test the naked eye of the spectator, in his purity, to feed his fantasy and stimulate his point of view. Artists have always played with their eyes: just as Rembrandt secretly stared at anyone who admired his works through the eyes of his painted characters. So every artist feels ahead of himself the eyes of the public and is accustomed to act, to think, to imagine and to build his own work with this look in mind. The same artistic process lives on the presence of the spectator and is based on it: without this two-way correspondence Art would not exist. In the work created by Cora, the colours, the forms, the methodology of artistic research become a game, in which we can wrap and involve the viewer and then include him in a complete way in the making, in the being of the work itself. Lucio Fontana with the Spatialist Movement and the series of the Settings (from 'Energy Sources' of 1961 to 'Space Wall' of 1968) once again entangled the viewer in confused and labyrinthine paths, forcing him to a reflection not only on himself, but also on the space of existence. Contrary to popular belief, art has never been 'static'. And the artists have never called an inert and silent spectator to admire his own works. Cora paints what she sees and feels, through bright shapes and colours. Lines and circles intertwine to become a composition, within which, lies a mysterious meaning that the viewer is intent on discovering.
“The artist is not the only one to carry out the creative act, as the viewer establishes the contact between the work and the outside world decoding and interpreting its deep determinations and adding in this way his own contribution to the creative process” (Marcel Duchamp)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Cora Mak
Do you see what I see?
Darder
Darder is a self-taught Belgian artist who is currently living in Bruges. She started painting as a full time activity in 2019. Her work, based on expressive freedom and instinct, is heavily influenced by various elements that belong to spiritualism, astrology, empathy and mysticicism. It is the world of unseen forces and intangible energies that inspires Darder’s surreal compostions, often characterised by the presence of evanescent fragments and pieces of dreams. It is a form of painting which explores the human oniric dimension as part of a higher form of consciousness: in the artist’s vision, while we ar are sleeping, we can have access to a separate subconscious life where our deepest desires, fears and feelings emerge to become living entities. In the work titled “The Dreamer”, the young lady in the picture seems to look at things from a distance, never apart but partially detached from the external environment and she appers to be floating in a cosmic ideal space which is the one where the miracle of imagination happens. In “The Tree of Life” there is a strong reference to the concept of one collective consciousness: like the leaves belong to the same plant, in the same way men are the components of a trascendental awarness with a life of its own. “The Witch” represents the soul which speaks to us during the darkest moments, when our essence seems to be more exposed and fragile. She is, in other terms, the muse of self expression. The use of watercolours, together with the continuous experimentation with various media and techniques, strongly contributes to trasport the viewer to a dream-like dimension where the doors of perception are open to unexplored territories. “Dreams are the seedlings of realities” (James Allen)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Darder
The Dreamer
Darder
The Tree of Life
Darder
The Witch
David Ortiz Fuertes Art is freedom to express itself, today more than ever. There is no single art or trend that artists follow; on the contrary, every single artist nowadays creates his own personal art, his own style that distinguishes him from all the others, who came before or who will come after him. Now more than ever, we feel the need for freedom. Above all freedom to express ourselves. And art for artists is their way of expressing themselves, of talking to others about themselves, often about their most intimate part. The work of art was born from the interior of the artist to then become, through the artistic medium, something real and concrete, capable of expressing itself independently of its creator. And so the works of the young Spanish artist David Ortiz Fuertez are, in which he infuses the beauty and magic of his art, which they then transmit to who observe them. The works presented here are a perfect representation of the artist's style and his ability to create something extremely unique. In the works entitled "Cielo de Colores" and "Summer Time" the source of inspiration for the artist is the color itself, how this is capable of creating magical landscapes and atmospheres, especially in the summer. In summer, in fact, the sky is filled with colors capable of giving positive energy and joy of life, as in the first work. Instead, in the second work, the reference to the magical atmosphere created by vivid colors, which is created by the sea on a summer evening, is clear. The technique used by David allows him to obtain, through the use of spatulas, a blur of colors that makes them even softer and as if they were pervaded by the hot and humid summer breeze. Instead the works entitled "Oasis" and "Rhapsody" are characterized by the choice of the most intense shades of colors and the most energetic and impactful technique used. In the first work David gives us a very personal vision of an oasis, made of cheerful, bright and fun colors. The technique used here gives a sense of movement: the dense modeling paste used to create the background creates a layer of roughness and the final red sketch makes the gaze move across the entire canvas. The second work is instead very different from all the others, unique. Here David has used many different tools and techniques combined with each other, which manage to create colors, textures and shapes on the canvas. The inspiration of the work, as can be understood from the title, comes from the famous Queen song and the canvas transmits all the strength and energy that the song also transmits to anyone who listens to it. The last work presented is entitled "Happy" and it is a part of a series of paintings that speaks of emotions: the emotions that have an extremely important meaning for David in his life. Happiness is perhaps the most important of the emotions in anyone's life. A happy moment is in fact able to make you see everything around you under an aura of positivity and this inevitably attracts only other positive things. The central writing lights up on the canvas and emerges from it thanks to the red background on which it stands out.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
David Ortiz Fuertes
Cielo de Colores
David Ortiz Fuertes
Happy
David Ortiz Fuertes
Oasis
David Ortiz Fuertes
Rhapsody
David Ortiz Fuertes
Summer Time
FERRO “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint” (Edward Hopper) Ferro (Fernando Rial Dominguez) is a Spanish artist whose artistic experience started very early. Fer Since childhood, in fact, he began to express himself through art and in particular through abstract forms. He is a versatile artist, who paints on all kinds of materials, whether they are mannequins, iron, or canvas. Colour is his most important means of expression. For him, represents harmony, compatibility and balance. In painting the importance of colour has different connotations. It was used to amplify the light, as Magritte and Turner show; to express drama as the impressionist culture tells us; for the perspective representations as the cubism with Picasso shows us; to express mood, noise and movement. "Querencia" is made up of a number of bright and shiny colored shapes. These, vary from large to small, staggered and irregular to create the illusion of a tunnel whose dizzying perspective unfolds as they head towards the vanishing point in its center. This work conveys an effect of vitality, whose forms have usurped the role of lines, suggesting a totally abstract reading of the work. Looking at this work, the observer’s mind instinctively looks for signs of rhythm in order to try c to give a spatial sense to the image. The elusive shapes create movement, tones and colours, give rise to the ride on the roller coaster. In it, the artist’s intent is to provoke mainly deep optical illusions, movement, through the appropriate combination of particular abstract subjects and exploiting the colour. Victor Vasarely, a Hungarian artist and founder of the Optical art movement, uses this impulse in his works to create an impression of movement by combining graduated squares and sequential colours. These bring the eye in and through the image with increasing and decreasing acceleration. “Art is a line around your thoughts” (Gustav Klimt)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
FERRO
Querencia
Florie Adda
Florie is essentially a researcher, she goes to discover simple shapes, balanced colors, hidden meanings. Exploring the world through a careful and inquiring gaze is what puts the artist into action. In her artistic work Florie tries to reach the balance between random signs and real forms, between shadows and lights, between instinct and reflection. Her work is certainly not realistic but in fact forms of a phenomenal reality are represented which in some way, however, refers to a less real dimension. Observing Florie's work means getting in touch with one's memory, investigating memories to rediscover the places where we have already seen the figures portrayed by the artist. Florie's artistic work brings to mind the works of the famous painter Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, her painting is in fact characterized by soft and balanced colors, in it there is dynamism and freedom, just as happens in Florie's art. Let yourself be carried away by the almost perpetual movement of the lines, by the delicate nuances of the colors, and yet finding balance like what exists between curved and straight lines, between light and dark, is what we should do before Florie's work.
"Balance itself is good" (Haruki Murakami)
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Florie Adda
Sci-fi
Francisca Millapel
Francisca's artistic work is a concentrate of strength, magnetism and spirituality. The energy that creates deep bonds between nature, human soul and cosmos are represented in the work in an excellent way. If the emotion does not have real and tangible forms, Francisca manages to shape it through real figures. Natural elements that emanate freshness and purity, develop from the bottom upwards, meeting and enveloping a human figure that becomes the meeting point between heaven and earth, between finite and infinite. The work, without any doubt, is the result of a great internal and external research, it is a work imbued with awareness, harmony and balance between the elements. resea Francisca creates a work poised between the real and the surreal, it appears as the memory of a dream, and this is why it undoubtedly refers to the works of surrealist artists, in particular to Magritte. In fact, the artist questions the existence of humanity, through an impersonal realism that leads to ambiguous and dreamlike settings, characteristics that we find in Francisca's painting. Definitively, her work immerses the viewer in an atmosphere of peaceful balance, of subdued silence that causes, within us, the noise of questions seeking answers.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Francisca Millapel
Sueno celeste en el mallin (el respirar de las plantas)
Gregory Menard “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream” (Vincent Van Gogh) Gregory Menard is a self-taught artist who currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island. His technique can be considered mixed, as the artist works mainly with acrylics, spray paints, markers and collages with mixed media. His style is a mixture of graffiti, abstract art and pop art. From a graphic point of view, Gregory places importance on the individual elements that make up the work. The artist elaborates the studies of the pop current, reinterpreting it in abstract form. In "Blueprints for Wifey", the first impression is being in front of a female face, where every single part is small work itself. For Gregory, it’s not important the work in its entirety, but every element that composes it. The work sets different plans and represents a multiplicity of points of view. In doing so, the artist makes the viewer a «total» representation of the subject. The impact of Roy Lichtenstein in his works is certainly strong, whose varied world seems to want to communicate joy with the full and bright colours, the shiny surfaces. Roy Lichtenstein, the comic book artist, who made this simple but effective tool the center of his art, leading exponent, along with Andy Warhol, the artist of the works in series, of Pop Art. Pop art was born in the second half of the twentieth century and is called so because it derives from the English term "popular art". In the contemporary world, dominated by the consumer society, Pop Art considers the concept of art as outdated as an expression of 'interiority and instinctiveness, typical of 'Informal' and 'Abstract Expressionism. Pop artists, use the images of TV, cinema, advertising, consumer products or common use, the characters of cinema and television, elaborating them with pictorial techniques or with sculpture. Gregory in his work reviews these concepts, learning from the greatest artists of the time. “For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh” (Georges Rouault)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Gregory Menard
Blueprints for Wifey, Deconstructed
Henna Vienola “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them”(Pablo Picasso) Henna Vienola is a Finnish visual artist and currently lives in Milan. She studied at the Helsinki Art School and then continued her studies in Italy, where she graduated in Fine Arts at the Libera Accademia. She is an artist of abstract poetics; she creates with her canvas a space in which she experiences the use of painting and other materials. Assembly is an artistic form, which is part of the visual arts. It is one of the most used expressive techniques in the 20th century and presents the faculty to join, freely and in the same place, the materials of nature, of different eras and countries. The aim is to achieve both formal and semantic coherence. Space, in assembly, does not exert any 'syntax', does not impose any principle of order, and no point of view appears privileged, since every trait wants to be equally impressive. This technique is consistent with abstract art, an artistic movement that was born in the early years of the twentieth century, whit Kandinsky abandoning the figure and where the colour assumes full dignity and expressive meaning. In the works of Henna the observer can, therefore, witness the fusion of two artistic currents, which have been particularly marked over the centuries. In Behind, Glory or Lady, we can see textured brushstrokes that conceal abstract faces and depictions of natural elements, such as trees. This vision favours the expressive function of matter in itself. The use of traditional colours, alongside the use of different materials, such as gold paper in the case of Henna, give an active and autonomous role to their body, deeply changing the traditional conception of the work. “The Brain is larger than Heaven” (Emily Dickinson)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Henna Vienola
Behind
Henna Vienola
Glory
Henna Vienola
Lady I
Jackie Cress “The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure” (Norman Rockwell) Jackie Cress is an artist who was born and raised in the small seaside town on Santa Cruz, California. Being surrounded by so much beauty and art since he was child, he soon decided that his dream was to become an artist. After graduating at the Instute of Industrial Design in 2010, he started to work in different creative fields and especially in drawing caricatures. By depicting eclectic and charming characters through a peculiar use of irony and adding his personal touch,he has the extraordinary capability of “charging” the subjects of symbolic meanings and evocative enigmatic elements. Similarly to what happens with theatre masks, especially the ones used in comedies, where the character is often reflected by the deformation of shapes, Jackie explores and investigates the psyche and deep emotional side of people. Not always the caricature is aimed at showing the ugliness or at exaggerating the defects and imperfections, but sometimes the purpose is to highlight those physical, intellectual and behavioral features that contribute to the uniqueness of the represented human being, his or her friendly and empathetic aspects, feelings and way to interact. This becomes apparent in the he exhibited portrait titled “Ollie” where we can notice a deep and attentive psychological here penetration. Making fun of someone sometimes helps at putting people at the same equal level, regardless their social,economical or cultural background: thanks to Jackie and his sensitivity we can see and appreciate the man behind the face, his story and his feelings and we become increasingly curious of getting to know him better. Ollie looks like a burly and wiseacre, know-it-all man but his complexities and contradictions are delicately and wisely softened by the artist through the use of colours that tend to sweeten the harshness of traits.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Jackie Cress
Ollie
Jacqueline Showler
Art has always been synonymous with research, that is, research of places, emotions, ideas to tell and still research of styles and techniques. Contemporary art plays a fundamental role in the search for techniques, artists today are able to experiment with ever new and different means. In this context, Jacqueline's work opens the way, in fact she lands on pouring art. The artist creates an intense work, not only of colors and dynamism, but also of images. In fact, the viewer is faced with a totally abstract work, but at the same time we are able to see a series of images, each time different. Jacqueline's idea is precisely to give the viewer a new vision every time they encounter her work. The colors used refer a lot to nature, the green of the forests, the yellow of the desert, in a continuous movement like what the earth does. Certainly Jacqueline's artistic work and the technique used find inspiration in Pollock's action painting, where the gesture of the artist is the fundamental act for the success of the work, the movement of the artist's hand creates the work and it is same artwork. Ultimately, Jacqueline's art is vibration and energy, impressed on the work and which come into contact with the whole.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Jacqueline Showler
Rogue nebula
Jane Gottlieb
The explosive and extremely saturated use of colours of the American painter Jane Gottlieb immediately establishes a direct dialogue with Pop Art, from which she seems to draw her major and more evident inspiration. At the same time this is true only formally and technically. Jane, instead of using as her subjects the main products of the growing consumerism of the late 1950s, she chooses a complete different spectrum of objects for her canvas, travelling and playing with the time-line and the geographic spaces. Once we can fly to Egypt and contemplate through her fleshy lens the Great Pyramid of Giza and once we can simply relax by the swimming pool side. Once we can observe a glimpse of a quiet neighbourhood and once again we, as viewers, are placed on a balcony in front of an intangible and undefined horizon which invites us to reflect on what the balcony is facing to, or maybe what we, in first person, would like face. Therefore the artist’s work represents an interesting challenge for the viewer to play and create with his own imagination, creating stories and sceneries within an almost surrealistic and altered representation of the world.
Art curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Jane Gottlieb
Diving Board
Jane Gottlieb
New sphinks
Jane Gottlieb
Rio Grand
Jane Gottlieb
Santa Barbara Beauty
Jane Gottlieb
Table Dreamscape
Jason F Chance “Each new day is the only one that I really have” (Jason F. Chance)
In the Jason Chance’s artworks, the human being’s stories are told, in order to pay tribute to them and to connect with other individuals who could have experienced similar situations. When he discovered his passion for art, the artist made his style completely distinctive from others’ ones. The colors are spread on their pureness on the canvas, juxtaposed one to another: in this way, the projection of light beams is being made, and the colors’ fusion is followed by the observer’s view. The combination between different drops of paint is combined with the aim to create an optic and sensorial merging. The sign becomes a directional brushstroke, which often wraps on itself or it follows the figures, or once again it unfolds in a light-color union. As the different tones’ combination, forms and lines could influence in a whole new way the observer’s soul, causing several kinds of feelings. The radius chromatic traits in the backgrounds reflect and make in evidence the portraits, made with a geometric and almost cubistic manner. The face’s representation shows a succession of phases going from realism to idealization, as well as from stylization of signs to their expressionistic transformation. Even the draw tends to be essential, but the willingness to express emotions and feelings is still vivid. In the space represented there is a bidimensional integration between the forms and the background. Whereas in Taking It All In the subject is wrapped in a serenity and calmness condition given by the chromatic closeness of the numerous traits, in Watching My Country Burn shines on faces both the pain and anxiety, showing the current state of mind of a great nation as the United States. He wanted to point out the confusion and outrage that he saw. The artwork is strengthened by the lines originated by the characters’ meeting. The central point of the picture is given by the two glances tinted in blue and red, which look carefully at the observer. In A New Day the face form is underlined by unique black traits which create simple and geometric signs around it. The composition is conditioned by the uniform and rhythmic distribution of the tones and colors’ contrasts.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Jason F Chance
A New Day
Jason F Chance
Taking It All In
Jason F Chance
Watching My Country Burn
Joanna Ostrowska/ JoArtee Joanna Ostrowska (art name JoArtee) is a Polish artist with an immense interest in the realization of artworks in which a clear and powerful image emerges, not only for the colors used, but also strongly pigmented tones issued by UV paint. The use of this material overwhelms not only Joanna, but also and especially those who observe her artworks. From the tones full of vivacity, the observer takes from them optimism, positive energy and happiness. Another of the crucial point of her artworks is the desire of stimulating the imagination, as well as a potentially visual and sensorial process. The pigments issued by the UV produce several lights’ reflection during the daylight; while, in the dark of the night, the artworks reveal a composition completely different and unique in its genre: it is emphasized an expressive structure “in movement”, as much as that the image takes life. Another key aspect inside her style is the constant and the great passion for the sea and the surrounding environment. As for instance in Avatar Demo: an apparently unusual figure, reflects all its radiance through the natural light, causing a beautiful illusion of a fish just caught. In Dilo Dreamer, an intense mixture is being created which is significant and attractive. The image, as it was a sea anemone, is animated and dynamic, and the attention has a chromatic value much more present. In Our Ocean prevails the vivid interest in the maritime environment: the observer is submerged in the depths of abyss, and with a bit of imagination he/she could admire a rich variety of animals and water plants, exactly as in the utopic Atlantic. The artist helps the observer to understand the oceans, seas and unexplored seabed, to look for and preserve possible and amazing animals belonged to another life’s age, which revive themselves through the colored and UV bright lights.
“The sea its everything! Its breath is pure and healthy. It is the carrier of a marvelous life: it is life and movement. The sea is the great nature’s life basin. Here an endless peace reign. Live in the sea! Only there one is free” (Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea)
Art curator Alessia Perone
Joanna Ostrowska/ JoArtee
Avatar Demo
Joanna Ostrowska/ JoArtee
Dilo Dreamer
Joanna Ostrowska/ JoArtee
Our Ocean
Kana Hawa
“He is an analog man in a digital world” (Kent Jones) Kana Hawa is a young Japanese artist who expresses his creativity through the use of an app that allows him to reflect his imaginary world and to amplify it. Whilst painting is usually material and tactile and contents are revealed by adding a substance , which is colour, in his works Kana makes a continuous act of addition and subtraction; he puts and removes details where the matter seems to be more intrusive than the analog colours because, paradoxically, the pixels weight more than the tubes of paint and the powders. The artist, by modifying the technological reality, investigates new technical possibilities of experimentation and generates innovative perceptive landscapes by applying various visual effects. Through the digital medium, Kana is capable of creating a cycle of interactive nature which needs to develop new relationships with the users. The modern technology has significantly transformed the traditional arts by attributing to them brand new interconnective forms that transcend the usual “action-reaction” response between the man and the machine. We do not have the instruments to immediately perceive and notice this, but behind each Kana’s artwork a numeric code lies hidden the surface. This intriguing and mysterious aspect of his compositions is something that offers the viewer the possibility of interpreting and seeing the world with an alternative perspective and a different reading key. This tireless research for uncommon and cryptic ways of expression is a sign of a soul which is projected into the future and which is constant movement and evolution.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Kana Hawa
Eros
Kana Hawa
Japonese
Kana Hawa
Spicy Mayonnaise
KARMA
“The brushstrokes on canvas were done bravely, without thinking about where these traits were taking me” (Karma)
Karma’s artworks come from her subconsciousness and sensorial feelings. Throughout her artistic career, she recognized that the making of a painting could be therapeutic and healing: for this reason, the aim of her artworks is to share with the observer the positive energy arising from her canvas. The artist uses everyday objects in addition to normal materials, among them toothpicks, sponges, napkins and much more. Each detail has multiple functions and can make a difference in the making of a great artwork. Exactly as in Path Light: through this abstract painting, Karma expresses the idea of a road, probably isolated, which leads the observer to the epicenter so bright of his/her life, as a way out from every kind of habits, discomfort and much more. The light beam sparks from the center of the artwork to the outside, in a way to attract, focus and activate a kind of observer’s soul purification. All the brightness has a symbolic meaning: it means hope and vitality, helping everyone not to get lost in his/her own oblivion. Moreover, it appears that the brushstrokes starting from the middle up to the canvas borders, emphasizing the bright path and giving with those distinctive traits from azure to a deep purple, which gives a sense of harmony and serenity.
Art curator Alessia Perone
KARMA
Path Light
Kate Glowinski
“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eyeâ€? (Charlotte BrontĂŤ)
Kate Glowinski is contemporary artist who was born and raised in Russia. After graduating at the art school, at the age of 23 she decided to move to New York City,where she currently lives. In order to purse the American dream , Kate started to work for the movie sector, creating the magic that we see on TV. In parallel, she kept cultivating her true personal passion, painting. Her work derives from a combination of her love for both street art and classical paintings and the result is a unique melting pot of different and distant influences and genres.
Kate Glowinski
In her powerful and striking images, the eyes of the subjects are mirrors of their soul that reflect the artist’s perspective and vision of the world, often including themes such as the role of women, their strength and impact on our society. The continuos experimentation in the use of colours and various techniques is part of Kate’s journey towards a new expressive language where the faces are a way to depict emotions. Every vibrant brush-stroke represent a feeling that the canvas is ready to accept and include, and each of her character’s glances carries a story to be told and a burden to be released. Her portraits combine realism to a partial will of softening strokes, establishing a state of delicate uncertainty and a suspended dream-like atmosphere. In particular, the two exhibited artworks are a powerful,but at the same time discreet,scream of freedom and pride which reminds us the complexity of being a woman and the universal fascination of being the cradle of the miracle of life.
Kate Glowinski
I Matter
Kate Glowinski
Venus
Ken Blakemore
Ken Blakemore’s art is purely abstract, especially in the use of pure forms without any limitation within the canvas, in which each detail freely emerges. The chromatic aspect is fundamental in the observer’s visual perception, in who an emotional process is being triggered. The color’s symbolism and expressivity is at the center of the scene: they inspired the artist to evaluate the use of other means, considering for instance the paint with a tone of an acrylic egg and much more. In The Circle & The Square those geometric shapes could be considered diametrically, but together they surely show unity and proportion. The circle represents the convergence and the interconnection, while the square means the stability. Two very different forms which come together to represent the life’s balance. The technique used is the acrylic together with several layers of epoxies resin. Everything has shaped a dimensional quality in both the figures. Moreover, the artist wanted to create a marked contrast and vivacity in the tones, using nuances as the black and the red, strong and bold colors. The work, overall, shows a relations among space, extension and deepness, displaying the lines in different shapes in order to make the lines’ placement shine.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Ken Blakemore
The Circle & The Square
Kristy Lee “Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye… it also includes the inner pictures of the soul” (Edvard Munch) Kristy Lee is an abstract contemporary artist, she lives in Orlando, Florida. Her practice as an artist is constantly evolving, she loves to explore the complexity of her mind to create. Her art, full of shapes and colours, conveys beauty and emotion to the observer. Women are an important part of her artistic practice. They are represented strong and powerful. They are no longer weak and helpless creatures, but they transmit all the force of nature that they contain within themselves. Kristy’s women masters of themselves, free from every chain and convention of society. We can found the same strength in the art of Egon Schiele, (1890-1918) who lived between two eras: the belle époque and the Great War. Her life and her painting have always analyzed the very complex relationship with women. At the center of her art we can often find the naked female figure, defined by strong and well-defined traits. Both intend to express through the subject a proper concept of beauty. The women of Schiele attract and repel the spectator, at the same time, who remains enchanted and cannot take his eyes off the sad eroticism of these female figures. For Kristy, they embody the only ideal of beauty and purity, in which the observer can get lost in. She is free from specific styles, her art changes day after day, and this makes her every work special. The use of colour is very incisive in her work: "The performer". The effect of the details in pastel colours, affects the white face and the black background. A very strong chromatic choice that is completely different from the conventional one of the pale pink complexion. For Kristy, art means freedom to create without boundaries and end with a product of its own, original and different, that nourishes her soul. “Creativity takes courage” (Henri Matisse)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Kristy Lee
The Performer
Leena Fredriksson
“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (Kate Chopin)
Leena Fredriksson is a Helsinki based artist, designer, trend specialist, and art educator who received her MA from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2005. Leena is finalizing her second Master's degree in art education at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Leena works as a designer and trend specialist at Kuudes, an insight-driven design consultancy. She is also the creator of Momolu, an original, design-led character brand. Leena’s career as an artist is at the core of her hybrid professionalism. She will be exhibited at art fairs in Luxembourg and New York. Her paintings can be found in several private collections in Europe. “Cumulus” and “Solina” paintings are part of her archipelago series: her memories, experiences and feelings from her trips to the nature of the archipelago that she loves. Opposites can be seen and felt in also both of these rapresentations.
Leena Fredriksson
The sea is one of those elements of nature that particularly fascinates the spirit of romantics. With its depths, its mysteries, its nuances it lends itself to be used as a metaphor on the most varied subjects and for Leena it is her first source of inspiration for her canvas. What is simpler and more complex than a sky covered by clouds that meets this sea, giving emotions of a childhood. “Cumulus� speaks about a story where in a hole found in a rock there was a small seawater pond whose surface reflects the clear blue sky with some beautiful clouds. The Seaside and its fresh breeze were a youth memory that brought Leena to create "solina". These elements are represented by delicate soft colours but intense and instinctive brush strokes. Finally, the artist found her way to put her soul into her paintings mainly thanks to picturesque landscapes that only the timeless Finnish countrieside could offer.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Leena Fredriksson
Cumulus
Leena Fredriksson
Solina
Lika Ramati Women must always remember who they are, and what they are capable of. They should not be afraid to cross the endless fields of irrationality, and not even to remain suspended on the stars, at night, leaning on the balcony of the sky. They must not be afraid of the darkness that engulfs things, because that darkness frees a multitude of treasures. That darkness that they, free, disheveled and proud, know as no man will ever know" (Virginia Woolf) Women have always been the real hidden engine that makes the world go round. Their intelligence, sensitivity and beauty shock the minds of admired men. And women are the undisputed protagonists of the works of the artist Lika Ramati. She, a strong and independent woman, pays homage to other women with the beauty, magic and above all the expressive power of her works. We, women, in this very difficult period in the history of humanity, who have to give the example of how to behave to protect one another. We must be the revolution: just as Lika tells us in her work entitled “Be Revolution”. The woman, represented by Lika becomes a symbol of how only women, with a proud and confident glance, know how to face every difficulty, to be stronger than everything that surrounds us. In fact, in the work the woman seems to detach herself from what is around her and emerge, to go towards the observer. Throughout the history of the world, women have always had to fight for what was right to them; sometimes they have had to transgress sexist and antiquated rules in order for society to renew itself. With the title of her, “Breaking the Rules”, Lika also reminds us this, in which the protagonist shows herself proud and victorious, crossing a curtain. The work "Warrior of Light" also shows us the strength of women, their desire to fight, to be fighters for a bright present and future. Here Lika chooses precisely the gold color, as the dominant shade of the work: this color is in fact normally associated with sunlight, an intense light, capable of transmitting heat and strength. In the work entitled "Gaya", the features and clothing of the woman represented are very reminiscent of a queen of warrior women of ancient legends: women of overwhelming beauty, ready to do anything to fight in what they believe in. Thanks to the technique used by the artist, it almost seems that the woman has just stopped crying, but this will absolutely not stop her: you can see it in her eyes. In the last work presented instead, "Primavera", Lika gives us an absolute representation of female beauty, which is the only one able to compete with the beauty of a flower that is born in spring, and its sweetness, which pervades everything. which has the privilege of being close to her.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Lika Ramati
Be Revolution
Lika Ramati
Breaking the Rules
Lika Ramati
Gaya
Lika Ramati
Primavera
Lika Ramati
Warrior of Light
Line Lubin “Great art picks up where nature ends” (Marc Chagall) Line Lubin is a French artist who expresses herself, through drawing, photography and dancing. Recently she discovered and experimented the digital art that allows her to create, communicate and share her emotions. She creates mainly abstract drawings, with shapes, reliefs and colours. Her work focuses on different software capable of obtaining intensity, matter and depth. Her artistic journey began in 2016, when her life changed and she found in art a means of expression and liberation, joy and hope. She mainly uses graphics and digital painting to create and give emotions. Digital Art is a young artistic practice, which has given a way to rediscover in art a new wave of surrealism, metaphysics, fantasy. This type of painting allows the addition of the matter of colours to realize its contents. With Digital Art, we obtain the work by adding or removing images previously created, whose painting is material, almost more intrusive than analogical colours such as acrylics, oils, tempera. The famous artist, Andy Warhol, was the first to create works of digital art using one of the first computers around, an old "Commodore Amiga" in New York, back in 1985. In her works, Line is constantly looking for balance of colours, lights, shadows and multiple forms, going beyond the barriers of language. Her intent is to create a unique bond with the audience to arouse immediate emotions. Her abstract creations are able to offer the viewer an infinite number of possibilities, which is immediately overwhelmed by the spectacularity of light effects. An explosion of life, energy and pure charge, that give art that contemporary nature of digital art. The viewer seems to be struck by a very strong beam of light, enough to remain motionless and hypnotized. “To create one’s own world takes courage” (Georgia O’Keeffe)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Line Lubin
Green Sun
Line Lubin
Inside 1
Line Lubin
Inside 22
Lisa Cockington “Each artist soaks his brush inside his own soul and depicts his own nature in his image” (Henry Ward Beecher) The creativity has always caught the fantasy and curious soul of the artist Lisa Cockington. Having had always a positive mindset, she believes in a more equal and sympathetic world, putting aside the desolation and desperation, emphasizing love, light and joy. Attracted by extraordinary fresh forms and colors, the artist’s technique to represent the vegetable world calls back the artworks of ancient artists, as the myriad flowers in The Spring of Botticelli or Monet’s waterlilies famous paintings. Lisa observes and reproduces this realty which is so natural and precious to understand and preserve it. Her style encloses fantasy and invention, in order to allow to the mind to interact with the unknown and infinity possibilities for a better universe. Her artworks explore the combination between light and darkness, night and day, and the industrial oppression against omnipresent nature. While our daily life develops quickly out from the natural environment, the nostalgia for this one is constantly increasing. For this reason, the artist doesn’t rely on a color, form or harmony, but also on the symbolic importance, depicting different typologies of flowers to trasmitt emotions and positive thoughts. In Night Vision, the hope emerges from those who search for it. The vivid colors of the floral theme come together with the white points, as stars in a night sky. Thought an almost geometric composition, with The Concrete Jungle the significant aspect is found in the force of nature which will always be the winner in front of whatever thing man can build. While the heat of the day fades at the sunset, the harmonious blooms of the Electric Fields continue to sing in the evening coolness. These artworks with the delicate figures of the characters, who are almost feminine, they go far beyond the representation of flora. The brushstrokes make the shapes of the flowers and the light’s endless tones capture the essence of them.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Lisa Cockington
Electric Fields
Lisa Cockington
Night Vision
Lisa Cockington
The Concrete Jungle
Luca De Martino (unaseriedicosequaderni)
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live” (Auguste Rodin) Luca De Martino (unaseriedicosequaderni) is a Neapolitan artist, who was able to grasp the positive sides of lockdown: to keep the city and its magical and most hidden places all for himself, without the noise of the city and the crowd. An intimate and deep tête-à-tête seen with solitary eyes. The artist, that, during his career, has experimented with different forms of art has ventured with digital art and more specifically in the creation of a photocomposition video, based on the fading assembly of photos on multiple levels of transparency. "Poetical views assembly" is a journey that the artist proposes to the viewer in the city of Naples, a modern and undoubtedly different vision. A Naples never seen, empty and pure in its pristine beauty. In the video there are 28 photographic compositions, the same number of the lunar phases, due to the motion of the Moon’s revolution and its consequent cyclical change of position relative to the Earth and the Sun. The artist, with this innovative and complete technique, manages to give the viewer an unprecedented city in which everyone, usually, moves in search of experiences to live between beauty and history, in a unique place in the world. The city, a place of meetings, relationships and exchanges, changes, contradictions and past magnitudes, is seen in a different perspective of the artist, as an empty city and ideal city. Urban landscapes for De Martino are solitary suburbs without human presence, where the bright colours denote his state of mind and enhance the beauty of those places. Lonely and deserted squares, alleys, shopping streets, neighbourhoods of the “Napoli bene”, overlapping in unique compositions, placed to symbolize the desire of the artist of cohesion of the city and unity. “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud” (Émile Zola)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Luca De Martino (unaseriedicosequaderni)
Poetical Views Assembly
Luisa Barba
It’s time to leave the negativity behind and start living our lives fully. The best way is through art, thanks to its ability to transcend reality. With her art, the Spanish artist Luisa Barba manages to populate the world of characters, she has reinterpreted in her absolutely unique portrait style. Her characters come to life under his brushes, tell their story through the canvases. The character chosen by Luisa for this moment, in which it is necessary to be stronger and fight than ever, is Kratos. In Greek mythology he is the one who represents the power of dominion, the one who subjugates and imposes himself on his opponents: therefore, a character symbol of strength par excellence, who allied himself with his brothers with Zeus in the fight against the Titans. This myth is even taken up in a very famous playful video saga, from which Luisa takes up the character's physiognomy. The choice of colors used by the artist is very significant of the message she wants to convey. A portrait, entirely in black and white, is broken by points of color, that take on a symbolic meaning. First of all the red: the red strip that the videogame character tattoos on the skin, from the head to the left arm, in honor of his brother that he had to abandon. Therefore, a symbol of an unbreakable bond that will forever remain on the skin and that will give him all the strength to fight his battles. Like all of us, especially in this last period, we have understood the importance of the people we have next to us and how much strength we really need to face the adversities we face.
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Luisa Barba
Kratos
Luz Sanchez
If we approach the work of Luz Sanchez we can clearly see an analogy with the Jackson Pollock’s ‘dripping’. In her piece “Estalla la Noche”, Sanchez depicts a nocturnal setting, although it is not immediately clear its temporal circumstance. This nightly environment is evoked from the dress of the girl – the protagonist of the canvas – and not from the background in which she is placed. In fact, if we let ourselves immersed in the colours’ dress, we can notice that they are an interpretation of the effects of the streetlights that illuminate the dark streets of the city. At the same time, Luz’s work recalls also the style of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the famous portraitist of ‘people in the night’; just as he does, Sanchez uses her art as a means to investigate people’s soul too, revealing their essence. Moreover, another similitude with Toulouse-Lautrec is the centrality of the figure that ‘leaves behind’ the background, which becomes almost an accessor
Luz Sanchez
The interesting element of Sanchez’s poetics is also the connection with literature and a more conceptual way of painting. For example in “Fugaz a la Ninez� the direct reference is an escape back to childhood. This journey is represented by the artist through the depiction of a woman holding a few balloons, symbol of youth. The theme of childhood is a recurring theme among artists, primarily for Giovanni Pascoli who wrote about a return to childhood as a form of evasion from the society where he perceived himself as a stranger. Therefore, the intention of Sanchez is to remind us, as adults, that in each of us there will always be that child that should not be repressed but instead encouraged to emerge, looking positively and spontaneously at life. The bright colours of the balloons and of the surrounding make that childlike dimension even more acute, evoking a feeling of happiness and lightness. Therefore, Luz Sanchez, through her multiple languages, sensible to the formal technique but also to the pensive experience the paintings can offer, is able to create a unique and eclectic style, aesthetically reflective.
Art curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Luz Sanchez
Estalla la noche
Luz Sanchez
Fuga a la ninez
Luz Sanchez
Inalcanzable
Luz Sanchez
Introspecion
Malgorzata Palczewska “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures” (Henry Ward Beecher) Małgorzata Palczewska is a Polish architect and painter since she was a young lover of drawing and painting. She is a versatile artist, fascinated by subtle lines, through which she reproduces reality in her paintings. One of her characteristics is in fact to paint spaces, buildings, roads, bridges, combining lines and colour. With the latter, the artist is able to give depth to her environments, referring to the so-called aerial perspective, a term coined by Leonardo da Vinci, a pictorial technique that consists in marking the depth of space through the progressive gradation of colours and contours. Some artistic currents have estimated that the aerial perspective is reduced exclusively or mainly to the chromatic perspective, that it is the predominance of the colours whose depth is given by the intensity of the same colour, like in the work realized from the artist "Sea", whose infinite horizon is rendered through the almost total undoing of blue. Since the Renaissance, artists have used the aerial perspective together with the Brunelleschi perspective, more geometric and made of mathematical rules aimed to bring back reality. Malgorzata uses both, capturing the truest reality and giving it that abstract touch, as in "Fire" or "Linies", where lines and colours are simultaneously contour and subject of the work. Everything for the artist is inspired by the search for the concept of beauty, elegance and harmony of the composition. She wants to give beauty, making art stimulating, interesting, sensitive, basically, full of visual and expressive content. A deep art in her complexity. The artist in her painting makes the objects with colours increasingly nuanced according to their distance, making them clearer than those in the foreground, thus distinguishing the aerial perspective from the one of colour, as Leonardo did in the Mona Lisa or in the Virgin of the Rocks. In her canvases she experimented with different painting techniques, oil, acrylic, mixed media and watercolours, tracing the lines of her soul. “Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self” (Jean-Luc Godard)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Malgorzata Palczewska
Fire
Malgorzata Palczewska
Linies
Malgorzata Palczewska
Sea 2
Marek Krumpar
“A morning, as one of us ran out of black, he used the blue: The Impressionism was born” (Pierre-Auguste Renoir)
When he chooses a given theme, the visual artist Marek Krumpár wants to underline the light and shadow inside the artwork itself. The artist desires to linger and catch, as a camera’s lens, specific places and situations, emphasizing the beauty’s fleeting which surrounds the human being. A painting which is so “subjective” that enshrines an everyday objectivity: during a gloomy and rainy day, a tram stops waiting its passengers to get out and those who gets in, before moving forward once again shrouded in mist. Reminding the Impressionism, in Rainy day Marek tries to depict a fleeting moment as it appears at first glance. Moreover, exactly as an impressionist’s painter, this daily view of a familiar urban environment appears to be fully carried out en plain air, namely from the outside, in a way to closely represent the impression, a technique which shows a view as much as detailed to the real life. The contrast between lights and shadows and the intention to mark the atmosphere of the moment almost become the major subject of the paining, because everything could change and no longer remains as it was. The artwork leaves wide space to the interpretation of the artist himself: while he is depicting, he is able to transfer the feelings that he has to the observers. His insights come through the brushstroke which give the color to the painting, leaving a clear and unforgettable mark.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Marek Krumpar
Rainy day
Maria Angelica Viso “The core of my work is to show a balanced relation among the flat surface, form, color, substance and space” (Maria Angelica Viso)
The artwork entitled “Organic Geometries” made by the artist Maria Angelica Viso, is based on the relation among the forms. On the surface the color yellow/orange represents the center of gravity from where seven different figures originate, suggesting both the rhythm and the illusion of a movement. Through the metal and the use of curvy lines, the geometric stiffness is being softened in order to depict Th at its very best, the materials’ refinement and flexibility, which for instance, are completely different from the traditional paper, finding in this way a new synergy between the shapes and the tonality’s intensity. The principle of the monochrome and its consequent use, in this case, is conceived to involve the metal as “object” from which acquires a complete artwork, taking the artist to start thinking about new structures. Exactly as in the well-known Spatial Concepts of Lucio Fontana or in the optic-dynamic works of Eduarda Emilia Maino (known also as Dadamaino), the artwork’s surface is compromised: the phenomenology represents more traits in remark with an oval or circle shapes which affects the entire picture area, from the bottom left angle to the upper right apex. As stars in the sky, they fluctuate in their color, standing out from outside the structure. Moreover, it appears an unexpected deepness which interacts with the artwork itself, defining constant perceptual variations, even taking a three-dimensional shape. The artist represents a balance of volumes wisely made up, whe the relation between space and figures reach a self-determined autonomy, defining a new visual where impression together with a contemporary dynamism.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Maria Angelica Viso
Organic Geometries
Maria Burberry “If I create from the heart, almost everything works; if I make from the mind, almost anything. I create from my heart” (Marc Chagall)
For the artist Maria Burberry the inspiration can be everywhere: in a simple drawing line, in an unexpected meeting or in a happy memory. Life is full of people, feelings, thoughts, happiness and sorrow, and in all of that the art is capable of showing the soul of each element. For this reason, the theme of Annunciation is being chosen. In the Paleo-Christian period, the Virgin was seen as the one who would have put an end to the time of the “Divine damnation”, which began with the “Original sin”. On this canvas is being depicted the time prior the famous event, acting as a bridge between the ancient belief of the Archangel Gabriel’s act while he was going to fulfill his duty. An angel falls asleep saddened and shaken by his discouragement, while another one comes down from the sky to give him a piece of advice and to console him. Around them there is confusion, as a turbulence. These angels are intended for descending on the earth, accompanied by ears of wheat which are considered symbols of fertility: one of the angels, in fact, will become Mother, the Virgin, to love and to bear the suffering. Soon the announce will come, and the saddened angel will lose his wings, changing all the surrounding atmosphere. The message will make the life circle to start again, while the sky will take the responsibility to protect forever the Virgin. What is being emphasized in this picture it is the use of tones as the red, blue and gold, colors particularly suitable for underlining the royalty and the divine and the sacred bloodline. Moreover, this purple dress of the saddened angel (which alludes to the Virgin), would recall Christ’s fate and his tunic worn by himself before the crucifixion, when some soldiers decided to take some pieces of it. Probably, getting to know of the cruel fate of his son, the angel/the Virgin is saddened, and she tightens her womb trying to protect it, as herself was guarded by the sky.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Maria Burberry
The Annunciation
Marie Guetti “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls” (Pablo Picasso)
Marie Guetti is a Brazilian artist who has found her life’s purpose in painting. She discovered art in her mature age, falling madly in love with abstract painting. The affirmation of abstract art is nothing more than the logical stage of the evolutionary process of modern pictorial philosophy. After the rebellion against academic art, matured in the artistic currents of the nineteenth century, the human figure underwent a radical change. From the geometric essentiality of Cézanne, to the Expressionist conception of the painting and the elimination of the perspective vision of Cubism. Having eliminated the subject and its recognizable figurative representation, abstractionism wanted to create a revolutionary artistic language capable of improving the human condition. After the war, abstract painting focused on two currents that took two completely different paths: lyrical abstractionism and geometric abstractionism. In Lyric Abstractionism, the expressive and symbolic function of colour prevailed, with an emphasis on emotionality. Lyric abstractionism gives ample space to the artist’s imagination and personal universe. The term "lyrical" refers to a poetic attitude through the use of signs and colours spread on the canvas. Marie Guetti makes of abstract language her philosophy of life. Through vague brushstrokes and bright colours, she tells her deepest and inner self, from which her love for art and the world. A palette of warm and cold colours, represents moods and particular moments of the artist who needs to communicate her most intimate and deepest emotions to the observer.
“Order is the pleasure of reason: but disorder is the delight of imagination” (Paul Claudel)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Marie Guetti
Rainbow Lady
Marika Pentikainen “Without emotional content we make pictures; with it, we create art” (Gerald Brommer) Marika Pentikainen expresses her art through photography, with shots that tell a personal research between the emotional connections of the world inside and outside her. Photography is a meeting point between the subject and the photographer and at the same time a conflict between the truth of being and appearing. As the artist says: "It's very important to me to hear and see my subjects and their world and thoughts. I want to bring out things that the subject doesn't know how to dig out of themselves. I feel that there is always some kind of mentally stimulating message that subconsciously pulses out from deep inside of me in my work ". Marika Pentikainen seeks in her works the deepest sense of human nature, but she always leaves the observer a freedom of interpretation that adds other meanings to the photographed subject. In this way her art continues to evolve not only during the creative process, with the choice of the subject, the background, colors and lights, but also once the technical elaboration is finished, leaving her imagination free to express. "My To Unknown: HongKong" presents a fairytale atmosphere, an idyllic scenario in which the human figure has a central position. Yet the stillness of the image suggests an imminent transformation: the wrapped body seems to suggest the advent of a rebirth, as well as the tree is a symbol of life and the light that penetrates the shadows. “The great thing about what I do is that as much as you learn to understand people and their environments around the world, you also learn to visualize new things and to grow all the time because that is my way of being in the world. Without growing, no new things can be born”. The artist's photography teaches us to look at the world with new eyes, capable of grasping details that invite the observer to emotional experimentation.
Art curator Elisabetta Scaccia
Marika Pentikainen
My To Unknown HongKong
Maya Beck “When I was twelve years old I painted like Raffaello, but I spent all my life to learn to paint like a child” (Picasso)
Picasso said that he wanted to paint like a child on different occasions, freeing himself from the mind of an adult. I don’t know if it was the objective of Picasso, but I think that Picasso had the intention to paint like a child because he wanted to have a child’s point of view. Similarly, Maya Beck, a Hungarian artist, gets away from the traditional and realistic painting to focus on a new concept of art. In her artworks there are deformed faces, their deconstruction and unreal forms. So clearly, she doesn’t represent objectively the reality but the artist has to express emotions and feelings through art. The bodies of female figures are solid to highlight the volumes and they are the principal subjects of her art: each woman has her role in the paintings of Maya. Maya loves everything that surrounds her, she has a will to live and a way to act that thrills all the people around her, especially those who are lucky enough to admire her artworks. Her paintings express her positivity and passion, using strong colours, creating decisive and well-defined brushwork. They are similar to children drawings, because one of her focal points is the use of fantasy. The protagonists of her artworks are very ironic (for instance the artwork which is entitled “Fire eyes”, made with the acrylic painting technique, using a brush on newsprint). She likes to use new art technique and prove herself, using canvases, acrylic colours and new technical supports such as tablets. She is a versatile artist and in step with the times. “A drawing is simply a line going for a walk” (Paul Klee)
Art curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Maya Beck
Fire Eyes
Maya Beck
Mistery Girl
Maya Beck
Viviann
Melanie de Jong
Melanie de Jong is an artist who lives and works in the Netherlands. Her love for drawing started at an early age and she has also always been fascinated by architecture, fashion and crafts belonging to different ages and artistic periods. Melanie considers the manual aspect of key importance, hence the use of pencil and paint as the most effective tools in order to transfer emotions on paper. Her illustrations radiate a light and delicate sense of grace, a poetic and dreamy aura which fascinates and astonishes the observer. The exaggerated long and narrow necks, the big soulful eyes and the pale skin of her charachters tell us a story about the image istelf and create a unique suspended and magic atmosphere; the impression is to be transported to an imaginary world in which the idea of beauty and elegance trascends the common traditional aesthetic canons and generate a new expressive language characterised by the need for happiness and inner peace. The melancholic feeling which surrounds the here depicted lady,the emotional intensity of the look and the sophisticated costume that she wears make us fly with immagination and try to guess what story lies behind this mysterious beautiful creature. The butterflies and birds become the symbols of being in harmony not only with nature but especially with our inner dimension. The artist’s admiration for fashion designers such as Alexander Mc Queen and Marc Jacobs is apparent but Melanie has the capability to add a very personal touch which brings a rarefied peculiar connotation to her work and allows the viewer to travel through different times and styles, like in a colourful time machine. Her intimate vision of things is reflected in the attitude of the subjects who seem to be continuously looking for something more than the visibile and the touchable. “Elegance is when the inside is as beautiful as the outside� (Coco Chanel)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Melanie de Jong
Mc Queen Beauty
Nancy Satin “Don’t ever move your soul without the body, and not do the same on the other way around, until defending one another, these two parts maintain their balance” (Platone)
The artist Nancy Satin has always explored each pure art’s element, from the stone sculpture to the draw until the painting. More than any other aspects, all what she has a passion for, are the portraits: these could depict people, marine subjects, flowers, still life, which are bounded by that artistic branch. From the attention to the commitment which she dedicates on each canvas, she tries to take benefit from them, to learn and grow with every new painting. Through these three artworks could be evoked a hymn to the natural beauty of the human body, which from its first forms of representation, the development of the form, the social importance, the attention to the emotions till the mystic transcendence, is called to be a symbol and to become a constant subject in the different artistic practices. In each canvas, her representation bounds with each individual, her understanding becomes immediate and the empathy with the artwork itself eased. More than this, the artist is inspired by the movement from one of its details, and she finds satisfaction in showing each succession in an artwork. The dynamic can be slow, fast or even imperceptible. The dimensions of the models represented are alternated till to reach a sense of instability and imminent movement. For example, in Flame and Reach is present a continue and progressive changing of positions: the harms are in tension and stretched, which allows to the observer to admire sculptural bodies. Remembering the vividness of the David of Michelangelo and the beauty of the forms well-modelled of the ancient Greece, in the two paintings there is a focus on the dimensions, perfect and athletic. While in Rising the expressive component is shown through the study of natural gestures and expressions of the young. Other than the movement, even the color has a crucial role: it is used to express sensations. As in La dance of Matisse, there is a vivid contrast between different tones of the same color, emphasizing the linear and fluid borders of the figures.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Nancy Satin
Flame
Nancy Satin
Reach
Nancy Satin
Rising
NiQo “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time” (Thomas Merton)
NiQo is a French artist who lives in Switzerland. Over the years he has practiced different arts. Painting for the artist is much more than just art. It is a social act that helps people to know themselves and others. Art, in all its manifestations, is the highest human expression of creativity and fantasy, and it is the only moment that allows man to externalize his own interiority. It’s emotion, need, desire. For Kandinsky, a work is beautiful when it "comes from an inner psychic need", which becomes an expression of the artist’s individuality. But the work of art is also "daughter of his time", and exp expression of universal values that escape the transience of time. In the work "Les Gorges de la creàcion", the artist recounts his gaze of the world front, another dimension of his mind. The work depicts a naturalistic subject, imposing and majestic with bright colour. A reinterpretation of romantic nature in a contemporary key. Caspar David Friedrich was the first German painter to enter the full climate of "romanticism". Famous are its immense landscapes characterized by the almost total absence of the human figure, in those few cases in which the man is present, is always represented with compa shoulders and small dimensions compared to the context. Friedrich considered the natural landscape a divine work. These landscapes by Friedrich are not only a representation of the spectacle of nature, but also serve to highlight how small man is compared to nature itself. Even in the work created by NiQo, the artist chooses to depict nature motionless and alone, to symbolize its most powerful expressive charge of all humanity and all its inner self, opening to the viewer and the world.
“The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke” (Jerzy Kosinski)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
NiQo
Les Gorges de la Creation
Noora Kamppi “I don't paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality” (Frida Kahlo)
Noora Kämppi is a self-taught Finnish artist. After graduating as a hairdresser and after taking a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Services, she is currently studying Art History and Education at the University of Jyväskylä; in parallel, she has always been cultivating her passion for painting, which gradually grew and developed throughtought the recent years. The tragic and emotionally touching experiences of the loss of her father and of a serious accident that required Noora to learn to walk again, brought her to the decision of starting her own business as an artist and dedicate life to cr creativity. Her canvases are a direct reflection of her personal history and they represent a mirror of Noora’s inner world, thoughts, feelings, desires and hopes. The abstract, dreamy and evocative compositions are similar to tales of the artist’s soul and they have the extraordinary capability of transporting the viewer to the mystic and evenescent atmospheres typical of Northern Europe: in front of her works we have the impression of diving deep into the dark abyss of her consciousness and emotional universe, a place made of impulses and influences taken taken both from nature and the intimate mindscapes. In the three exhibited artworks the use of colours, the instinctive brush-strokes and the fluid aspect of the images create a unique feeling of being totally surrounded and embraced by the artists’ memories and fragments of life in an environment where silence and inner peace stand out. Her emotions are turned into a raw, potent fuel which ignites the engine of expression. This is Noora’s way to break out and give her turmoils a safe place to rest, especially during these hard times: painting becomes a therapeutic process in which all the challenges and doubts have the chance to turn into a powerful stream of positive energy. By following Noora’s artistic journey we enter into a trascendental dimension where the intangible elements of the human essence determine the perception and vision of things.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Noora Kamppi
Amethyst Valley
Noora Kamppi
Deep Diving Into Your Soul
Noora Kamppi
Dream Beyond Infinity
Paola Melito “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it” (Andy Warhol)
Paola Melito is an artist of Swiss origin that lives in Zurich. Her artistic research is mainly based on the analysis of personal experiences. The images by the artist are transformed into shapes and colours created in an intuitive way. It does not follow a particular trend or style, but it is overwhelmed by feelings and emotions. The first thing that strikes us during the reading of a work of art is the psychological meaning of colour; content, balance and shape, immediately after; we remember Gauguin’s obsession with yellow, blue and pink for Picasso, red for Tiziano. The use of colour rep represents the nuances of the soul. The painter Kandinskj, principal exponent of abstractionism, had formulated his theory to justify the use he made of colour in his abstract works. According to this theory, blue was the colour that most externalized the feeling of spirituality, evoking that 'idea of infinity. But, after colour, one of the most important innovations in 11th century art was the evolution of the concept of form. The form, understood as a concrete element, with precise boundaries that delimit the matter, was the fundamental theme of the work of art in 1800. The French Impressionism transforms it, dissolving it in chiaroscuro through a dynamic process, mutant and almost evanescent, building the sign with various shades of colour. The world is thus perceived from different angles, becoming a "world of vibrations". The work appears to the silent spectator, without the need of many words. This perfect synthesis of form and colour finds its raison d'être in "Maison Bleue" by Paola Melito, an abstract work capable of transmitting silent emotions.
“The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Paola Melito
Maison bleue
PIWKE “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences” (Audre Lorde) Piwke (which means “heart”) is a young Chilean artist born in 1997. Raised on Chiloé Island, an unspoilt place rich in history, tradition and even mythology, his art is deeply inspired by this cultural identity and love for the ñuke mapu, Morher Earth. During a trip through Latin America, he had the opportunity to witness the lack of possibilities,the injustice, the social inequalities and contradictions to which the local populations are exposed but he also had the chance to appreciate and value the warm sense of hospitality, generosity and profound kindness of these people. Hence the need to express the indigenous lament and at the same time their tireless desire for life. In this perspective, Piwke’s artworks become a powerful tool in order to leave sorrows behind and to show the inner strength that characterises this part of the world. In the composition titled Guillatún, a religious ceremony belonging to the Mapuche-Huilliche people is presented. This rite assures a connection with the spiritual universe for the purpose of the union of the community. The Mapuche are too often vicitms of racism and violence and their ancient cultural heritage and environment is endangered. The Volcano has a symbolic meaning because it is the place where the spirits lie. The eight-pointed star represents Venus, a metaphor of the awakening. In the collage titled “The Machi” the traditional shaman of Mapuche is depicted in his role of healing both the soul and the body, using the ancestral medical knowledge. In this enigmatic composition, the artist highlights the eternal link between man, nature and stars. In “Tanu, the witness”, the reference is to The Selkman, an ancient native tribe of southern Chile which had extraordinary astral and maritime skills and which was cruelly destroyed and massacred by the European settlers. Piwke’s works are a strenuous and brave act of remembering and massac rediscovering the roots of his Country but also a poetic visual manifest of the fascinating message of peace,fraternity and respect for a greater dimension dominated by the awareness that everyone and everything on this planet is related and linked by an indissoluble timeless bond.
Art curator Erika Gravante
PIWKE
Guillatun
PIWKE
La Machi
PIWKE
Tanu, la Testigo
Renuka Sridhar
“Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life” (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche)
Renuka is an Indian self-taught artist whose mantra is “Creating art from the heart”. She strongly believes in panting as the most powerful and direct means of showing and communicating feelings and intimate messages. Renuka always says that she art-iculates with art when she knows no other way to express herself”; her creative energy becomes a universal language which overcomes and transcends the barriers of age, race, origins and speaks to the essence with no fear and limitation.
Renuka Sridhar
Having also worked as an Art and Craft teacher in Mumbai, the artist’s mission is to give back to the society what she had the opportunity to learn during her life journey. This social aspect of her work is also testified by the fact that she donates 20% of her earnings for charity projects. Renuka’s favourite subjects are Divinity and Buddha, Mandalas, nature, flowers and animals, always depicted through a delicate, colorful and spiritual sensitivity. In the here presented mandala, which is a geometric configuration of symbols, the artist’s aim is to focus the viewer’s attention, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred personal space for meditation and self awareness. These universally recognisable marks and symbolic images, filtered by the complex world of Renuka’s emotions,have the extraordinary capability of guiding us though a cosmic new dimension where the strings of our soul can vibrate free and play their peculiar notes.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Renuka Sridhar
Floral Motifleri
Renuka Sridhar
Red Gemstone Mandala
Rhiannon Yandell “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing” (Georgia O’Keeffe)
Rhiannon Yandell, is an American artist, who sees her artistic work as a linear chaos made by multiple layers of lines and colour. Graphically the line is born from the point in motion. Paul Klee said that the line is a point that is around to take a walk. Its movement in space and time determines its course. The line can proceed in only one direction, change it gently, or abruptly, return to its footsteps, intertwine and generate chaos. The artists who know very well the potential of the line, use it intentionally making very expressive their works. As well as the two women depicted by Picasso, one tragically desperate, the other gently abandoned to sleep. Linearity and chaos seem at first opposite ideas. But they are two different sides of the same coin: one cannot exist without the other. If in fact the order of mathematics and logic, subjects made by rules, formulas and theorems well established, meets with the chaos of colours and shapes, is born the Generative Art. Through the use of algorithms the generative artist creates his work always repeating a pattern: he creates or modifies an algorithm and runs it on an autonomous system evaluating the beauty of the work done. The result, however, is not predictable. Algorithms and randomness, order and chaos. This is how the artist Rhiannon finds inspiration in the chaotic world of nature and creates the work through the orderly world of numbers and logic. "Blue Math", "Chaotic Lily", "Rise", are in fact a result of order and chaos so visually satisfying that it is difficult to explain it in words. Colours and lines intertwine in a perfect and completely harmonious composition, where chaos is at the base of everything.
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Rhiannon Yandell
Blue Math
Rhiannon Yandell
Chaotic Lily 2
Rhiannon Yandell
Rise
Ryuki Fuchikami
Ryuki Fuchikami is a young Japanese artist who is currently studying at the University in Tokyo. Although he started painting only a few months ago, his colorful and istinctive digital compositions depict an inner complex and multifaceted world, made of fragments and splinters of feelings that seem to come out directly of the artist’s emotional universe: a melting pot where his deepest and most visceral perceptions and thoughts melt together and produce unique astonishing metaphysical landscapes that look like small abstract cities of the mind. Ryuki offers us a brilliant example of how art becomes a crucial form of expression and liberation, especially during dark periods of isolation and fear like the ones we are living nowadays. His drawings emanate a positive sense of hope which is not filtered by any rational scheme and not bound by technique or patterns; his works are a free flow of consciousness populated by images, symbols and forms that reflect a special connection with nature and the cycle of life. Ryuki Fuchikami’s art allows us to understand that every human being is linked by a powerful source of spiritual energy which resides in the existence itself. In the here exhibited work titled “To the humanity of the new generation” the message of love and the desire for a brighter future overcome the sense of lonliness and sadness that this times have brought to us with a sense of endless vibrant movement and dynamism. The concept of beauty takes a different perspective and intrigues the viewer with an other-wordly sensation.
“All colours will agree in the dark” (Francis Bacon)
Art curator Erika Gravante
Ryuki Fuchikami
To the humanity of the new generation
Saffron Rose “I don’t say everything, but I paint everything” (Pablo Picasso)
Saffron-Rose is a self-taught London artist who loves all the things that are strange and wonderful. She creates works of art that combine abstract expressionism, illustration and portraiture. She loves to experiment and listen to her own art and subconscious. Bringing this dimension back to the light of the everyday life of every human being was a very frequent theme in the different artistic practices, but even before that, in philosophy. Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher, dedicated himself to the study of the human psyche, identifying the unconscious as the seat of instincts, desires and unresolved conflicts. It is thanks to such studies, dedicated to the activities of phenomena outside the sphere of consciousness, that the concept of the unconscious begins to be defined. In the interpretation of dreams, published in 1899, the psychoanalytic method is illustrated, used to access the unconscious contents of the mind. From the source of this survey, the artists do not remain indifferent and on the contrary they are ready to make their own contribution. Painters and sculptors in their turn embark on the same path in search of the dark places of the mind, where absent reason seems to replace an endless uncontrollable dream space. Francisco Goya, a Spanish painter and engraver who lived between 1746 and 1828, deals with the frightening investigation within the unconscious, of the actions that man can perform when reason falls asleep and irrationality takes over. "Horse girl", the work made by Rose, externalizes what has been said so far. It is in fact the result of a series of dreams and sleep paralysis. The artist, through art, tries to express these continuous dreamlike states that become emotions. The work represents a centaur, a creature of Greek mythology, half man and half horse. In analytical terms, it symbolizes the duality of human nature, and the resulting search for balance for the artist.
“Painting is a means of self-enlightenment” (John Olsen)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Saffron Rose
Horse girl
Seba Acidshouldbe
"For my part I know nothing with any certainty but the sight of the stars makes me dream" (Vincent Van Gogh)
Seba Acidshouldbe is a Belgian artist even though he defines himself as a citizen of the universe. His art derives from his skepical vision of things and his constant worry about what is good and wrong in this society. Seba’s artworks are generated by the consideration that humans are most of the time sad and unsatisfied because of all the obligations and constraints that we constantly have in our lives , at work but also in our personal relationships. Since he was a child he has always been fascinated by astronomy and the study of the stars, their position in the sky and their strong influence on human characters, behaviors and connections. His compositions are based on the investigation of how cosmic forces impacted on his way of being, personal experiences and destiny and they deliver a dreamy, fo magic and mysterious feeling which reflects the inscrutable nature of life and its origin. In the here exhibited works, the facial expressions follow the emotional sensation generated by the vibrant use of colours. The evocative and alienlike images are composed by a combination of various elements with a life and a significance of their own and they lead the viewer to a voyage through an imaginary galaxy where feelings and sensations are the celestial bodies of an endless space. It is a very original and peculiar interpretation of our times and of the global conscience the one that Seba offers us and his paintings are like portals that allow us to float in a timeless and boundless mind territory.
Art curator Erika Gravante
Seba Acidshouldbe
Father
Seba Acidshouldbe
Order of chaos
Seba Acidshouldbe
Spacewoman 4.0
Stephan Janssens
Colors, layer by layer, material that overlaps creating an artwork on multiple levels. Like any story that has a past, a present and a future, so Stephan's work tells a path. A path characterized by reflections, thoughts and experiences to be treasured, secure bases for a future, awareness of a present that sees transformations taking place. Stephan's painting is real, pasty, tangible, it is full of expressive force, undoubtedly the result of personal and artistic research. The warm and strong color at the center of the work that stands out and imposes itself on the other colors immobilizes the work, every moment is condensed and firm. Stephan's work, undoubtedly, refers to the Informal, and to the masters of material painting, in particular to the works of the Italian Domenico Spinosa. Attention to the texture and color of the material are the fundamental components, as well as the search for harmony. Borrowing Matisse's words "Color above all, perhaps even more than drawing, is a liberation", so Stephan's work possesses the power of freedom, of expressing itself, of being, of seeking, of changing and of living.
Art curator Vanessa Viti
Stephan Janssens
Le nouveau revetement
Tjeerd Doosje
Another series from the Ducth photographer Tjeerd Doosje, whose peculiarity and ‘quality brand’ is the choice of his subjects: baby models. Nonetheless, the ‘baby’ aspect subsists only in the models’ age, because their poses and fearless gazes are completely at the level of those of their older professional agency colleagues. The self-taught photographer places often his muses in outdoor spaces that function as colourful and solid frames for those immaculate faces and, more in general, for those lives still at the dawn. The interesting element of the shots is precisely the contrast between those apparent fragile lives and the self-confidence that emerge from the models’ look, that is almost defying the viewer and pretending to be already one of an experienced woman.
Tjeerd Doosje
An anachronistic self-assurance that is able to communicate both intensity and a feeling of an unreadable universe of emotions, which still need to be developed and suffered. The spontaneity of the babies seem completely cut down, producing facial expressions and ‘scenic presences’ almost confrontational with the environments in which are posing: steps, streets, parks.
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them” (Elliott Erwitt)
Art curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Tjeerd Doosje
Catinca (0405)
Tjeerd Doosje
Fay (0114)
Tjeerd Doosje
Ilana (0103)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1109)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1501)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1501)
Victoria Kitanov
“We are attracted by the ship bottle’s art exactly as by the sea sound in a seashell” (Victoria Kitanov)
With this artwork perfect in each detail, the artist Victoria Kitanov takes the observer into a perfect objectivism, as if the picture is a photo. The artist, while travelling by ferry close to the Svitzer Waratah, she was curious about a type of boat made for maneuvering both merchant shipping and the passenger ones. The waves’ movement and the silage left by these boats attract the artist, as if she was enchanted by the constant perceptive pleasure that a boat can offer: each detail from which a boat is made of and composed inside, it is merged with the surrounding atmosphere given by the clouds which heralds a storm, the wood’s perfume just painted, the saltness’ smell which remains in the air and freshly caught fish. With a marked realism which reminds the great work entitled The wave of Gustave Courbet which has a rough sea as main subject, or alternatively, the well-known painting Wandered on the sea of fog of Caspar David Friedrich where an endless quiet dominates, in the Victoria’s painting can be admired an immense landscape of Sydney, with a majestic Opera House which with any doubts recalls the boats’ theme. As claimed by the artist, her desire is to catch a particular detail of the landscape, of the sounds and stories which surround the different coastlines of the Australian’s city. Setting to herself this aim, she invites the observer to keep appreciating the maritime heritage in its wholeness.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Victoria Kitanov
Heading in Svitzer Tug Waratah on Sydney Harbour
Virieskin del Toro According to the most recent theories of anthropologists and archaeologists, modern man was born about 250 thousand years ago and immediately began to discover his spiritual reality. How do we know this? Based on the cave paintings. Yes, because artistic creation makes us human and characterizes our intimate spirituality in an unmistakable way. Art was certainly not an hobby, it certainly had a spiritual purpose. In his work entitled "Ancestral", Cuban artist Virieskin Del Toro wants to talk about the relationship between man and spirituality, always concretely represented by symbols and objects. In fact, in his work the artist presents us various magical and religious symbols of primitive cultures from all over the world and makes them talk to each other. Peoples from opposite parts of the world and who lived centuries apart can thus share their spirituality through the objects that are its symbol. The choice of the yellow color of the background, a symbol of light but also of energy, both mental and physical, and of knowledge, in addition to making the subjects represented stand out more, gives vital energy to the entire composition. As if the spiritual power of these objects we were still vividly present in them and even today, we could feel it. And it is precisely the artist, with his art, who manages to act as a means of spreading this power and this spirit. The history of man is also and above all a history of spirituality, which over the centuries, has been transmitted from generation to generation and art has always been its favorite means of representation and transmission, since the dawns of the times.
“When religion, science and morality are shaken and all other support is lost. Man withdraws his attention from the outside and directs it inwards. Literature, music and art are the most sensitive spheres in which this type of revolution begins to take shape, showing the importance of what was initially perceived only by a few. We therefore move away from the soulless aspects of these days and turn us towards those aspects that constitute food for the soul" (Vasilij Kandinskij - "The spiritual in art")
Art curator Silvia Grassi
Virieskin del Toro
From the series "Ancestral"
Viviane Fleury
“The biggest fear is sometime the one to make the first step out from the comfort zone” (Viviane Fleury)
In An escape from the Paradise, Viviane Fleury offers her help to the observer with the aim to find out a way out and break free from the circumstances. She deals with a thought which is inside in each human being mind: remain in the “comfort zones” or escape from them and keep improving? It’s It hard to take the decision to change, and escape from the reality. Each different step could be restless or painful. Everyone is looking for the happiness in life. We pursue to make up a comfortable way of life, but sometimes the daily routine could take the upper hand. Even if we recognize our habits, we continue to remain in a kind of “heaven” and we feel no longer happy. However, the change becomes a need in order to always strive for more. Even if there are some tones which recall to the Eden’s gorgeous view (in this case, the “comfort zone”) we can find out other features rich of dynamism given by the overwhelming movement of the several lines. Three main colors are present, among them there is the blue/azure which brings to the picture a crucial feeling of quietness. The different angles of the trajectories suggest a normal day life’s scene completely different from the comfort, by giving deepness and personality to each detail depicted on the canvas. The artist uses the colors at their full capacities, and these are the sole characters capable of assisting the observer to escape from the comfort zone. This artwork needs to be seen closely as it is so vivid that all its pictorial’s quality emerges, and it is possible to find out the power of colors which challenges the time by bearing a change.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Viviane Fleury
An escape from the Paradise
Vladimir Luna
In a newspaper article made by Gabriel García Márquez entitled “the two chairs” of 1950, the artist Vladimir Luna saw behind a backlit chair a shape, almost to simulate a bull without head. That picture so impressively represented it is a perfect starting point for the artwork’s final representation. The main topic could be ascribed to the literary and mythological genre. In fact, traditionally, the bull was often identified as a god, usually Dionysus, Zeus and Poseidon, and the sacrifice of the animal symbolized the death and the subsequent reborn of the divinity itself. Moreover, in the astrological domain, it is the second of the twelve zodiacal signs, mostly related to the Mo earth governed by Venus. Everything was the scope to which the artist wanted to close in: focused on putting in discussion the human condition, the bull reflects tenacity, obstinacy and loyalty; instead, according to the divine meaning, his “immortality” is emphasized from the fact that it does not pass away notwithstanding that it is beheaded. This aspect invites each individual to get up again regardless of circumstances and difficulties. In addition, according to the artist, every kind of material can be used and if the approach remains “conceptual” and if it sticks with its aesthetic function, with app the condition of both not to be perishable and not to damage partially or entirely the artwork. Vladimir Luna tries to make the relation with his artworks the most essential as possible in a way to reach an objectivity which is found in his work.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Vladimir Luna
Oh Immortal Bull, Our Beheaded
Yaroslava Liseeva “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Yaroslava Liseeva was born in Moscow, graduated in Geography, then studied drawing and painting at the art school. Since 2016 she has chosen to devote herself completely to painting. Her art and style are the perceptive synthesis of the surrounding reality, of that versatile combination of precision and spontaneity, fluidity and precipitation, tension and harmony, conflict and balance. In her works Yaroslava lets herself be carried away by the various human emotional and spiritual dimensions. The main constructive element of her frames is the line. In general, lines are one of the elements th through which the reading of a 'visual work takes place, because their development is strongly significant of the author’s intentions and transmits in a clear and immediate communicative message at the base of the action, a message, not necessarily a content, especially in modern art, which is more psychological and emotional. The canvas is her map, in which the lines want to express harmony, order and essentiality, curves moves that reveal the energy of inner tension and the movement of the deepest feelings of the artist. It is an entirely introspective art, this one by Yaroslava, which delves deep into her soul to find answers and discover the mysteries of the world that surrounds her. She uses traditional media such as oil paintings, focusing on nature. Images of classical landscapes, dynamic, voluminous and fluid, in which the combination of art and nature seems to be reversed and the latter seems to become the author of the work of art, thanks to the intervention of the artist who was able to grasp the potential enclosed in trees, oceans, lakes, wind. A relationship between the artist and the environment that appears at times idyllic, where she let herself be part of a whole that understands and respects. An order and chaos that tickles the five senses, where men and Yaroslava find themselves lost, but eventually find a connection in the natural elements. The spiral course of her works indicates the vastness of the cosmos, erratic and changeable, in continuous movement. A vastness in front of which man is small, and can only be a spectator of her expressive power.
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Yaroslava Liseeva
Catching the Flow
Yaroslava Liseeva
Coming Home
Yaroslava Liseeva
Dedication to Dante
Yola Gilibert “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance” (Aristotele) Yola Gilibert is a Mexican artist, who now lives and works in Boston as an architect. Her artistic philosophy draws inspiration from the landscapes, nature and architecture of American abstract expressionism. One of the most important artistic currents of the post-war period, developed in America, which represents the affirmation of non-figurative painting that characterized the second half of the 1940s and 1950s. The movement takes its name from the combination of the emotional intensity and self-expression of German expressionists. In its genericity, the term "Abstract Exp Expressionism" has the merit of highlighting two fundamental attributes of the whole current, such as the central role assigned to the individuality of the artist and the development of a pictorial language of abstract type. The postulates of this artistic doctrine are in fact all identifiable in the works of Yola Gilibert, who uses painting as a pure instrument of expression and self-awareness, whose art consists in the very act of painting and at the center of which she places the individuality of herself. The canvas for the artist is a space free from aesthetic conventions, in which she conveys her emotions and her vital energy. Particularly explanatory in this sense is the name of "Action painting" because it emphasizes the urgency of action for the artist, understood in a psychological and existential sense. Philosophy immediately associated with the artist Jason Pollock. Just as the American artist, Yola, chooses to act, combining on canvas a close connection with the outside world, through bright colours, light and movement. Her works are an explosion of bright colours, which on the canvas impose themselves in a volcanic way and outline the space, as in "Whimsy", where the blue and its shades represent a lake, an old pier and memories of a distant childhood or in "Deep in the Nature" where the green and its thousand different shades symbolize the size and depth of nature herself. The artist’s hope is to bring joy to the viewer, but also to present snapshots of her life experience and encourage viewers to reflect more deeply on different cultures. An artist, who still today, is in constant search of her origin and who uses painting as a research tool. “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real” (Lucian Freud)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Yola Gilibert
Deep into Nature
Yola Gilibert
Red Night Light
Yola Gilibert
Whimsy
Yuanyuan Zhao
“After every storm the sun will shine again, for each problem there is a solution, and the soul’s duty is to be in good mood” (William R. Alger)
The artwork of the artist Yuanyuan Zhao is inspired by the reproduction of the waves’ rushing movement and by the water flow. This aspect recalls a crucial theme elaborated in the Shan shui style: in the Chinese’s artistic and pictorial culture water streams and mountains are usually depicted, where all the natural’s elements are the real characters of the entire artwork. In fact, there are no figures, but only few birds: the reason for this lies in the fact that the artist wants to surprise the observer through the great visual impact of the water flow, as if this one could create around itself a tridimensional environment. Its forms so wide and so strong as much as to create a ramification from the foam which constantly multiplies itself on all earth surface. The scene’s deepness is underlined by the intensification of the tones and by the contrast of quantities among the water, the sky, the birds and the rainbow. Reminding Katsushika Hokusai’s well known The great wave of Kanagawa, Yuanyuan Zhao includes in her artwork a strong symbolic component, probably hinting at the human’s existence: the power of water and the breaking of a wave on a massive rock could presage the imminent arrive of a storm (discouragement and pain), but from a painting angle a bright rainbow is visible, ready to bring happiness and serenity to the sea and to the whole world.
Art curator Alessia Perone
Yuanyuan Zhao
A massive rock
Yurie Takeuchi “Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment” (Claude Monet)
Yurie Takeuchi, is an artist who realizes her works mainly through the use of drawing and marker. The main features of her works are, the brilliance of colours, sharpness and versatility. She creates natural elements, such as flowers, or geometric elements made of circles and lines. She works with the use of colour or chooses to leave her drawings to the status quo, in black and white, tracing only the contours. For the artist this is a silent way of communicating, of expressing the thoughts imprinted in her mind. The use of the felt-tip pen as a raw material for the realization of a work is a very recent technique, born in the United States to meet industrial needs in the 50s. The painting of flowers or natural subjects in general, called Still Life, was born as a minor genre compared to established currents such as religious or mythological painting, slowly becoming a key element of Pop culture. Andy Warhol creates in the early sixties a series of works enclosed under the title of "Flower series". The flower becomes, even in its simplicity of shape and size, a symbol of return to life and rebirth, just like the full and pure colours with which the flowers are covered. Association clearly legible in the work "Happy" made by Yurie. With a combination of realism and surrealism, the artist inserts impressive details that blend into what she metaphorically adopts as canvas: the lips. In "Lie", playing with the second impression, the artist enjoys challenging the attention of the observer who after a first look will notice the worlds hidden behind the main subject. The concept behind this work recalls the imposing power of words. Thus, observing a fiery red fleshy mouth, we can see later intertwined bodies, which draw chaotic crossings of thoughts and words. In doing so, the artist urges us to inc increase the zoom of our gaze and to really focus on what we observe. She invites us not to stop at the first impression and to look for every detail, because that’s where the real beauty hides.
“The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like words” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art curator Federica D’Avanzo
Yurie Takeuchi
Happy
Yurie Takeuchi
In my head
Yurie Takeuchi
Lie
Curated by Art Directors Carlo Greco and Alessandra Magni Critical texts by Art Curators Alessia Perone Cecilia Terenzoni Erika Gravante Federica D’Avanzo Giorgia Massari Giulia Zanesi Guendalina Cilli Lorenza Traina Maria Cristina Bianchi Marta Graziano Silvia Grassi Vanessa Viti Special thanks to Bianca Brigitte Bonomi, Editor in Chief of Harper’s Bazaar Qatar, Grazia Qatar, Esquire Qatar
“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art” (Oscar Wilde) “DressME” aims at expressing the idea of designing a journey which combines the worlds of art and fashion, two creative universes that are linked by an indissoluble relationship made of collaborations, dialogue, synergies and fusions: these aspects contributed to thin the traditional boundaries of genre and to create a melting pot of new styles and influences with a significant social and aesthetic impact. The acronym comes from a play on words for an exhibition which investigates the ambition and capability of art in “dressing” our everyday life with tendencies and personality; needless to say, it is clear and immediate the reference to Milan, the capital of fashion and the hotbed for talent, dynamism, innovation and brand new trends. Not by chance the project takes place during the Milan Fashion Week, the main meeting occasion and point of reference for designers from all over the globe. In this context the concept of exhibiting is of key importance and it is seen as a way of showing everybody’s true nature and identity without considering the common preconceptions, prejudice or opinions. It is in someway like being naked in order to be able to wear the universal dress of art and be free to choose the colour, the shape, the material that suits us best and becomes the texture of our character and vision. Nobody can deny the existence of a very close bond between artists and fashion designers where the play of shapes, rhythms, tints and decorations are the common elements of an instinctive research for harmony, for beauty and for a reading key of a reality in which fantasy and dreams are the protagonists of this theatre of emotions. Fashion is inherently a form of art. Each of the two feeds the other in order to give birth to organisms that are somewhere between the tangible and the ephemeral, constructions that manifest the human desire for widening the horizon of our perceptions and show who we are and we want to be, our uniqueness and originality. The paintings, the sculpture, the clothes and any other artistic production have the peculiar capability not only to offer us objects to adorn the exterior appearance of things, but they are first of all invaluable gifts that we can use in order to enrich or baggage in terms of feelings and intimacy and to convey a message. The common denominator resides in the fact of being against the tradition and in finding innovative expressive channels and figurative languages, even new codes and paradigms to interpret the continuous evolution of times. M.A.D.S is the inventor, the promoter and the ideal box to host this project and, for this event, it will become a vibrant and multicultural atelier where “the tailors of ideas” will have the chance of cutting, recomposing, modelling and tailor making their creations for us so we can wear their thoughts and treasure them. With my picture on the cover, in the role of curator and muse, I, Erika, invite you all to a challenge, the one of dressing and colouring us, as if we were blank canvas awaiting to be painted, in order to share with you this magical and captivating atmosphere. Concept by Erika Gravante, Art Curator, graduated in Product Design, Master in Visual Merchandising
Abril Aranda
Abril Aranda is Mexican eclectic artist that, during her education, embraced and challenged herself in different forms of art: drawing, graphic, music and dance. Her artworks “Mama, ya puedo ir a jugar con ellas”, “Abril, draw me like your French girls”, “I could just eat you up! And spit the bones” could be seen as a trilogy, as the artist traces a potential story-line, a fil rouge that evokes a narration among the three paintings: “I was thinking like a little story about an alien girl asking her mother the permission to have fun for a while with a few terrestrial girls, but the mother tells her to wait for it. But the girl, because of her uncontrollable excitement, starts painting the potential girls she dreams to encounter but the unexpected happens: the alien girl ends up being eaten up by one of those girls”. An interesting and bizarre painted story-telling where we could see a poetic analogy between Abril and her alien protagonist: a curious attitude to explore and get viscerally connected with the surrounding and the others, an attitude that becomes an irrepressible impulse. As the alien girl gets eaten up by the terrestrial girl, also Abril gets immersed and swallowed by the act of create, a cathartic practice able to shape the urgency to communicate the artist’s subjectivity. Moreover, the other unifying factor of these three artwork is the technique utilised by the artist: menstrual blood on cotton paper. A choice that recalls performing art: the meaning and the militancy - in this case a feminist discourse - of the pieces exist already in the way in which are created and composed. “I want to leave a trace, or even a scar, to not forget and at the same time honour my own elapse of existence as a female human being on this planet. I consider myself a feminist artist that explores with hers own “ink” (menstrual blood) as a way to print my true self in every trace with the truth that runs through my veins. That ink comes to the world to bring a message to all women: we have always owned our own power of creation and recreation, we die and reborn in that circle. So, of course we have the knowledge about how cycles of life work! We know the moment to hibernate, when to grow and when to blossom! When to die, and when to shine!” The normalisation of the feminine body in the artworks are artistically obtained by dismantling the taboo of the menstruation, often associated with a general sense of repulsion. Hormonal changes and physical pains linked to menstruation foster its attribute of negativity and the social pressure to hide it. Abril instead transforms the menstrual blood into an art tool, as the main colour of her pieces, giving it a transformative and creative connotation. The result is the delivery of a provocative message, both artistic and psychological: what socially causes abjection can become a source of amazement. In the archetypal symbology, menstruation has a spiritual dimension and a pregnant value. They are a source of growth and abundance. They are vital energy that today’s society has taught to hide and exile in the world of the unconscious. Menstrual art is thus a push to acceptance and increases the axiom that art has no taboos. Abril, thanks to her conscious composition and to represent subjects - women painted in red - succeeds in intimately conveying her personality in toto. An artistic revelation which represents a “self-truth” - as she writes - made of political statement and uncensored expression, while wisely maintaining an ironic and visually pleasing element to her audience.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Abril Aranda
Abril, draw me like your french girls
Abril Aranda
I could just eat you up! And spit the bones
Abril Aranda
Mama, ya puedo ir a jugar con ellas
Achim Saure
Achim Saure is a German artist. He uses mainly two colors: white and gold. These colors make his artworks elegant and sophisticated. They bring the viewer to a peaceful place, a peace that is definable “oriental”. The use of white and gold is in fact visible in the Japanese art, in particular in the Rinpa School of the XVII century. Saure’s works call to mind the elegance of the calligrapher Hon’ami Koetsu, co-founder of the school, who uses white and gold elegance to create the Japanese aesthetic. Saure, through the work called “Afterimage”, brings the viewer among the bamboo forest of Japan where the light filters through the stems, blinding the sight in order to see just white and gold. In the work “Route” a gold line cut horizontally the white canvas. This line is interpretable as a dividing line but also as a symbol of union and reunification. It’s through this second view that emerge an another Japanese reference, in particular to the practice called kintsugi, literally means “repair with gold”, in which the demaged object is not thrown away but on the contrary is treated and embellished pouring into the cracks liquid resin with gold dust. Saure’s work is therefore not intended to express division but union: invites us to leave behind our fears and troubles in favor of peace and serenity. A radical break from these series of gold and white paintings is represented by one of his last works entitled “Concentration” which involves six different colors. It is the only work of the artist made in this style, it’s therefore possible that he has concluded what can be called his “white and gold period” and started to seek expression through a wider colour palette. It’s also possible that this artworks is an exception and it’s the result of different emotions and intuitions. If the earliest works cited above call to mind distant Japan, the work “Concentration” takes us back to Paris, where the Dutch artist Mondrian made his famous “Compositions” during the first years after the war. Saure takes from Mondrian the colors and the perpendicularity of the lines, breaking the geometricity and creating a sort of chaos which calls into question the need for perfection of Western culture.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Achim Saure
Afterimage
Achim Saure
Concentration
Achim Saure
Route
Akihiro Yoshida
Akihiro Yoshida is a Japanese digital artist based in Sapporo. Admiring his works the comparison with dripping of Jackson Pollock is inevitable but, contrary to Pollock who let a lot of color drip on the canvas, Yoshida digitally does it. His ability lies in digitally reproducing the effect of dripping without using physical color. His work “Flower reborn” is an explosion of warm colors on a purple background. It’s the arrival of spring that breaks into the gloomy and cold winter, radiating the environment of positive vibrations. The contrast of colors contribute to create a strong visual impact, accentuated even more by the black and white “splashes”. These latter underline the contrast between light and shadow and, at once, their coexistence: the fundamental message of the work. Spring in Japan coincides with the Hanami, the festival in which we witness the blossoming of cherry trees, a symbol of rebirth. In this sense Yoshida’s work can be interpreted as a cherry tree at the time of flowering: the delicate pink flowers are surrounded by a shining light, represented by the yellow spots of the work. The art of Akihiro Yoshida is a perfect example of how abstract art can arouse emotions and deep feelings in the viewer, who is steeped with positivity and desire for new beginnings.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Akihiro Yoshida
Flowers Reborn
Alexandra Köhl Colour is a power which directly influences the soul (Wassily Kandinsky)
Alexandra Köhl is a Polish autodidactic artist emigrated to Germany with her parents at the beginning of the nineties. Daughter of a painter, she has grown experimenting from an early age all sorts of artistic techniques but she could follow her passion only at the turn of the millennium. Since then she has begun to express herself through abstract pictures emerging from the deepest of her soul: without a motif or a name but marked only by a number, her artworks reproduce the variety and multiplicity of the artist’s feelings through vibrant and energetic brushstrokes. Nevertheless, the emotional component is balanced by Alexandra’s choice to mark the paintings with a numerical progression, by approaching thus her vision to that of Max Bill, according to whom art can only be generated by a rational thought able to impose order on emotions. In her painting #013, the undisputed protagonist is colour, sometimes spread with large and scratched strokes, other times through rapid touches. The use of colour defines the space: spread through overlapping layers it prefers the cold tones of purple and light blue with the addition of some warm tones creating a light contrast and immerging the viewer in an elegant and delicate visual experience.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Alexandra Kรถhl
#013
Alison Aplin
The art of the Australian artist and designer Alison Aplin is an action painting, in which the colors and the artist’s hand come together, giving life to works in which immediate instinct prevails. Her profession as a designer helps her create aesthetic works in which her passion emerges from the emotional charge given by gestures. Her work “Snow on the mountain” is a deeply intimate work, in which the desire to return to the past is evident. A layer of white snow covers the entire painting alluding to memories buried by time and four leafless trees are key players. Bare trees represent the process of growth, the need to drop the leaves to make room for new buds. Aplin’s work is therefore an emotional journey into the past. It’s a desire to return to the moment of childhood in which purity of mind led us to ignore the evil in the world and to avoid external influences. It is therefore a search for pure painting, free from contamination. This concept sounds quite similar to the infantile art of the artist Paul Klee: “I would like to be as just born, ignore poets and fashions, be almost primitive”. The reflection that the work of Aplin allows us to make is dictated by her wise choice of colors: the purity of mind is evoked by the candid white of the snow which, combined with darker colors such as brown and ochre, acquires a nostalgic and melancholic connotation. At the same time, the four blue clouds at the top of the canvas foretell the rain: it will feed the trees allowing them to bloom again. “Snow on the mountain” is like a soul in which past, present and future coexist.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Alison Aplin
Snow on the mountain
Amanda Stuart
Amanda created a work perfectly adaptable to “DRESS ME”; with it she wanted to pay homage to the beauty and high aesthetic value of fashion. A female icon of class and elegance such as Sophia Loren, represented here by Amanda takes on an important meaning. In fact, she wears a fur coat, but with a tender and loving look she turns to a mink and a rabbit. She becomes a symbol of changing times, of an important path also made in the world of fashion. The flowers on the head are a clear reference to a great woman and artist: Frida Kahlo, the one who more than any other is a symbol of courage and desire for change. Amanda’s work brings to mind the prints of Vladimir Tretchikoff, a figurative art with particular attention to the portrait. The work “Sophia” is figurative, a portrait with pop echoes, bright colors and a great brightness pervade the picture that does not correspond to reality but that makes the work alive and eternal. Definitely, Amanda’s work is a breath of hope and optimism, a positive look towards the future, an invitation to courage and change. As always she is able to give voice to her thoughts and to launch a message, Amanda’s great sensitivity with her artistic skills give the viewer a new point of view on the world.
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” (Malcolm X)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Amanda Stuart
Sophia
Amazilia Photography
Amazilia Photography was born from the extraordinary figure of the English photographer Paul Veron, an artist who brings with him a world of visions with the great ability to know how to tell an inner world without ever exasperating. His artistic production is linked to digital photography and the relentless pursuit of beauty and the charm of simplicity which is wisely underlined and visible within his shots. Elaboration of a thought that leads us to reflect on the preciousness and essentiality of life and of every single moment. A meticulous research that turns into a concept, unique shots up to the achievement of that image so strongly desired. Attention and attention to detail. A new visual research that goes beyond reality pushes us a little further by offering us the opportunity to discover something new, almost the illusion of being able to cross the threshold of the unknown. Here in this work “Body Ballet� seems almost a Dionysian invitation to listen and dance that communicates echoes, harmony, inner dissonances on which to reflect. A direction responds to background music, the choreography of the bodies that feel, caress and dance in the moment of the moment. His talent as a photographer intercepts perceptions, solutions, intuitions in every shot that before probably had a hard time emerging like this. His work is extremely interesting, incisive but at the same time poetic with a never predictable approach, a need to remove, clean in order to rediscover the truth and essence of the human figure with a touching and disarming delicacy. A refined synthesis of his artistic career to be discovered and experienced thoroughly to understand the experimental plan investigated by the artist. Photographs that become imperceptible lines that affect each of us, modeling our person. Nothing is lost. It all comes back.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
Amazilia Photography
Body Ballet
Ana Sneeringer
Ana Sneeringer makes art a life purpose. An authentic inner search that takes shape and content within itself, creating a spontaneously innovative final result. The great communicativeness of her language reflects her innate creativity in her whole being, letting a new way of painting emerge in which, I believe, her soul as an artist can be expressed by manifesting her deepest thought. An artistic research that focuses on portraits and becomes a continuous variation of contents, processes and forms “Purpose� captures us and strikes our gaze for the delineation of her pictorial path that follows the deep analysis of the dynamism created by the artist consisting of transparencies, color, details aimed at capturing our gaze and making us reflect . A world outlined through its protagonists, especially women, vibrant like a soul in full swing. In almost all the artist’s works, the chromatic meaning plays a lot of importance, the intensity of her work created to conquer, enchant, reflect and involve all of us who are transported, almost by magic, in the reflections that the artist submits to us. An emerging talent and can be seen in her accurate and very witty analysis of the human condition. Ana Sneeringer surprises with her ability to create a space and a time through her works, thus unifying existence and the limit of thought in a kind of constructivism. An interesting conceptual technical construction of the work elaborated in a development of chromatic contrasts and not altered by tradition which makes it look for its meaning in the work itself.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
Ana Sneeringer
Purpose
Angela Vanin
Angela is a self-taught Italian painter born in Milan but later on, after her Socio-pedagogical studies, she decided to gradually escape from the claustrophobic environment of the bustling city: at first she travelled across Europe and Italy, looking for new stimuli and an artistic and personal corroboration. Eventually, this personal research and investigation led the artist to settle with her family in Monte Peglia: an uncontaminated and rural area in the centre of Italy. “We feel the custodians of this place, that over time keeps being the same, wild and rich in flora and fauna” says the artist. It is exactly this landscape that often spurs and catalyses Angela’s imagination to paint and create. The intentional distance from urban normativity allows the artist to take on a more spiritual vision, attached to the ground and the land, in an emancipated and carefree way. In fact, as we can notice in her artworks “Madre de Agua”, “Attesa” and “New World” the natural element plays a crucial role, functioning as a mirror of the imaginary and the artist’s life experience. The imaginary represented on canvas displays nature’s value as a magnificent entity that leads the individual to authentically enjoy the enchanting side of the world. Angela, known also as “Art Wild” states: “My art talks about a profound connection with the natural elements: a union that becomes magical fusion, mirror of experiences and paths of life. A union that is space for meditation and appreciation for the beauty of the landscape I live in”. An experience could be the one of “Attesa”, which literally means “Waiting”, maybe a subtle reference and premonition of the lifestyle the artist was about to experience and fantasize with. As we can see in “New World”, the artist places a jay, a blue and black bird that represents the union between sky and earth. Angela depicts him as though a messenger coming from the natural world who creates magic and leads to beauty, a cathartic and purifying element for the soul. The two protagonists on the canvas, characters of an hypothetic fairy-tale, conversely display anger, a possible mirroring of the artist’s discontent towards the society she escaped from. “Madre de Agua” is an explosion of colours - the blue water, the green grass, the rainbow, the warmth of the yellow sunrise - which represent the pure and fantastical celebration of nature’s pervading force. According to the artist, the artworks are dreamy and utopian imaginaries that end up turning real, thanks to the exposure to the experiences and to the research of beauty and of our own authentic subjectivity.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Angela Vanin
Attesa
Angela Vanin
Madre de Agua
Angela Vanin
New world
Anita Ognjanovska
Anita Ognjanovska’s art undoubtedly approaches the thought of Informal Art developed in the 1940s. Like Informal artists, she also makes art her mission to express feelings and emotions through the rejection of form. Contrary to Informal Art, in the works of Ognjanovska it’s possible to perceive a designed choice of colors, which become the main means for the transmission of emotions to the viewer. In the works “Lightning bolt of Love” and “Diversity” the artist uses bright colors. This choice reflects the message that the works want to give: in the first case, as the title suggests, love is the protagonist. The explosion of red at the center of the work suggests that it’s a sudden love and the light blue background looks like a clear sky, alluding to a love that opens your eyes and makes everything clear. Also in the case of the second work, “Diversity”, the title suggests the message, which is even more strengthened by the colors that the artist uses: the canvas is composed by a multitude of colors, warm and cold, distributed in smudges as if they were a dress made of different fabrics. Ognjanovska’s ability lies precisely in creating harmony between seemingly different colors, which visually blend and become a single entity. The concept of humanity clearly emerges: diversity makes us unique but at the same time we are all part of a greater whole. A radical emotional change is perceived by observing her work “Fortress” in which the bright colors of the previous works leave room for the dark colors. The composition is similar to the work of Piet Mondrian “Tableau I”, in which the verticality gives the work the appearance of an impenetrable wall. This feeling is confirmed by the title, although the spectator’s interpretation is completely free. The “wall” is dotted with spatulates of white, blue, yellow and red that soften the darkness of the work, alluding to a positive message: a wall that protects us. At the same time, the wall is a symbol of division, a barrier to keep away everything that can hurt us. In the art of Ognjanovska the message is fundamental. The artist perfectly combines Abstractionism, Materialism and Abstract Expressionism giving rise to a unique style.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Anita Ognjanovska
Diversity
Anita Ognjanovska
Fortress
Anita Ognjanovska
Lightning bolt of Love
Anna Pavlova “The more sensitive is the soul of who contemplates, the more one surrenders to the ecstasy arising in him by such natural harmony. A sweet and deep reverie takes possession of one’s senses. All the individual objects can’t be grabbed, and one can just feel the whole” (J. J. Rousseau)
Anna Pavlova is a Russian artist who takes inspiration from the pristine beauty of the natural environment. Whether it is a park full of flowers or a mysterious forest, Anna extracts what strikes her the most, capturing all sorts of shades, from the pastel colors of the sky to the intense green of a thick tree crown. Every gift of nature gives a positive energy, lifeblood that originates light and radiates the surrounding atmosphere. Just as in Path in the Forest, the artist has the interest and the willingness to renew landscape painting by moving increasingly more to a realistic representation. For this reason, she uses a round canvas: it is the absence of sharp edges that makes his environment boundless, evoking the suggestions of nature in an exceptional way. As in the works of the Impressionists artists, such as Corot and Courbet, the artist immerses herself in the freshness and liveliness of her palette, giving a wide space to the light and expressive effects. The realistic treatment of light, together with the solid plastic construction and the authenticity of the composition reflect the intention to represent the reality as it presents itself to the viewer’s gaze. The enchantment exerted by this nature evokes memory and re-elaborates the artist’s imagination: in this context reason and heart come together, as well as the representation of each element and its interpretation. The rocky aspect of the road is linked to the wooded one, made up by a rich variety of green and brown shades that outline the secular trees and shrubs profiles. The forest reserves impervious and unexplored traits and it has the task of creating an intimate and deep emotional flow in the observer’s soul. Each brushstroke grows exponentially and binds itself together with the contact with nature. Anna Pavlova’s painting reflects positive feelings and emotions, healing the viewer from a world full of aggression and pain. By expressing what she feels, the artist gives emphasis to her feelings through a personal aesthetic to be shared.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Anna Pavlova
Path in the Forest
Anna Sophia Rydgren ARYART “Art is silent poetry” (Anna Sophia Rydgren)
The Swedish artist Anna Sophia Rydgren is inspired by bodies and faces as well as simple organic forms from nature.Color and form have always been part of her life. She paints mainly with acrylic and liquid ink, but also uses other techniques such as watercolors and oil pastels, using brushes, spatulas and sponges. One example is Blue Evolution: these abstract and minimalist figures glide imperceptibly on the canvas, emanating brightness and intensity by accentuating the different shades of color. The latter is fundamental within the artwork: blue is the noblest and it is a metaphor of spirituality, transcendence and contemplation. It is a “metaphysical” shade and is linked to relaxation and reflective states: it therefore refers to unconscious depths and introspection. The strength of this color pushes the structures to free themselves in the immense surrounding space, with a totally neutral nuance, almost to the point to reach something divine. The center of these floating structures is immersed in gold, creating a surreal and fascinating atmosphere. Recalling the Art Nouveau and the great works of Gustav Klimt, Anna Sophia creates a link between the physicality of the forms and the rest of the composition. A great golden light radiates and blends with blue, creating an expressive atmosphere pervaded by abstraction beyond time and space. The artist aims to give the viewer a sense of calm and harmony, through both the use of tones that penetrate the human nature and the simplicity of the figures from which a slight dynamism emerges.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Anna Sophia Rydgren ARYART
Blue Evolution
Annette Hertenberger “I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint.” (Frida Kahlo)
Annette Hertenberger (Hertenberger-art) was born and raised in Luxembourg. She studied textile design in Germany and still lives there. She loves to work with strong colors, focusing her attention on nature and hers creatures. Expressive personalities and colorful animal images are her favorite topics. Her subjects present a strong expressive charge, capable of transmitting to the viewer sensations, emotions and moods. Animals have always had a primary role for man, so much so that this is also reflected in the works that have characterized the history of art. From prehistoric times to the modern age, despite the evolution of thoughts, philosophies and interests, the importance played by animals in the works of artists of all times has never failed. In the centuries between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in particular, animals in the history of art are depicted to represent the concerns of man. This attitude strongly characterizes the romantic, expressionistic and futuristic art of those periods.In these centuries, animals symbolize the very interiority of man. In fact, the artist seeks, through their representation, a contact with nature to recall the purity and instinct of primitive art: in this regard, you can not fail to mention the different versions of the “Oxen” by Pablo Picasso. In the twentieth century important is the vision of Frida Kahlo, for which through the study of the relationship between man and animal you can find interesting food for thought to reflect on modern society. “Stopp” symbolizes an animal that lets you guess the tension and excitement that characterized the moment of his creation, giving the impression of being able to feel the spasm and fear of the danger that hangs behind his claws. The white and its greyish shades place the subject in a cold, winter, snowy environment probably, in which the blood red impacts in an impetuous way, telling a story. I am seeking. I am striving.
“I am in it with all my heart.” (Vincent van Gogh)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Annette Hertenberger
Stopp‌
Annette Mahoney
Annette Mahoney is a Copenhagen-based artist. She works mainly with acrylic paint, using strong colours and patterns to create enigmatic images. In her painting, in particular through flat colors and geometric shapes, a graphic imprint is evident as well as a clear reference to cubism. Her works reveal her artisic thought , very similar to that of the Bauhaus, a school that preferred the use of primary colors, simple and essential forms with the aim of satisfying the aesthetic side. Her series called “Granitbandit” or “Fashionista”, consisting of four works, is a great example of how art must, first of all, satisfy an aesthetic needs. Through these works we can deduce the sensitivity of the artist who, through geometric shapes and psychedelic effects, recreates human figures and faces, that are not immediately recognizable but are deduced thanks to the path that the lines allow the eye to follow. Particularly interesting is the number 2, in which an eye, an open mouth and two circles dominate the composition. The eye of the beholder is captured by the circles (positioned in the center) and automatically the mind is lost between colors and lines: it seems to be bewitched and to make an introspective journey that, once returned to reality, leaves you speechless. In this sense she approached the psychedelic artists of the 1960s, from which she resumed the repetition of contrasting motifs and colours, with the intention of using art as a way of escaping reality for a while.
“Art is the cornerstone of everything. Expendable, yet nescessary. Same with the fashion scene. Dress me so I can be who I aspire to be.” (Annette Mahoney)
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Annette Mahoney
Chi-chi, fashionista #2
Antonio Bagia The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery (Francesco Bacone)
Antonio Bagia was born in Romania, approaching the art very young.His artistic research moves towards a world unknown to many, the astronomical one. His intent, through painting, is to invite the viewer to take a step towards unknown and distant solar systems, unexplored planets and places. An imaginary world that blooms from the artist’s mind on the canvas. Since ancient times man has observed the firmament with wonder and desire to penetrate its darkest mysteries. Equally ancient is the need to reproduce its beauty in artistic form, not only to enhance its charm, but also to research and express deeper meanings. Beautiful spatial scenarios, rich in star necklaces, colorful nebulae and boundless galaxies, have been able, over time, to accompany the rigorous scientific content of the canvases, of which they are the expression, allegory and personal interpretation. In America, Arthur Dove and Georgia O’Keeffe deepen their research, spiritual and stylistic at the same time, working the clouds up to abstraction with colors that evoke space. Munch detonates the sun like the last star that lights up Earth before merging with the cosmos. Such a spatial exploration, seen as a metaphor of a journey of man towards knowledge and progress, is at the basis of the artistic research of Antonio Bagia, whose technique is based on different styles of landscaping to give the viewer a feeling of wonder. “Celestial” is an explosion of colors on multiple layers, in which chaos there is still a veiled idea of order, just as in the Universe itself.
“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye… it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” (Edvard Munch)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Antonio Bagia
Celeste
Arbella Sawyer Colours, like features, follow the changes of the emotions (Pablo Picasso)
Arbella Sawyer, young contemporary American artist based in the south of France, researches harmony between the realistic world we live in and the subjective emotional world we individually experience. “I am most fascinated by the unique charme of people, which is why I focus on cropped portraits and captivating eyes” – she says. Her style is a fusion between portraiture and abstractionism. In fact, transcending the concept of race, Arbella replaces the skin tones with a more eccentric palette of colours that she feels reflecting more accurately the colouring of our hearts and personalities. The portrait URBAN shows a female face depicted through warm yellow and red tones. The hyper-realistic details, as the penetrating gaze, the long lashes and the full lips are softened by this subjective use of colour that causes in the viewer a strong emotional reaction, leading him to feel a deep empathy for the represented woman.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Arbella Sawyer
Urban
Asma Bachir
Asma Bachir el bouhali is a Moroccan artist who draws inspiration from historical facts to express on canvas all the emotions and energetic charge drawn from them. Her pictorial technique, combined with the skilful use of acrylic, allows her to create amazing effects. A perfect example is the canvas “Samourai”, previously prepared with a layer of plaster and then painted with acrylic. This work is inspired by women warriors and the forgotten of history: the emotional charge is transmitted by the red at the top of the canvas which, thanks to the large amounts of acrylic used, results in relief and brings to mind the blood and suffering spilled. The emotion is even more accentuated by the contrast of red with the white titanium at the center of the canvas, as if it were a flash, a glow that asks man to remember and learn from history. Bachir’s pictorial technique is astonishing: through the use of acrylic, laid out roughly without being flattened on the support, it manages to recreate material effects that recall the Informal art of the ‘40s, in particular the material art of Alberto Burri with his “Sacchi” and even more the French artist Jean Fautrier with his works such as: “Oradour-sur-Glane” and “It’s how you feel”. Just like these artists of the ‘50s, the Bachir leaves dry the color spread in large quantities on the canvas, tending to the progressive dissolution of the form in favor of a material abstraction in which color comes to life, drawing energy from the past.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Asma Bachir
Samourai
Astrid Hutengs “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Astrid Hutengs is an illustrator who has chosen to dedicate her entire life to art. Her works are inspired by music and poetry and are born from the encounter with people and from trips to wonderful places. Her favorite techniques are watercolor, pastel, ink drawings. One of the topics covered by the artist is the diversity of the world of women’s feelings. In her illustrations she represents feelings such as fear, love and tenderness. All as children we were enchanted by the colorful figures that illustrated the few words written on our first books. We can start our journey from the nineteenth century, since the concept of illustration in previous centuries had different meanings from the current one and included, for example, miniatures. But the illustration takes on its mature forms only between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Thus, images are spread that refer to the colorful proposals of pop art of the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century; others that take up the sign of expressionism, informal abstract painting and underground graphics; illustrations that reuse the collage techniques invented by cubists at the beginning of the twentieth century; others that reproduce the funny games of surrealist painting. In short, it is a very broad language. Astrid chooses to take only some aspects of this culture, adapting its images to the reality that surrounds it. She transforms her intuitions into impressions and then immediately into emotions. Her subjects are romantic, nostalgic, in love with life, feelings accentuated by the choice of pastel colors such as yellow and orange. The faces of the women painted by the artist are dreamy, the looks deep, the poses composed. Their eyes collide directly with those of those who observe them empathically.It is a clean, simple and elegant art that conquers the observer.
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Astrid Hutengs
Breathe
Astrid Hutengs
Eagerly Awaiting
Astrid Hutengs
What?
Audrey Kao
Audrey walks on an artistic path that starts from philosophy, in particular for what concerns aesthetics and it is in this field that she meets Lyotard’s thought and makes it her own, taking a particular interest in the sublime. Quoting Edmund Burke “The sublime is what produces the strongest emotion the soul is able to feel”, what Audrey wants to create through her works is just that, she intended to arouse strong emotions. For the artist, producing art means being able to dialogue with the user, it is the way to express herself and her interiority without setting limits. Audrey, through the production of her works, she wants to grow, mature both personally and artistically, her artistic work is therefore the means to improve, and why not, improve all of us who come into contact with it. Audrey’s works for “Dress me” are intimate and imbued with moving value, they can be described as symbolist works, somehow referring to the artistic current that was born in France. Kao’s work penetrates beyond appearance and as for the symbolists, the essence of reality is not in what we see but in what we perceive with the soul. Ultimately, Audrey gives us the opportunity to take a journey within ourselves, diging into the most intimate memories and emotions, giving us the flavor of discovery and wonder.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Audrey Kao
La Femme
Audrey Kao
Reborn
Audrey Kao
Untitled2
Bana Moureiden
Bana is the artist of dynamism, she manages to shape works that move and that recall the elements of nature. In the work “Broken water” it is easy to see the rippling of the water and it is equally simple to listen to the sound of the lapping of the waves. All the materials used by Bana move in an almost whirlwind way, the resin pieces find space next to each other, everything looks like a huge puzzle. Dowels that fit together and stand out strongly, they contain the immense power of water: life, magic, impossible to stop, however much people can pollute and deface it, it still flows and always will. Bana is a researcher, painter, sculptor, her works include different and wisely used techniques. Her art is abstract, Bana’s drawing is a reproduction of a reality, the one that inspired the artist. Her work refers to the material works of the famous Italian artist Paola Romano. Bana’s artistic work is a true aesthetic experience, beauty and strength that move feelings, as if it has no boundaries, her work protrudes from the edges, so the viewer feels touched by his emotional power.
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water” (Loren Eiseley)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Bana Moureiden
Broken Water
Bill Santelli “Making art is a way to possess destiny.” (Marvin Gaye)
Bill Santelli is an American artist who during the period of isolation, made of social distances, felt the need to unbalance inner peace and connect creatively with others through works of art. He initiated a series of drawings titled “Mindstream” after reading the concept of the mental flow of Buddhist philosophy, which is literally described as “the flow of mind”. It provides a personality continuity that Buddhism denies, a continuity from one life to another, similar to the flame of a candle. As psychologist Argenton argues, “art is the solution of problems, creation of worlds, invention, use of intelligence and feeling. It is an aesthetic need, an educational means, historical memory, research, fantasy and many other things that make it a place of privilege, exercise and manifestation of human cognition.” Artists experience that creative activity has the power to draw from a space of true consciousness of being, devoid of interpretation. In this space it makes sense not to have physical parameters, body, or form that separates one thing from the other. For Bill, the process of making art takes precedence over the need for verbal communication. Creativity is itself a language and allows the artist to connect with the world - and to himself - on a nonverbal level. As with all his work, drawing is an introspective process that invites him to reflect on the inner journey, on letting go of the old forms and opening up to new ones, on the balance of the path inwards and outwards. The choreography of shapes and colors creates a movement on paper, a fluid but gently turbulent “mental flow” that is born and disappears at all times. So for Bill the art itself- tangible manifestation of the creative interpretation of reality - does not respond to the imperatives of sight but rather to the needs of vision, as it embodies the need to discover and tell what is beyond what we can achieve with our eyes. Bill, espousing the theory postulated by Paul Klee that “Art does not reproduce the visible but makes it visible”, gives with these series of drawings, the opportunity to stop for a moment and reflect beyond what the viewer’s eye perceives at first glance.
“There is only one thing in art that can’t be explained.” (Georges Braque)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Bill Santelli
Mindstream #13
Bodil Fossheim-Bugge
“In to the depth” is the powerful result of the Norwegian artist Bodil Fossheim-Bugge, whose mixed media art style allows her to always create unique and intimate pieces keeping at the same time that universal influence and mission, inviting the viewers to challenge their intuition and to dig into an enriching and introspective experience. In fact, by contemplating the painting, the audience is brought to a profound and almost oniric journey, opening up a dialogue with his inner soul and with the visceral suggestions the artwork evokes. The quality of Bodil’s poetics is exactly her mastery in blending the different art’s layers, keeping strongly her subjectivity and personal touch while representing on canvas the strength of her biggest inspirations and creative catalysts: the magnificence of nature and the immensity of universe. The light blue background of the painting - linked to a sense of infinity - functions as a soft frame for the gold explosion placed at the canvas’s centre, which recalls pureness and eternity. The practice of creating intuitive artwork involves the process of letting go expectations and looking for the artist’s inner voice while embracing the stimuli of the surrounding. This introspective and spontaneous approach is what is left on canvas by Bodil, able to encourage the viewer to go through to same investigation.
“Intuition is a method of feeling one’s way intellectually into the inner heart of a thing to locate what is unique and inexpressible in it” (Henri Bergson)
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Bodil Fossheim-Bugge
In To The Depth
Bora Aydintug
Bora lives in Brooklyn, it’s here that he researches, experiments and creates innovative works. Quoting Bruno Munari “Art is continuous research, assimilation of past experiences, addition of new experiences, in form, content, material, technique, means”. The artist Bora perfectly embodies Munari’s idea, he is first of all a researcher, his art is the result of the connection between technology and creative genius. After all, in the 21st century we cannot think of talking about art without including new techniques. Bora implements a method of artistic expression, not only new, but also of great impact. The artist works with the brain, in the true sense of the word, his artistic work is the result of EEG. His works are an expression of brain impulses, he digitally imprints a trace of himself, it is appropriate to say that his work is a true description of the interiority of Bora. Clearly we can speak of abstractionism, there is no presence of real forms, if his work is totally innovative, at the same time his works remind us of great masters of the past. The lines outlined in a fast and repeated way makes think to Balla’s works, or the bright and lively colors seem to belong to precious oriental fabrics. Without doubt the art of Bora refers to digital art and in particular to electronic art, where art and technology find the perfect combination.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Bora Aydintug
Expressive EEG series 1
Bora Aydintug
Expressive EEG series 2
Bora Aydintug
Expressive EEG series 3
Carolina Polara
Carolina Polara is a self-taught Italian painter and fashion designer. Born and raised in Florence, she currently lives by the sea, in Viareggio. Her piece “Protect” is the painting reproduction of the famous picture taken by American fashion photographer Steven Meisel. The picture, and also the painting faithfully, portraits an intimate embrace between American singer Madonna and Italian actress Isabella Rossellini, daughter of the Neorealist director Roberto Rossellini. What stands out the most in “Protect” is the intensity of Isabella’s look, extremely confident, almost defying the viewer. On the contrary, the “pop queen” seems to be aware of the external gaze and we simply see her letting go in the reassuring and comfortable arms of the actress. The painting immortalizes a moment of affection and tenderness but, at the same time, it also conveys an empowering message: the women are not portrayed as objects of desire, but instead it is highlighted their independence from the external. When I look at my artworks again after a while I see a kind of magic and I ask my insecure self: “Did I really do this? How was the process?” writes Carolina. Very often insecurity and an act of creating free from analytical schema, allow that “magic trick” to happen. Perhaps the performance anxiety is what sometimes catalyses the creative act and it is a symptom of the artist’s authentic involvement in what she does. “To me painting and sketching is a way to free my mind and to pour on canvas all my struggles and feelings” states the painter. The painting is an artistic homage to Steven Meisel, but it also represents an urgency to reproduce and to offer to a broader audience the same intensity and emotional fruition Carolina herself experienced in contemplating that picture.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Carolina Polara
Protect
Catherine Heaney
Catherine Heaney is from the North of Ireland. She grew up watching her father painting from which she was mesmerised. Later on, she decided to go to Art College, where she realized her potential. Her inspiration is taken from the magic of the Irish sky, in particular from the sunset, since for her symbolises the completion of the day and shows the passing of time and a kind of alarm that reminds us to leave the world of work mentally and to relax. As she herself says: “We all live in a fast paced world and I want to take Mother Nature’s powerful healing into our homes to remind us all to slow down, be present, see the beauty that constantly surrounds us and breathe”. In the work of Heaney is evident the approach to Impressionism and Expressionism but, if the last is the evolution of the first, the Heaney makes an extra leap: combines the two styles to create one of its own in which impressions dominate the work and expressiveness is the key to understanding them. On the one hand she uses the teachings of Impressionism, by exploiting the sea as a mirror of the sky and by applying the color to spots; on the other hand, expressionism is used by Heaney to abandon objectivity and focus on the feelings that the work wants to convey. All this emerges admiring the great oil canvas “Irish dusk”. Here the sun, creator of evocative light effects, becomes the secondary character of the scene, leaving the protagonist role to the magic that surrounds the sky, just like in Monet’s work “Impression, sunrise” where the real protagonist is the mist that floods the port of Le Havre. Another analogy that emerges from the comparison between the work of Monet and Heaney is the realization of the sun: both made following a single brush stroke. The colors contribute to create a mixture of sensations: the warm colors evoke peace, calm, tranquility, sensations broken by cold and dark colors that trigger in the human soul deeper and disorienting questions.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Catherine Heaney
Irish Dusk
Chair House “Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God” (Rembrandt)
Chair house was born in Tokyo, Japan. Today he is a multimedia artist who experiments and puts into practice all his knowledge in the field. In the early 1990s, while working as a corporate electrical engineer, he began his creative career as an artist. After retiring from the company has resumed creative activity. Currently, he is engaged in digital art and music activities. In the last few months he started using 3D software, using Photoshop and creating more than 500 abstract images. The reading of his digital work is very interesting especially in a technological era like this. Like two-dimensional art, three-dimensional creation is as old as man himself. In prehistory, he has, in fact, modeled art objects with magical-religious purposes, such as tools of work and defense. The most representative expression to understand this phenomenon is painting, with the birth of the perspective discovered by Italian artists Duccio and Giotto, and thanks to which art entered its three-dimensional phase. Painting has thus acquired a new dimension: depth, through the management of light and shadows. This technique was perfected throughout the Renaissance and continued to this day. In the modern and contemporary age many have been the artistic techniques experimented and the 3D Art is one of this. Chair house, who has approached this new form of art recently, in his works experiments, thoroughly examining the picture, studying the scenic and perspective composition and providing the viewer with a real collection. “Dea Autumn” and “Dea Reverie” seem in fact the continuous representation of a series, whose subjects are often deified female characters. In the first, the artist chooses to adorn the woman with warm colors such as orange and yellow, which bring out the pink complexion; in the second opts for blue and green. The same palette is also chosen for “Dea Zodiac”, which however is different from the first two. It is a zoomed close-up of the face in which every detail, contrary to the first two, appears abstract and poorly defined. A complex art of our artist Chair house, which enchants the viewer in a distant and dreamy universe, in a suspended space.
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live” (Auguste Rodin)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Chair House
Dea Autumn
Chair House
Dea Reverie
Chair House
Dea Zodiac
Charlie Rodrigues (Cheeky chicken art) “Creativity requires courage” (Henri Matisse)
Charlie Rodrigues - Cheeky chicken art - is a self-taught artist from the UK who now lives and works in central Portugal. Her artistic research is based on the careful celebration of the uniqueness and complexity of people. For the artist, moments, experiences, relationships and individual choices shape life. Its starting point comes from the idea that all people are different. No one is really the same as no one else. Every human being has a body, a soul, a mind, an idea. The body, in particular, is a fascinating and partly mysterious organic system whose representation has played, since prehistoric times, a determining role in the development of art history. The reproduction of the human figure makes it necessary for the artist to consider a series of elements such as the variety of its forms and proportions, somatic features and physiognomy, attitudes and gestures, in addition to the expressive and symbolic value of the represented subject. Throughout history, the human body has been, from time to time, reproduced with extreme synthesis or richness of detail, with a scientific approach and a realistic intent. In the twentieth century there is a predominant tendency of expression that, through the representation of elongated, distorted, broken down and altered proportions, communicates contents and symbolic meanings of the body and human condition. The Cubist avantgarde, for example, presents almost indecipherable human figures obtained through the decomposition of the image and the subsequent combination of linear, geometric and coloristic elements. In this context it is interesting to note that the phenomenon of colors has always fascinated man and has been exploited since prehistoric times. In visual communication, humanity has made wide use of it, especially by searching for and identifying over time the best shades and shades of color. The intent of Charlie, although obviously in a diversified way, is to arouse emotions, to reach the goal using and exploiting the eye of the viewer through the power of color. For this reason, her human, feminine and masculine figures evoke chromatic shades that can visually communicate various sensations. For the artist, colors become an integral part of human life, regardless of their warm and bright or cold and dark tones. Each of them tells a story and makes each individual unique. One color is immediately added to another with the passing of time in that process called life. And what color would you be?
“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing” (Marc Chagall)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Charlie Rodrigues (Cheeky chicken art)
The colours of life 1
Charlie Rodrigues (Cheeky chicken art)
The colours of life 2
Charlie Rodrigues (Cheeky chicken art)
The colours of life 3
Chica de la Luna
Chica de la Luna is a mediumistic French art painter led by angels in the realization of her works. Each work contains a message of spiritual elevation. The pictorial gestures, fundamental in the art of Chica de la Luna, are integrated by adding semi-precious stones that act as protectors.The work “Cœur d’émeraude” best represents her spiritual art. The work is an inner journey to rediscover feelings. The spatula and instinctive brushstrokes fill the canvas with an emerald green that can only instill positivity and hope in the viewers. The lines, given by the brushstrokes, all converge in the center, the focal point of the composition, which hypnotizes the viewers and makes them burrow into their own souls. The chromatic rhythm of the green is broken by magenta, yellow and white brushstrokes that radiate the work of brightness. They create pauses necessary for the viewers to stop and reflect. The work is a vortex resonating in unison with the chakra of the heart “Anahata” that combined with the stones chosen by the artist (aventurine, amazonite and fluorite) urge the viewers to reconnect with their feelings without any fear.The spiritual art of Elodie evokes the teachings of Italian spatialist artists who are interested in the problem of the all-embracing perception of Space as the sum of the absolute categories of Time, Direction, Sound, Light. In the footsteps of these artists, Vayssière researches energy in art and creates works that go beyond the reality we know, opening portals to the spiritual world.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Chica de la Luna
Cœur d’émeraude
Chris Glatie
Chris Glatie is a German artist, who lives in Hannover. In 2017 he approached Fluid art and in 2019 he knew the Shelee art technique, but right from the start it is evident his mastery in using it. Shelee art is a laborious technique that involves several stages of work: first of all it is essential to mix the colors with certain materials in order to obtain a fluid compound and secondly it’s really important the sensitivity of the artist, who must be able to stratify the colors and create the composition. Chris Glatie is a perfect example of great mastery of technique: in his work “Mystical flower”, made on a circular support, he perfectly blends six layers of color recreating what to the human eye looks like a flower. With this work Chris stands out within the world of Shelee art, as it’s evident his intent to create a precise form that, through abstraction, wishes to stimulate the viewer’s imagination. His style is in fact to be framed in the sphere of abstractionism, as a reinterpretation in a contemporary key of Abstract Expressionism, born in the second post-war period with Jackson Pollock. The work of Chris Glatie is an ethereal evocation, it’s almost alien; the bright and shiny colors give the work the appearance of a magical portal to another dimension. It is a journey through the galaxies, contained in a flower. It is interesting to note how the ends of the petals become black, as if to show the dark side of the universe, the unknown side to man. Because what you don’t know always arouses a sense of fear.
“Art goes beyond the limits within which time would like to compress it, and indicates the content of the future” (Vasilij Kandinskij)
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Chris Glatie
Mystical flower
Christopher Rozitis “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures” (Henry Ward Beecher)
Christopher Rozitis, is an English artist and psychotherapist. He loves to create works of art that are bold in color and structure, combining the various artistic techniques with technology. His artistic analysis reflects on the duality of the contemporary world, which encloses the synthesis between traditional and modern art providing the viewer with a new interpretation of today’s art. His current pictorial collection is born on paper. On the latter the artist works on the computer in order to create depth, patterns and texture. His works are marked by intense and strong signs, alternating with geometric shapes.”Heavenly Bodies”, in particular, is strongly marked by a black stroke that impacts in an impetuous way on the basis of pastel colors chosen by the artist.Christopher, however, not only chooses to dedicate his art to pastel color but his palette also opens to dark tones as in “Night”. This strong use of chromaticism over the centuries has been experimented by artists becoming one of the most effective tools for making impact works. Among the theories most widely attributed to the use of color in art, we find that of spiritual meaning. For several artists, including Kandinskij or Annie Besant, colors influence our ways of being and convey spiritual meanings, as well as having a strong evocative value. Often, as in the case of Christopher, a single color is used in a complementary way to others in a wide field of painting. For those who adhered to this current of thought, commonly defined as Theosophy, color played a fundamental role, as it could move the soul.
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection” (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Christopher Rozitis
Heavenly Bodies
Christopher Rozitis
Night
Christopher Rozitis
Reality Realised
Claudia Werth “If the world were clear, art would not exist” (Albert Camus)
Claudia Werth is a German artist who has approached painting since childhood, dedicating herself to art, experimenting with styles and combining different materials. For the artist it is fascinating how it is possible to put on paper something that really exists and that strikes the human eye. Claudia creates abstract and well-defined works. A pictorial orientation visible in “silhouette 1,2,3”, whose images, of a bright color on a light background, seem the projection of the shadow of a solid figure. The absolute contrast of the colors, in a chromatic inconciliability, a violent delineation of the route, the wide formats, give this artist a remarkable power.The word silhouette comes from the name of Étienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), French finance minister under Louis XV who, according to some, cut portraits from the shadows as a pastime. The term indicates a portrait technique, executed by reproducing only the contours of the face, like a shadow, called profil à la silhouette.The roots of this method go back to Greek culture, but today it is mainly used to indicate black profiles on a white background, or vice versa. The silhouettes represented the fastest and cheapest method of making portraits and their purity and simplicity were particularly in vogue during neoclassicism.Throughout the nineteenth century, the century in which silhouettes reached the highest popularity, there were hundreds of artists who used this technique. Claudia, inspired by this method, reinterpreted through abstract culture, creates her works. The colors chosen for each subject are purple, green, red, softened by shades that outline the details such as eyes and mouth.
“Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self” (Jean-Luc Godard)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Claudia Werth
Silhouette 1
Claudia Werth
Silhouette 2
Claudia Werth
Silhouette 3
D.Q. Nguyen “Now nature, for us human beings, is deeper than on the surface, and hence the need to introduce into our bright vibrations, represented by reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of bluish colors to make us feel the air” (Paul Cézanne)
D.Q. Nguyen is an artist with Vietnamese roots capable of emphasizing his experiences, knowledge and emotions through creativity. After having learnt the main principles of art, from the use of proportions to the figurative representation of a picture, his aim is to capture every type of sign, shape, color and other elements that gradually emerge during the making of a work. A striking example is Vietnam’s Fields of Rice: his love for his native country is very vivid. What attracts the most the observer’s attention is the harmonious use of color and the respect for this immense nature. Just as in the artistic movement of Impressionism and especially in the work Mont Sainte-Victoire as seen in Bellevue by Paul Cézanne, D.Q. Nguyen plays with the use of different shades and light, merging these aspects with pure naturalism. Trying to capture the first impression of a given moment, the harvesting of rice, the artist creates a calibrated image of an immense panorama completely surrounded by silence and quietness. Moreover, he focuses on creating a sense of depth and solidity through extremely delicate tonal variations, achieving a pictorial balance. The framing of the painting has a horizontal format and underlines the extension of the landscape in front of the mountain, placed on the horizon. In the foreground appears the inhabitants of the place as they deal with their work; a thick vegetation is placed on the picture’s borders till to leave the space for the large valley rich of delicate nuances. Regardless of any element present, in this artwork the artist wanted to capture the link between perception, representation and knowledge, spreading a feeling of well-being and serenity.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
D.Q. Nguyen
Vietnam’s Fields Of Rice
Danette Landry
The theme of lines is a crucial point in the works of artist Danette Landry. These decisive and well-defined lines overlap one another, and they materialize on the canvas. Following the principles of geometry, each segment begins and ends at a certain point, crossing the entire painting vertically or horizontally the entire painting, expressing in this way her feelings, her past and her present life. The abstract and minimalist figurative language adopted by the artist recalls the works of previous artists such as Mark Rothko and Kazimir Malevič. Danette expresses herself through a relationship between color creations, characterized by shaded color compositions, involving the viewer to the extent that one is captured and bewitched by the painting. Her painting raises immaterial atmospheres through the use of color and light. This does not mean that the artist has managed to go beyond three-dimensionality, shaping a tonalism no longer linked to the naturalistic representation of the elements. In this way, there is a great force that comes from color, capable of arousing visual and sensorial perceptions. As in Aucune Psychologie, where the multitude of lines intertwine among them. Blue and azure merge together and alternate as in a dynamic and continuous sequence. At the center of the work there is a single line which, like a horizon, has the task of separating the sky and the earth, as well as the celestial and spiritual world from the material one. While in Cinglée, the visual density burns with deep light. This luminous energy recreates a succession of dashes that amplify along the lower and upper edges of the canvas. The simultaneous vibrations give rise to a reality that shakes the observer’s soul and frees his moods. Finally, in Les Voisins this red color materializes, which has deeply marked the artist since her childhood, leaving an indelible mark. So mysterious and explosive, this shade is distributed on the canvas like a plain and endlessly sinks into unknown depths. There is a chromaticism capable of creating a passage from the inside to the outside, a visual and emotional path. The public is captured by the immensity of these artworks, as well as by the geometry of the image and the homogeneity of the color, which induce the human mind to take a spiritual journey in Danette’s art.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Danette Landry
Aucune Psychologie
Danette Landry
CinglĂŠe
Danette Landry
Les Voisins
Daniela Volpi “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance” (Aristotele)
Daniela Volpi, is an Italian artist who has transformed her passion for art, learned from an early age in the atelier of her uncle, in work. Her continuous artistic research leads her to investigate the different facets of femininity, including sensuality. As a primordial archetype and abstract concept, the female figure is one of the first signs traced by human hands. Since then, the transposition into effigy of the woman has characterized every historical period. Goddess and Madonna, mother and queen, lover and object of pleasure, naked or dressed in high fashion. In each of these manifold aspects it has given body to the canons of beauty, seductive reflections of earthly and otherworldly harmonies and pleasures. It must therefore be recognized that, painted and sculpted, female images have accompanied all the phases of our civilization. Direct are the consequences in art: the artistic movements of the beginning of the century that embrace this unprecedented field of exploration treasure it. For centuries women-artists have been very few, although individually authors of extraordinary testimonies, not surprisingly often engaged in painting female subjects. Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo. Among the extremes in which the inspiration that revolves around the woman continuously oscillates, Sofia, created by Daniela Volpi, is a deep work, whose look represents a material osmosis with light and color. The intensity with which she approaches the “truth” of the face, the delicacy of the incarnation make Sofia almost real, as if she emerged from the canvas to dialogue with the observer. A work that represents the result of the continuous interaction between what the artist feels inside and what is revealed on the canvas. In a continuous dialogue, which makes an emotion grow and evolve, giving it shape and color.
“To be an artist is to believe in life” (Henry Moore)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Daniela Volpi
Sofia
David Jason Mendoza “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art” (Paul Cezanne)
David Jason Mendoza is a Filipino artist, who during the lockdown period undertook his own journey in the world of painting. He began painting from scratch, learning techniques, experimenting with different materials and styles. Today, painting represents his way of expressing what he feels, his emotions, his passion and his joy of living. “Fredo”, “Portrait of African women” and “Flower world”, symbolize an instinctive, intense and vibrant art of colors, through which the artist with a strong and strong personality, external his freedom of expression. His love for bright and vivid colors is evident in his paintings. Warm, enveloping, violent and excessive colors, including red, intended as a hymn to joy and life, blue, used to indicate the depth of the artist as in “Portrait of African women”. A choice no doubt indicative to grasp its great originality. Tones of a less intense blue maneuver on Fredo’s face and almost disappear in “Flower world” to be replaced by colorful flowers. Three works with a touching tone that identify the versatility and dynamism of the artist. A varied palette, the one proposed by Mendoza who in the definition of his portraits is vaguely inspired by the somatic traits of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, one of the most beloved painters of the ‘900. In “Portrait of African Women” in particular, the protagonist woman of the work, is adorned with an abstract crown that is so reminiscent of the typical floral headdress worn by Frida. The artist, in the same work, also intends to emphasize the interest in African culture, so much so as to mention the symbols of ancient tribal communities on the face. A combination of different colors and cultures make David a curious artist, able to experiment and know, without ever stopping to look.
“The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real” (Lucian Freud)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
David Jason Mendoza
Flower world
David Jason Mendoza
Fredo
David Jason Mendoza
Portrait of African women
David Ortiz Fuertes “Cities are like people. They have a name that distinguishes them and merits, defects and peculiarities that give them a precise character. But there is always something that escapes, fleeting and indefinable, so as to make them always new and unexpected every time you see them again” (Fabrizio Caramagna) Discovering and visiting a city is always a unique adventure and completely different from the others. Cities are the people you meet, the places you visit, the streets you walk along, the buildings you see along the way, the smells you smell but also the scents that delight you, the city is the lights that come on at night, but especially the colors that animate it. The Spanish artist David Ortiz Fuertes has dedicated this new collection of works to the cities, in fact each work has as its title the name of the city that inspired him to create it. And so, we have “Paris” in which the predominant color is red, because Paris is the city of love par excellence. The reliefs on the canvas, created with plaster paste, and the very dense color in some points give dynamism to the canvas. The strong colors also emphasize the strength and passion that characterize this city with a very long history as the epicenter of culture and art. In the work entitled “New York”, however, with the color David manages to convey the majesty, multiculturalism and energy of the city. In the work we can grasp the thousand colors and the thousand lights of Times Square, we see the strength and power of the skyscrapers of New York and above all we hear the thousands of people from the most varied cultures walking at their feet. This same multiculturalism, given by the countless shades of color on the canvas, is also seen in the work “London”. Here, however, David was able to render, through the choice of darker colors and more intense shades, that darker and duller atmosphere of London, but still full of vitality and energy. The magic of London is inexplicable. For the work “Milan” David was able to grasp how Milan really has a thousand shades. Milan is the city of opportunities and progress in Italy. In this work we see intense colors juxtaposed with more pale colors, in fact Milan is the city that puts all its energy into aiming for the future, but with its roots firmly in the millennial Italian culture and tradition. David dedicates perhaps the most impactful work in the collection to his city, “Madrid”. In this work, the vitality, energy and frenzy of this city literally explode on the canvas. Mediterranean colors with extremely intense shades invade the canvas and then explode with light in the center. This painting is able to represent, only through the colors, really Spain and especially the Spanish.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
David Ortiz Fuertes
London
David Ortiz Fuertes
Madrid
David Ortiz Fuertes
Milan
David Ortiz Fuertes
New York
David Ortiz Fuertes
Paris
Diane English
The artist Diane lets herself be guided by her personal instinct and creativity, taking the path that leads to the discovery of the most intimate self. Giving life to artworks means expressing yourself, but above all it is an opportunity to discover yourself and bring out your skills and emotions. Diane succeeds well in this work, her work appears as a great intersection, where colors, shades, lights and shadows meet and sometimes collide. The viewer looks through those streets traced by colors, letting himself be carried away by a continuous succession of sensations: now calm, now passion, or even joy, but also melancholy. Diane’s artistic work is abstract, it brings to mind the great artistic genius of Pollock, so her style can be considered an abstract expressionism. In fact, Diane is inspired by impulse and instinct, just like the American painter Pollock. Definitely, Diane’s work becomes for the viewer a walk in the long colored paths of emotions.
The modern artist, it seems to me, works to express an inner world, in other words he expresses movement, energy and other inner forces (Jackson Pollock)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Diane English
Gridlock
Diane V. Radel
A deep link exists between people and nature, often forgotten, but when the people rediscover it they are pervaded by great wonder and strong emotion. Diane met the magic that resides in nature, treasuring this experience she created a series of works dedicated to it. “Solivagant” is a real journey, the viewer is there, together with the artist, with her he makes this experience. Traces of turtles on the sand become artworks, imprinted forever and made immortal by Diane’s sensitivity. Diane’s work is an explosion of life, vivid colors take up space and totally invade it, from the cold tones of blue to the warm ones of red. The artist’s work seems to be a zoom of a detail of an impressionist painting, colors that ripple and mix as in a work by Monet. At the same time it has abstract references as it is the spots of color that prevail, there is no representation of real forms, there are no signs that outline figures. Diane offers us the opportunity to get excited in front of the spectacle of nature, to get in touch with the magic that resides in it, to discover beauty.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Diane V. Radel
Solivagant
Dorothy Fagan
Dorothy Fagan resides in rural Virginia, in the United States of America. Her art is powerful. She uses painting to release energy, imprint feelings and emotions on canvas. She uses chakra–aligned palette that she applies on large canvases. After visiting France and Italy, she starts to follow intuitive nudges and dreams to explore the intersection between mankind and divine. Her art comes from her soul. Each canvas captures her emotions which she translates into art. All the more, as in the case of the Diptych “Blooming dream” in which she “feels pink”, she has the extraordinary sensation of embodying the color she is using. Fagan says she does not want to use the word “Diptych” to define this work, but prefers to interpret the two canvases as if they were twin souls which can be separated. Although the work can be defined as abstract, it is clear the artist’s intention to represent flowers. As “Blooming dream” suggests, they are moonflowers with the particular characteristic of blooming during the night and therefore, they symbolize the power of dreams in reality. Fagan’s art comes very close to the concept of the MADS “Dressme” exhibition as she interprets art as a “way of wrapping ourselves in the colors of light”. This light of which the artist speaks is visible in all her creations; a light that generates a mystical glow perceptible only by the most sensitive soul. In the “Garden of Graces” the goddess Iris guides us towards pure bliss, leading our gaze along the stream to the water lilies, a symbol of beauty arising from muddy waters. The theme of water lilies inevitably brings to mind the impressionist artist Monet, with whom Fagan shares the theme as well as the way and the style to reproduce it. Just like Monet Fagan paints the aquatic and vegetal setting relying on instinct and spontaneity with fluid and vibrant brushstrokes, apparently abstract, but that in their totality assume a well defined form. Fagan’s uniqueness is evident in the work composed of eight panels entitled “Coming to the river”, in which the artist, during its realization, often steps back from the canvases to admire them in their totality and to reconstruct reality on canvas, color by color. The entirety of the work is certainly important, but so is the singularity of each panel, nonetheless individually complete: the concept that Fagan wants to express is that even though we belong to something bigger, being alone does not mean not being complete. For this reason Fagan wants to divide “Coming to the River” into eight single panels and sell them as individual paintings to eight different buyers. Each of them will then become part of the “movement of crossing into this new world we are creating together”. The art of Fagan is therefore a form of art that comes from dreams, that enlightens our brightness and encourages viewers to second emotions and turn them into art.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Dorothy Fagan
Blooming Dream
Dorothy Fagan
Coming to the River
Dorothy Fagan
Garden of Graces
Dragos Bagia “Art is an eternal dream, not only mine, but also of humanity. Without its participation, art would remain only a hidden dream. Art is an individual message destined to humanity�. (Sabin Balasa)
The Romanian artist Dragos Bagia places, within his works, an expressive necessity of a purely spiritualistic imprint, which leads him to a look for colors, lines and shapes as an external manifestation of inner contents and repeatedly involving the observer inside the paintings. He does not describe what he has seen but what he has felt, that is, he expresses his emotions by freeing himself from the need to reproduce objective reality, thus looking at the world with different eyes; moreover, through his creations, he represents what people avoid seeing only because they are invisible, such as fantasy, religion and esotericism. Recalling works by artists such as Kandinskij, Sabin Balasa and Frieda Harris, in Dragos every suggestion and inner thought takes shape on the canvas and gives life to an alchemy between colors that could be compared to a high-sounding encounter between different universes. Between the harmony of the lines and the predominant use of vivid colors, the paintings of this artist turn into a spiritual experience that address the emotionality of each individual. As if struck by a musical rhythm, the formal and chromatic relationships, as much as free at the extent to appear casual, seem to dance in unison with the observer’s emotions.
Dragos Bagia
Just as in Alessia, the individual details connect to the center of the work, which in turn relates to each element. All the colors are well defined and present, as if they emerged from that vivid core and they released all the vitality and essence of the painting. It is a hymn to the Art Curator’s work, representing the different tasks that are elaborated and carried out simultaneously. Moreover, it is an experience of visual and sensory perception, in which imagination, inspiration and intuition extend beyond the limits of nature, in order to merge it with the heart of art itself. While in Musafir, this typically Egyptian profile of a woman, the artist reproduces geometric and graphic elements, as he tries to free the soul of those who admire the artwork, and he invites him to discover what is beyond his limits. Through the combination of the color blue, Dragos wants to infuse quietness and serenity, illuminating the mind of the observer. In this way one comes into contact with an absolutely personal vision, not subjected to common stereotypes, where the individuality of one’s soul emerges.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Dragos Bagia
Alessia
Dragos Bagia
Musafir
Elena Chukhlebova “A photo is not taken, it is created” (Ansel Adams)
Elena’s work is a real creation, her photography is not just a shot, ideas, thoughts and feelings come to life in her work. “Twists and Turns” is the result of research and the expression of an opinion that has to do with life. If contemporary people have the need to spend most of their time making plans, the best moments of life, however, remain the twists, be they positive or negative, undoubtedly give us the ability to grow. Elena with her work wants to remind us of the beauty of the unexpected. Vortex, like small tornadoes, mix colors, like a stone thrown into the water creates textures and ripples, this is how Elena’s work appears, the gathering of energies. The viewer feels submerged, if on the one hand those colors wrapped around themselves create a moment of disturbance and gasp, on the other hand the warm tones reassure and those who find themselves in front of the work feel protected. An abstract work but with surreal echoes that refers to psychedelic art, both for the colors and for the deformation that has been applied to them, appears as the scenario of a dream, a true aesthetic of the unconscious. Elena’s artistic work is an opportunity for the viewer to get lost in the meander of memories, dreams and to be amazed and welcome the twists and turns in life.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Elena Chukhlebova
Twist and turns
Elisabete Monteiro
“Mandacaru” is painter’s Elisabete Monteiro artistic homage to Brazil, her home. Her abstract and figurative style is always attached to the materiality of her roots and life experiences, but also to her values and vision of the world. In fact, the artwork highlights her attitude to represents on canvas the precious encounter between body and spirit, materiality and immateriality, by deconstructing the shapes and composition of the real in order to convey a more universal meaning. “Mandacuru” is thus an intimate and creative interpretation of the real that, thanks to a predominant use of primary colors, offers multiple layers of joyful fruition to the viewers and feelings of primordial vitality, positivity and hope. Mandacuru symbolizes Elisabete’s attachment to Brazil: “a symbol of rebirth and resilience in the arid sertão, in Brazil. It grows in very high temperatures and does not depend on rain to flourish, which according to a local legend, will come with the so desired rain”. The rainbow, coming after a regenerating rain, symbolizes a message of hope that looks at the beauty and aesthetic side of life and chromatically for the palette of that natural landscape: the yellow desert, the green plant, the blue sky, the red warmth. Elisabete’s work is a poetic investigation, faithful mirror of her existence, made of travels, provenience and affinity with the lands, reflection and freedom as a propulsive force for shaping and communicating her messages.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Elisabete Monteiro
Mandacaru
Francesca Rottmann “Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together” (John Ruskin)
Francesca Rottmann is an artist of Italian origin, who lives and works in Eastern Switzerland. Today, as a mature and independent woman, she dedicates herself to her free spirit and brings in her works the emotions experienced. Her artistic vein, decidedly expressionistic, makes her works very interesting from a stylistic point of view. Expressionism is a form of direct art that uses the use of sign and color to make the emotional and spiritual experience of reality. In doing so, the artist paints what she feels, defining this as a more “spiritual” technique. In this form of art, born in France around 1905, the deformation of some aspects of reality prevails, so as to accentuate its emotional and expressive values. “Inside Out”, created by Francesca Rottmann, is a stylistically complex work, characterized by a strong chromatic violence and caricatural deformation. Warm colors prevail on this canvas, especially yellow and its shades. Generally this color represents light. Goethe himself said: «yellow is the color closest to light». For this reason, it has become the shade that indicates the sun, its rays and even its heat. All this has led yellow to be a notoriously positive shade, with its brightness in stark contrast to the darkness of other colors. Widening the psychological analysis, yellow is not only a symbol of light “concretely understood”, but also the color of the soul”. On the mind, it also infuses security and energy, showing itself able to stimulate inner capacities. Color, therefore, is considered a fundamental element in order to read a work of art in its deepest interiority. A means through which the artist communicates her ego to the viewer, exposing her soul and entering into close connection with him.
“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment” (Claude Monet)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Francesca Rottmann
Inside out
Francisco Pla Martos “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one” (Stella Adler)
Francisco Pla Martos is an artist and a mathematician. He was born in Madrid and carries on his activity self-taught. He has a very active artistic life and is always in contact with artists from all over the world. He is very interested in geometry and perspective, but loves to experiment with different styles to reinterpret in a contemporary way. Its goal is to provide the viewer with fantastic atmospheres, of strong visual impact. Among contemporary artists, the idea of explicitly using numbers to build their own works has become widespread. The relationship between art and mathematics does not appear at first glance evident, but the interweaving and the convergences between these two spheres of human culture have been numerous, profound and fruitful throughout history, so much so as to define the latter as an art motivated by beauty. In ancient Greece the model of the human figure was the God Apollo, who represented the ideal beauty. It was beautiful because his body conformed to certain laws of mathematics. Little by little, in the sixth century , the first canon was developed dictated by true geometric laws, the Doríforo of Policleto, which is still taken as an ideal model by most artists. Ideas about the perfect proportions of the human body have been studied and reinterpreted since the Renaissance to the present day. Looking at Francisco’s “Adan,” one cannot fail to pay attention to the perfect bodily delineation of the subject. Sculptural buttocks and biceps that embody a new hope for humanity, capable of giving life to a new future, where men and women can live without prejudice, free and full of love. In this work it is evident that the artist needs to represent the origin of human existence and the world that surrounds it. A more decisive theme in “Within the origin” and later in “Destination on course”; two stylistically different works, one abstract and one more figurative, that conceptually deepen the theme of connections, according to which nothing is random and each action unconditionally writes the destiny of every human being. His contemporary, figurative and abstract style is therefore intended to convey passion and love for life, in which everything has a meaning and each of us a precise destination.
“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist” (Robert Schumann)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Francisco Pla Martos
Adan 2.0
Francisco Pla Martos
Destination on course
Francisco Pla Martos
Within the origin
Frédérique Samama
Frédérique Samama is a French painter based in Paris. Her dedication to drawings and paintings was consecrated by her studies in applied arts and by a key encounter with an artist who gave her boost and motivation to deepen, challenge and explore her skills and sensibility in the creative world. The artistic dimension of the painter is always connected to a reflection with her surrounding reality, always attached to a social and moral terrain. In fact, the nerve centre of Frédérique’s work is the human figure, the individual in all its spectrum and social facets: politicians, beggars, elderly, always conveying to the audience messages dear to the artist. “Amana”, “Idian” and “Untitled” represent together a triptych of gazes, from different old men and women living in the streets of Paris. “Protégeons-les!” writes the artist, aiming at raising awareness on those fragile lives, the most vulnerable of the COVID-19 pandemic, often neglected because of their social status. In all these three artworks, the element of efficacy and empathy is technically obtained by the black and marked contour of the gazes, almost looking for an eye-contact with the viewer. The eyes per se evoke an immediate connection with the soul, as they can mirror the inner dynamics thanks to their intensity. “Frédérique strives to transcribe the soul through expression rather than morphological resemblance. And uses intense black, heavily traced or deposited more lightly to bring out the essential that characterizes us without ever making the outline of the whole.
Frédérique Samama
Thus, without limit, everyone has a different perception and finds there their level of emotional reading”. Even “Granny Puretta” is the representation of an old woman, but here the meaning is different: Granny Puretta is an iconic woman living in the streets of Havana, often fetishized by the tourist’s gaze for her look and endurance to live an unconventional life-style. Frédérique instead decided to paint an artistic homage to the woman, this time extending the focus on all her figures framed by a soft puzzle of green leaves, which highlights even more the pose and the integrity of the woman, who seems to be not looking for empathy with her viewers. “Bubble Trump” represents another artistic provocation as the American politician is painted while chewing a bubble gum. The gum serves as an expedient to humanize the man, making Trump even more an “everyday man” and attributing him a childish connotation. The artistic invective against the politician aims at deconstructing his “serious wannabe figure” through a colourful portrait able to give him a silly and ironic connotation. “The Scream” is perhaps a self-portrait of the artist and overall the fil rouge of her poetics: an urgency to scream on canvas all her artistic impulses, recalling both the cathartic quality of art and the potential of art itself, as a powerful means to spread, while create, a personal vision of the world.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Frédérique Samama
Amana
Frédérique Samama
Bubble Trump
Frédérique Samama
Granny Puretta
Frédérique Samama
Idian
Frédérique Samama
The Scream
Frédérique Samama
Untitled
Gabriele Gracine
Gabriele Gracine is an artist who uses the digital means to extract her visions from her imagination. Her artworks are defined as “freeform digital art�: using a touch-screen device and different digital editing applications, Gabriele materializes authentic artworks on the screen, which are the result of a convergence of her internal and external influences. She is constantly looking for tools that can best express a perceptive process that aims at infinity. She emphasizes and connects numerous elements, such as form, movement, light, color and energy that all communicate to the observer. In her visual language she extrapolates her feelings with the aim of sharing it to the world and in order to trigger a sensory and personal development to the observer. As in Blue Flows, the artist represents figures and dynamic lines in constant movement. Their continuous swaying gives rise to other new forms that connect with each other. Fundamental is the use of colors, which transmit a sense of calm and serenity. Those who admire this artwork, after a moment of disorientation, can let themselves go completely and join the energetic flow released by all these colors, including blue and azure. While in Duo the research on color is much more intense. The artwork radiates enveloping light, succeeding in highlighting a harmonious dynamism. The beam of light emanates every type of figure and gives life to the numerous nuances that, in a rich and complete chromatism, allow to grasp even the areas of shadow in a suggestive atmosphere that leads inside the work. Finally, in Repartee, this vital image breaks itself up in every direction, playing on the visual superimposition of changing surfaces, both in shades and shapes, creating a three-dimensional optical effect. The whole captures the viewer’s gaze in this continuous perspective illusion, which derives from a vision projected and multiplied in depth, until it reaches a dimension floating in space and time. Gabriele Gracine offers the opportunity to immerse and contemplate a new dimensional reality, helping the viewer to internalize a new ideology of imagination.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Gabriele Gracine
Blue Flows
Gabriele Gracine
Duo
Gabriele Gracine
Repartee
Gerrit Hodemacher “Art does not reproduce what we see. It makes us see.” (Paul Klee)
Gerrit Hodemacher is a German artist who was born in Hanover. His work concentrates on gestural freedom and it is characterised by an immediate and instinctive form of interaction with both canvas and the paint, in order to move the viewer’s eye away from preconceived notions on what art should be. Gerrit is able to create a deep connection between an internal and external dimension, between the self and the artworks where this dimension is becoming real and he’s investigating feelings and senses. His works are very powerful because they are able to give the exact same idea the artist had in his mind. We see a woman in a white dress. In the artist’s imagination she stands on the beach with a view of the vast sea with her thoughts lost on the horizon. She is so immersed in the hope of a positive future that her body no longer appears to be present.
Gerrit Hodemacher
That is why she has no obvious arms and legs. Only covered by her innocence (white dress) and her negative experiences (black hat) she is alone on the beautiful shore. A sudden gust of wind could make the black hat fly away but she keeps hold of it, she doesn’t let it go. In the second painting “Mailand Thug� the artist says that every beautiful story has a bad start. These evil beginnings have often left a terrible end before. It could be that something was taken away, someone lied to, someone illegally enriched, struck someone. Many things that are also assigned to gangsters. With this approach the artist is able to achieve a more immediate meaning of creating art, something that is similar to an unorganised powerful explosion of energy, a moment of liberation from the aesthetic moral and norm.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Gerrit Hodemacher
Thug
Gerrit Hodemacher
White Dress
Giada Lanz “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Giada Lanz, has Finnish origins and was born in Locarno, Switzerland. She attended the Academy of Art and Design in Finland and after returning to Switzerland, began to carry out restoration work on historical monuments. The passion for painting had a strong impact in her life, since that time she began to express her moods through art. Through the use of fluid painting, in particular acrylic and its various facets, each of her works reflects emotions and feelings in every detail. For her, art is not only a way of life but a real therapy for the soul and the heart. Fluid Art is a new contemporary art current that is spreading more and more in Italy. In practice, it is an innovative painting method that uses casting acrylic paint to create free forms of organic painting with rich and vibrant colors. Every mixed tone has its density. This causes the colors to move towards each other and to create models of cells of different sizes when they meet. They are unpredictable and give every work of art its charm. Giada, far from the preset patterns of figurative painting, gives herself completely to the art of the senses, listening to the gestures of painting. This, conceptually, could be called abstract art, but it is not so. It is an art without net signs, as its instability is nourished by changing and variable lines. A psychedelic masterpiece, made of a thousand reddish shades dampened by a decided black and white, in which the observer could get lost for hours. The combination of cold colors, chosen by the artist for the realization of her works, conveys uncontrollable emotions. Calm, rest, contemplation and a veil of melancholy are hidden behind these spots of color. Even the viola is very used by the artist and indicates a strong sense of royalty and decorum.
“There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Giada Lanz
Heart Beats Slow
Giada Lanz
Let The Wind Touch My Soul
Giada Lanz
My Mind Spinning Around
Gro Heining
The Norwegian artist Gro Heining works with many artistic techniques, from acrylic to oil pastels, watercolors to collages, both on paper and on canvas. All this unleashes her imagination, managing to forge a close bond with anyone who admires her artwork. Other than her native country, other fundamental places for her artistic experience are Santa Fe (New Mexico) and Andalusia (Spain): through different and colorful cultural scenarios, the artist returns to the principles of her own creativity, dealing with different light shades and landscapes. Nature is her first source of inspiration and meditation: painting connects to the elements and to the rhythm of nature, weaving hopes, dreams and visions into a picture. Exactly as in Tree of Life, where the immense tree and all the birds symbolize and emphasize at best the natural environment, which is pure and delicate. Elegant, majestic, luxuriant: this tree is a recurring symbol from ancient mythology: considered as a source of life, a place from which every living being originates. The three elements that make it up represent a different aspect of existence itself: the roots, firmly rooted, reach the soul of each individual; the trunk, solid and resistant, is supported by numerous branches; finally, the leaves and the precious fruits embody the people who accompany us on our journey. All this is replaced by the artist through the birds and their continuous flight, thus covering every single part of the tree, as it feeds all forms of life on the Earth. These birds, symbols of elevation and peace, represent our souls, motivating us to rise above daily life’s concerns, until we get to know the beauty of a spiritual kingdom. Crucial is the use of the color blue in all its nuances: it enhances the religious aspect of the subject, as well as designating a sense of royalty and sacredness. Moreover, the artwork reveals a sense of inner security, trust and relaxation, both physical and mental, where calm and order bring the observer’s journey through his own introspection.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Gro Heining
Tree of life
Harrison C. Ernst
Harrison C. Ernst is a young Finnish American artist who draws inspiration from two main themes: respect for the “process”, which is a concept based on a therapeutic flow of ideas, and the faculty of having a sense of rooted knowledge, namely the impression that a context must exist beyond the images presented. He manages to create a miscellany of ideas, between what he has learned during his course of studies in art history, cultural and religious subjects: in this way, he gives rise to a cohesion of languages, till to reach a personal artistic style. Imagination is crucial, through which concepts and inspirations are developed, to be recalled completing a work of art in the best possible way. One example is undoubtedly Pursuit of Sample Size: through a grey and totally neutral background, a series of mannequins emerge in the distance that perfectly blend themselves with the surrounding atmosphere. The only source of light and color is given by the red heart sewn onto each character. As if they were in a factory, the mannequins follow one another, until the one placed in the foreground loses its only source of life, before it finally turns into a finished object. With these subjects, which can be traced back to Giorgio De Chirico’s metaphysical painting, the so-called “loneliness of the mannequin” is emphasized, considered as a figure beyond human. Their nature is always suspended between time, being and not being. They are recognized as characters in human history and, for this reason, they are composed of matter as they were solid and polished statues immersed in an imaginary space. And just as in De Chirico’s concept of metaphysics, this subject returns as a dumb and disoriented, as a shadow without body. In their figures we can find the basic notions of the academic design of the human body, when we trace the shapes which will later serve as guidelines, before adding an individual characterization. The mannequin would therefore be the materialization of a sketch, the human figure reduced to its original form, to its essence, stripped of the inner identity. Through this work the artist re-elaborates in an original way the previous metaphysical painting and gives a very particular symbolic meaning to these objects, including them in a dreamlike and surreal space.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Harrison C. Ernst
Pursuit of Sample Size
Harry T. Burleigh
The figure of the naked (or of a veiled woman) has always had a prominent place in the history of art, a privileged treasure chest full of feelings and emotions from which representing new suggestions. Every work of art made by previous artists (such as Botticelli, Titian or Courbet) has allowed the observer to enter into the magical world of women, reversing and interpreting its reality, by emphasizing, through chromatic skills, carefree and youthful beauty, just as in the oil on canvas A Fetching Breeze of Harry T. Burleigh. In this painting shines the willingness of this contemporary artist to start painting without imagining the final result of an artwork, a process which results to be stimulating and relaxing. After having carefully selected the pigments and shades, he starts drawing some strokes on the canvas. Before continuing, the artist feels the need to pause himself to admire the work at its best, before it can materialize to his eyes. In this way, he understands where to apply the next brushstroke, until the image begins to take shape. The woman depicted, who is standing and in profile, seems to be in movement: she is about to turn towards the viewer to make him observe her veiled and so harmonious body, while a light spring breeze touches her, and it slightly waives and delicate hair. The delicacy of the skin can be painted with any shade; it is remarkable to note the representation of the young woman partially dressed, because through this detail, those who admire the work can remain more attracted by the transparency of the dress rather than by the very idea of nudity. To modestly mask the girl’s movements the artist uses the synergy of these warm and neutral nuances, the draping of the dress, up to the thick hair. The observer remains bewitched and intrigued by the graceful movements of the woman, triggering a multidimensional and sensorial effect.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Harry T. Burleigh
A Fetching Breeze
Helena Kaeris “All my paintings have a story to tell and when they are all placed together they tell a full story involving the workings of my heart” (Helena Kaeris)
This is how Helena Kaeris, a self-taught artist from Colorado (USA), defines her art. Her ability to involve the observer is incredibly unique, she captures the eyes and soul of the beholder. The work we see is like a painted poem. Her colorful abstraction accompanies us in the dreams that the artist wanted to represent. An intense unconscious journey that embraces the viewer. In the work “Perfectly Imperfect”, the artist manages to express the concept of perfection in the imperfection of life, opening the door in a natural way to her most hidden self, giving access to the deepest and highest part of herself. Through an acrylic painting she manages to create a “landscape of the heart”, real panoramas but painted as dreamlike, representing a real act of love for her land.
“Painting is stronger than me; it forces me to paint as it wants” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Helena Kaeris
Perfectly Imperfect
Henna Pajulammi “To draw, you must close your eyes and sing” (Pablo Picasso)
Henna Pajulammi is a self-taught Finnish artist. Painting remains one of her greatest passions even if in life she is a lawyer. Her work helps Henna think outside the box and the law gives her the inspiration and thrust she needs as an artist. During motherhood, the artistic energy, which she always knew she had, was freed. The colors exploded with an uncontrollable force and found an incredible joy when she finally had the time and space to let her creativity flow. So she started painting and hasn’t stopped since. Her inspiration comes from the contrasts she faces in everyday life. She paints abstract paintings with acrylics and mixed techniques. This gives her freedom and enough material to allow her imagination to emerge. She often begins her work with an idea that gradually changes according to the colors she chooses and that create energy, playing together and outside of each other. Henna’s creativity lies in the tones, voices and contrasts. Her paintings propose a cheerful palette that radiates the viewer transmitting positivity and love. “We are all connected” is a work of a disarming chromatic intensity. Each box has its own reason to be and perfectly joins with others, providing a homogenous vision. The geometric patterns designed by the artist are the subject of each panel that ideally refer to an experience, a moment, an important person for Henna. Each of it as a puzzle fits perfectly with the next piece and with the next one again and forms the picture. There’s always a story behind the painting and every color or geometry communicates something. Henna as an artist is, in fact, able to bring the different shades of humanity in her works from a completely unexpected perspective and to be discovered.
“It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Henna Pajulammi
We all are connected
Ilya Savelyev “What is now proved was once only imagined” (William Blake)
Ilya “why me?” Savelyev has shown interest in art since childhood. At the age of 14 he started working in the field of street art, but over time his passion became contemporary art, especially abstract art. In the figurative arts the concept of abstract takes on the meaning of «not real». Abstract art is therefore what does not represent reality, creating images that do not belong to the common visual experience. It seeks to express its contents in the free composition of lines, shapes and colours. The abstract, in this sense, was born at the beginning of this century. But it was already present on the oldest Greek vessels, or on medieval miniatures, just to give a few examples. In these cases, however, this figure had only one precise aesthetic purpose: that of decoration. The abstract art of this century, that is the one born with Kandinskij, has, instead, a completely different end: that of communication. He wants to express contents and meanings, without borrowing anything from existing images. From this moment on, the birth of abstractionism has the strength to unleash the imagination of many artists, who feel totally disconnected from the rules and conventions hitherto imposed on artistic work, like Ilya himself. The artist in the realization of his work focuses in particular on harmonious research. It is a work that stylistically is divided into two parts, whose sharp cut is rendered by the two colors in perfect contrast. The red at the top and the black at the bottom. The artist in the work “Zaragoza” chooses to proceed in a totally autonomous way with respect to the real forms, to search and find forms and images entirely unpublished, different from those that already exist and to give the viewer the task of freely interpreting what he is looking at.
“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible” (Jonathan Swift)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Ilya Savelyev
Zaragoza
Inesa Antanauskiene “The unconscious is a very important side of modern art and I think the unconscious drives do mean a lot in looking at paintings” (Jackson Pollock)
When art merges with poetry, the figure of Inesa Antanauskiene emerges. Lithuanian artist, Inesa, focuses on the use of acrylic colors, creating through decisive brushstrokes and strong moving shapes that seem to come out of the painting itself. The viewer is involved in the explosions of color that the artist manages to create through vertical and horizontal lines that pierce the canvas. In the work “Charmante”, Inesa represents an elegant bird with its head bowed that seems to be about to begin a sublime dance, a sinuous movement that sees its head stand out represented by the bright red color against the gray background. For Inesa, birds are true ambassadors of human feelings and these messages will be transported to other people in need of love and hope. Her paintings are nothing more than the transfer onto the canvas of what she sees: the beauty, the unique shapes and colors of nature. Nature is at the center of Inesa’s attention, which re-elaborates it in a completely personalized symbolist key.
“So then my brush goes between my fingers as if it were a bow on the violin, and absolutely for my pleasure” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Inesa Antanauskiene
Charmante
Jane Gottlieb
With her vibrant works, Jane Gottlieb introduces us to a Technicolor world of craziness and falsehood. Women with perfect and toothy grin and eyeless mannequins populate her works, both screaming emptiness under their surface. A world of vacuity, of no substance under the appearance. Gottlieb offers us a distorted reality, an artificial model of perfection and carefully crafted happiness. Nothing in her works could exist if not on paper. The colours shine with a saturation brought to the extreme, so vivid and fake in brightness that only digital can achieve. Capturing with force our attention, they end up confusing us with their excess. This is where otherwise normal poodles assume coloration they would never have in nature. As such, this fashion cut all its ties with anything that may still be natural. Taking from the psychedelic of the late Sixties and Seventies, it throws us into a crazy wonderland filled with tens of faceless copies. If fashion can give the chance to truly express the self, it can also force to hide to fit into the mass of thousands fashion-victims that by following the same model believe to satisfy a desperate need for acceptance and self-worth. Everyone obeys to the same rule and thus everyone is the same, a constant copy of the original idea. Far from enhancing the personality of each, different person, this fashion rules everyone into the same category, so much nothing else matters if not the dresses the mannequins are wearing. Eventually, even the dresses blend with an unreal background of geometric shape, underlying once more the inevitable end of absolute blend into a single mass. Impossible then to ignore the clear homage to Andy Warhol style, with Gottlieb’s painted dogs that we can easily imagine having just jumped out from one of Warhol’s serigraphy.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Jane Gottlieb
Doris Makes My Day
Jane Gottlieb
Mannequins with Blue
Jane Gottlieb
Mannequins with Orange
Janin Walter “Without atmosphere a painting is nothing“ (Rembrandt)
Janin Walter is an artist who lives and works in Berlin. After graduating in Architecture at TU Berlin, she has worked for several years as an urban designer in Holland and Switzerland, focusing especially on the research for new artistic methods to visualise spaces. In parallel she has also cultivated and developed her passion for painting and she is now part of the artist collective STUDIO BAUSTELLE. Janin’s creative investigation involves the impact that urban spaces and architecture have on humans and their perception of places. Every site, being it a narrow street or a wide ocean, a meadow or a particular structure, affects us and makes us feel in a certain way. The artist, through her glowing and vibrant canvases, explores the relationship between the external appearance and atmosphere belonging to a space and how each one of us perceives those, according to the peculiar experiences and feelings stored in our memory system. In other terms, the idea is to evaluate and express the influence that the external has on the internal dynamics.
Janin Walter
As a part of this process, Janin uses her own body by exposing herself to various locations and spots and by using meditation and intuition in order to connect with the spirit and the essence of them. This allows her to spontaneously interact with the things that surround her and to transfer these impressions and body reactions on a painting. The result, which often comes after months of adding new layers and elements, are dreamy and captivating abstract compositions made of instinctive and extemporary brush strokes, where the emotional and epidermic sensations become the key aspect. The intuitive painting action represents a criticism towards this rationally driven society in which every decision has to be made analytically to guarantee an effective outcome. The message that Janin’s works deliver is that our everyday challenge, as human beings, is to trust rather than trying to control everything and that life is a complex multifaceted universe determined by forces that sometimes cannot be dominated.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Janin Walter
Immunity
Janin Walter
You deserve it
Jessica D Perez
Visual artist Jessica D Perez, throughout her cosmopolitan upbringing and academic formation, keeps the constant of reflecting on her surroundings through her artistic nuance. This time, she dives into her work for a disciplinary project, choosing to canalize her creative flow into an ethical reflection and social homage. The ongoing pandemic from which the world has been challenging and shaking is the nerve centre of her new piece “Through Their Eyes”. “This composition is dedicated to all of the frontline, essential workers and witnesses of the COVID-19 Global pandemic. It is a tribute to The Mask Project, Art book being designed and built to honor everyone who does their part to keep each other safe. Images of real people in their masks, everyday lives or at work, showing the vibrancy of their eyes and documenting their stories, this project highlights the efforts of everyone” stated Jessica. A real artistic product often comes from an urgency to “say something”, and as the health urgency is occurring, Jessica, through her creative means and sensibility, feels the need to state something about it. Her artwork corroborates the primordial role of art in representing one of the most impactful mirrors for the human being’s social and historical context. “Through Their Eyes” is an honourable artistic piece that has the strength to sensibilize its spectators and to prompt a reflection on the current human condition. And this reflection is viscerally strengthened by those faces from different ethnic groups and ages, signifying the extensiveness of the same battle that synergically has been fighting worldwide. All the health workers at the same front, facing the same giant, invisible enemy. Moreover, the way in which gazes are composed could be compared to the cinematic technique of “camera look”, an almost interactive expedient that functions as a sympathetic element to involve viewers in the painting’s meaning. An unavoidable “eye contact” able to penetrate into our consciousnesses and that allow fantasizing about the stories and the daily efforts of the represented subjects. Chromatically, the choice of the light blue background serves precisely to stimulate a semiotics of meditation, receptive listening and introspective reflection. A light blue that at the same time is melted up with delicate shades of colours: green, pink, violet, reinforcing the multicultural and global aspect of our pandemic battle. “Dress me” with a mask states Jessica’s painting, a mask as the most precious protection we can use, symbol of a dystopian era we are all living in. “The world has witnessed deaths and the numbers keep going up, wearing a mask is a way to limit the spread of the virus”. The project made by Jessica is not merely a piece of art but it goes courageously further, going beyond the canvas dimension: “The project aims to provide an additional stream of financial encouragement to covid relief funds, starting with the pricing of this piece. As each death is counted, one cent is added to the price of the original artwork. With the sale of the artwork, 50% will go toward covid relief fund donations”.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Jessica D Perez
Through Their Eyes
Johann Neumayer
Johann Neumayer is an Austrian artist who realizes his works through the software Rhino 5: his projects fully follow contemporary vision of art. Digitally made, its three-dimensional models lend themselves to be 3D printed and become real sculptures. His projects start from cubes and then the emotions and intuitions allow the artist to create stunning images. Human figure is central to Neumayer’s work, in particular the artist focuses on the woman’s figure. His series “The space and dream imaging machine” features the female image: in the number 1 “Black” and in the number 3 “Blue”, the same two women meet and, for this reason, the two works can be interpreted as one the continuation of the other. In “N1-Black” the silhouettes of two women back to back blending together into one entity. This is evident in observing the rendering of the project, in which clearly distinguish two figures that will then unite in one form, merging with each other and thus remaining forever. This work is particularly suitable for 3D printing as the feeling of immobility is immediate, despite the two-dimensional view given by the screenshot. In “N3Blue” the same two women meet in a kiss. A set of lines and dots make up the two faces, made of a metallic blue that alludes to a smooth and cold material, on which any liquid would slip away without difficulty, just as they would with external judgments and criticism. The message of love and freedom of these two works is evident. A kind of love that knows no genre. They want to tell us that “Love is love”. In work “N2-Red” the subject and the framing are totally different. Human figures walk in the clouds. They seem to be floating in the air thanks to the shot set by the artist below their feet. The undisputed protagonists are red boots with heels. The choice of red color accentuates the message of sensuality that is perceived by observing the work and the men on their backs bring out the man’s feeling of powerlessness in the face of female strength. Neumayer’s works are the result of a collaboration between the artist, the designer, the software and the printer that become part of a single system, indispensable for the realization of the work.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Johann Neumayer
N1 black - The space and dream imaging machine
Johann Neumayer
N2 red - The space and dream imaging machine
Johann Neumayer
N3 blue - The space and dream imaging machine
John Bacon
Abstract art is able to give a concrete representation of human emotions and feelings. The American artist John Bacon has found precisely in abstract expression the means to communicate himself and what he wants to convey through his unique art. In fact, he creates works of art in which colors, lines and shapes interact with the viewer. The works chosen for this event almost seem to tell a story. In the work entitled “Getting Together” the chromatic choice of colors with soft shades and the sinuosity of the shapes, that characterize John’s works, tells the sense of serenity and joy of being in the company of the person you love. That love and well-being that almost lead to melting completely in the other person, as we see in the work entitled “Loving You”. Here the two faces and the two bodies of the lovers really seem to merge in colors and lines. However, the faces just mentioned are able, especially through smiling eyes and lips, to express the joy of loving each other. Then the two works “That Which Connects Us” and “That Which Separates Us”, as the titles themselves suggest, contrast significantly in the choice of colors and composition. In the first we can observe numerous lines that intersect with each other, very intense and sometimes even dark colors, because what connects two people is what unites them more and more and makes their relationship more and more intense. Instead the second work has much brighter colors but clearly separated from each other in large forms, because often what separates people is what stands out most at first glance and that divides them inexorably. The last work is instead a truly immediate representation of a state of mind of restlessness and disorientation, “Distraught”. John manages to depict on the canvas the state of chaos and disturbance that being upset by a situation or event causes within each of us. The observer cannot help but identify with what he sees, he also is shocked by the relevance to the reality of the emotion.
“The abstract has always been more impressive to me than the concrete” (Fernando Pessoa)
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
John Bacon
Distraught
John Bacon
Getting Together
John Bacon
Loving You
John Bacon
That Which Connects Us
John Bacon
That Which Separates Us
John Moro “The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart.” (from the film Metropolis)
Maschinenmensch is a pictorial version of the female android from the film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang. German expressionist drama dated 1927, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of the main characters Freder and Maria to free the working-class confined underground thanks to the invention of a human-looking android. Just like the android of the film, Maschinenmensch by John Moro contains in itself the two natures, the masculine one (as it implies the title, literally “man-machine”) and the feminine one, expressed by a warm and bright palette. This original work on paper takes possession of the minimalist design of film, combining it with a use of the colour intentionally reminding the artistic Avantgarde, one of the main inspirational sources of the artist. Inspired by the film message, John invites us to better understand ourselves and our wish of freedom, making us aware of the importance of life and especially of art in our lives.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
John Moro
Maschinenmensch
Kamonpoi “Everything you can imagine is real” (Pablo Picasso)
Kamonpoi, is a Japanese artist whose name comes from a nickname of when he was a student. His artistic research comes to life from a technique widely used in art, collage. The term comes from the French coller, gluing, and consists in producing works on different supports -, with materials such as paper, first of all - of all types. This possible material multitude is, in fact, glued. The process gives body to compositions of various nature and unplugged, to use a term dear to musicians that makes the concept perfectly. The rendering of the final image can be both figurative and abstract. The genesis of the collage has distant origins but they were the protagonists of visual experimentation that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, resumed the collage inserting it in its expressive language: Braque and Picasso, the Futurists, Dada, Bauhaus, the Russian Avant-garde. Some, also welcomed Photography as a weapon not only creative but also social denunciation. Kamonpoi, perfectly in line with this thought, draws on notebooks, notebooks, envelopes, food boxes, paper bags, post-it. Use ballpoint pens, fluorescent markers, colored pencils. His collage works are characterized by stain, gluing, detaching parts, drawing and painting images. Its main theme is “Bure” (in English, “Shake”). “Bure” indicates a subject, whose initial idea changes along the way. The choice of the theme has a logical enough purpose for the artist and that is to demonstrate how every human being in front of the creative act is inconsistent with his thoughts. “Pastel puke” is abstraction and figuration with a strong taste of life that remains entangled in cards and cut cards. A work with a vintage appearance that also has to do with time.
“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it” (Sigmund Freud)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Kamonpoi
Pastel puke
Kana Hawa “Art is, now, mainly a form of thiniking” (Susan Sontag)
Kana Hawa is a young Japanese artist who expresses his creativity through the use of an app that allows him to reflect his imaginary world and to amplify it. This artist is the proof of how technology changed radically a subject such as painting and drawing and how his works become a virtual reality. We could consider him the pixel painter. He found a way to discover a new wave of surrealism, metaphysics, of a fantasy realm. Painting implies the addition of textures and colours to create the painting, with digital art it is possible to add or eliminate images entirely or partially. For every digital painting software everything starts with a blank canvas and a vaste color palette where the key ingredient, like in every other art form, is creativity. Art nowadays can be considered the same as in the past years, the only thing that changes is the means of communication; it reflects a degree of continuity with futurisms, constructivism and cinetic art. This is an exclusive language that the artist is using in order to create “virtual” works where those artworks are within the reach of all, not just exclusive to the artist, where intentions are created based on the artist’s thoughts. Kana’ s artworks allow us to explore new horizons with a different perception and vision.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Kana Hawa
8:16
Kana Hawa
Garbage
Kana Hawa
Old tale
Karianne Hamel
Karianne Hamel is a Canadian artist who combines pouring technique with geometry. The artist wisely combines these two opposite worlds: the dynamism of fluid color and the staticity of geometric lines. The most striking example is the work entitled “Crossroad” in which the encounter between these two different worlds creates a strong contrast that defies the rules of visual coherence. The viewers’ eyes continue to move between the fluid subject in the center and the geometric lines surround it, creating a feeling of disorientation. This feeling is confirmed by the title of the work that tells us that we are in the presence of an emotional crossroad. The life of each one of us is based on choices that will lead to consequences, positive or not. Faced with a choice, the human mind begins to work intensely with the aim of arriving at a final decision. The same thing happens in observing the work of Hamel, we ask ourselves: “Should I look at the lines or the fluid colors?”. But, after a prolonged view of the work, our mind begins to calm down and to let itself be guided by heart and by the feelings that the work infuses in us. The feeling of calm that the work transmits is given by the clever combination of colors that Hamel makes: red, gold, blue and green perfectly blend into an abstract figure that recreates the shape of the human heart. Hamel, therefore, through an interplay of contrasts and abstract forms, manages to convey the message in which she believes strongly: “Listen to your heart because it will always know which is the right direction”.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Karianne Hamel
Crossroad
Kasey Simmons
Miss Simmons’ piece breaks conventions. With her digital skills, she presents two faceless figures sitting on a wall she calls “The wall that defines us”. From a Westerner point of view it is easy to understand the wall and its significance. For the last two centuries society has come to teach us some types of clothing are meant for men, others - for women. It claims it is a universal and eternal truth, ignoring how it is not only geographically limited but also relatively recent. The social norm is indeed nothing but a construct and fashion has always been the place where constructs are meant to be broken. It is the unexpected, the choices that cause ruckus. This is how Miss Simmons’ male figure embraces traditional femininity, just as her female figure acts in a stereotypically mannish way. It is the artist to tell us who the man and who the woman are supposed to be, but the anonymity of their faces, along with their similar built, leaves the viewer to see in the painting what they feel most is the closest to the story they want to create. Still, in our interpretation, it is hard to not return to the simplest answer: a man decided to wear a gown. Shedding all imposition of toxic masculinity, he sits prettily with hands folded in his lap like we would imagine a girl wellraised. Almost mirroring him, in the fiction of art, the woman demands the same space the world often denies her. No more sitting properly, no more need to close her legs to avoid unpleasant consequences, she male-spreads and she fully challenges the viewer with her overpowering presence. The juxtaposition is in their poses as well as their colours: the aggressive and serious blacks and grey for the woman, and soft pastels for the man. Art reveals what we really are and switches the roles in the fairy tale. It has to be noted our characters are sitting on the wall covered in roses and thorns. It must still be uncomfortable, just as the wall is still there. Conquered, but not completely surpassed. We have taken the first step, we made our first attempt to change the perspective but the wall reminds us the road to complete freedom is still long.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Kasey Simmons
Sitting on the Walls That Define Us
Ketil Eriksen
Ketil Eriksen is a Danish artist who draws inspiration from colors, shapes and nature. Admiring his works we are faced with splashes of color resulting from an energy charge. Eriksen’s technique undoubtedly refers to dripping, a pictorial technique of action painting, used mainly by Jackson Pollock in the 1950s. Unlike Pollock, who uses a large amount of colors and fills the entire canvas, Eriksen uses in small quantities only two colors, leaving plenty of white space on the canvas. The use of the white background creates a sharp contrast with the black, the color preferred by Eriksen, which combines a second color, often primary. In the case of the canvas “Fluctuations” black splashes are accompanied by small red flows. It’s interesting to note that through an abstract canvas, the human mind starts to race between the lines and trying somehow to find a sense, a form that comes close to reality. Here, what strikes the eye is a woman’s face in the center of the canvas: her eyes are closed and a drop of red creates her lips, she wears a high pointy hat and she seems to be thinking. Eriksen therefore creates a canvas that can make the viewer reflect, especially thanks to the wise choice of the white background: it creates a void that the human mind unintentionally wants to fill. His art is meditation, not surprisingly the white background and black features refer to the Zen calligraphic art practiced by Japanese Buddhist monks who used art as a tool to seek the awakening and the true nature of reality.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Ketil Eriksen
Fluctuations
Ksenia Kotova
Ksenia Kotova is a Russian artist with a solid background in Design, a field in which she has the opportunity to study in different Institutes: Moscow, Rome, Milan. Throughout her upbringing and education she left her hometown (Moscow) to travel, looking for a human and cultural corroboration and, more in general, for the ideal urban environment that would spark lively her creativity. After an experience across the ocean and in Northern Europe, she decided to settle in Italy between Rome and Milan, capitals of cultural heritage, history but also design and fashion. Milano is the city that consecrated Ksenia’s curiosity for fashion, in its research and study of beauty, colours and shapes. Besides the constant artistic stimuli, Ksenia embraced the Italian lifestyle, being able to bring on her virtual canvas (as she often creates digital drawings) this encounter and synthesis of her biggest passions: fashion, Italian lifestyle and, of course, art. “Oh Positano” is exactly the artist’s conscious result and creative culmination. In the artwork we see a graceful young woman enjoying her lunch and glass of white wine surrounded by the breath-taking view of Positano - a village on the Amalfi Coast. The use of colours is balanced and faithful to reality, while being at the same time very bright and captivating. French director Jean-Luc Godard talked about how creativity is the ability to connect things we love and to synthesise them in a personal way: “It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to”. Ksenia’s poetics is exactly her capability to have melt in a unique style, elegant and immediate, what she loves and investigates the most: all her life experience, cultural enthusiasm and dedication for fashion and design.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Ksenia Kotova
Oh Positano!
Lena Snow
A layer of crisp, wavy and transparent plastic covers Lena Snow’s multi-technique piece. Plastic thus creates a barrier between us and the painting underneath, preventing the viewer from touching it directly. It is a protection meant to immortalise the art from the dirty, imperfect human world. Plastic also represents eternity. Most of all, in Snow’s work, the material is everything artificial, a fabricated world that does not exist if it is not created. It is indeed a divide between what is human, limited, flawed, and the unattainable idea of eternal beauty and youth. Outside there are roughness and struggles, inside the smooth and crystallized perfection. Plastic is like the frosted glass of a pastry shop and we are the kids who can only take a glimpse through the dream without reaching it, as the barrier prevents us from ever finding a way to the other side. It is a dream and as such it cannot exist in the realm of reality. In Miss Snow’s words, the piece is to represent a specific dream, one that thousands of little girls have had at least once. It is the dream of being the beautiful princess, the centre of all attention, and to dance till the next morning amidst the glitz and glamour. The flowing, floor-length gown speaks of richness, with its golds and bronzes and the metres upon metres of fabric. It is a beautiful, perfect fantasy and yet something feels off. On closer inspection, it begins to become almost a nightmare. The woman is living her dream but there is no one with her with whom to share it, no one to take her hand to lead her to the dance floor. She wears an expensive gown and yet her forced pose suggests insecurity, like the dress is only a mask to hide her true and fragile self. It is curious how the figure has no face or a striking form, as she turns her back on us. Similarly to the fashion industry, where often the models’ identity loses importance in respect to the dresses they wear. Then, not only the woman is alone, but she is in an almost barren landscape, her against a background of concrete, lifeless grey. The chandelier suggests we are inside a building, a palace probably but it feels like a prison. It is a splendid isolation, a gilded cage. Finally, the colour of the dress also reminds of fire, a sparkling Phoenix rising from the ashes. The fire can be warm as much as it can be dangerous, burning and consuming, rather than giving life.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Lena Snow
Plastic Princess
Leni Acosta Knight “Fear is nowhere more evident than in the aisle of bathroom supplies” (Leni Acosta Knight)
Leni Acosta Knight is a symbolist artist based in Honolulu. Just like a symbolist poet, rather than directly showing, she offers to the viewer the necessary silence to indulge in his own imagination and emotion. Her artwork Are We There yet? is part of the “Lockdown Series” and faces with irony one of the psychosis that has marked these dark times: the rush to compulsive accumulation of essential goods. In this funny but at the same time revealing painting, the toilet paper becomes the symbol of a need, the need to hold on to something that gives us a sense of security, a kind of symbolic safety blanket. In spite of the use of a so personal object, the presence of elements like the flowers all around the mirror or the woman in evening dress who elegantly unfurls one of the toilet paper rolls give to the composition a refined tone and reveal Leni’s ability to combine perfectly classical realism and abstract expressionism.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Leni Acosta Knight
Are We There Yet?
Lika Ramati
Lika Ramati presents us a plethora of young women through an intense variety of mediums, each with their own story. From paint so thick it accumulates on the canvas to photography to collage and mixed-media, we are presented each time with a woman dominating her own space. They are the absolute protagonists and every other presence is banned from their dominion. Transported into a reality of their own volition, they exist outside of the world, extrapolated from their own original setting to be inserted into a new space. There are hints of Orthodox iconography in some of her works, her women with a halo of divinity in them. To try and find a file-rouge would almost mean detracting from their individuality. With her vast experience, Ramati does not shy from experimenting, pushing the limits of banality, finding new voices and refusing the constant repetition of the same model. There a woman takes life in old-fashion paint, watching directly the viewer, she challenges us with a shadow of enigmatic smile on her perfectly painted lips. A beauty from another era, she seems to have a secret she will never share. The vase of red flowers balances the space and calls back to a classic femininity while threads of pearls signifies her power and richness. Another prefers to shy away, blending with the gold and black of her background, a spirit of Spring, a new nymph of Art Nouveau. Some women pose with pride, emerging from a wall of gold like a new iconography, a modern Saint completed with a jewelled crown and halo. Old and modern find a new union in a figure accepting and expecting the veneration we see represented by the two hands raised in prayer. Some others instead retract from the viewer, arms crossed in protection and eyes glancing aside in indifference, mysterious as the night they wear. Ramati challenges the definition of woman, mixing her into a new hybrid, a modern Black Swan with wings spread and open to fly. There is indeed a constant duality in Ramati womanhood, how empowerment can be found by various means. For some is modesty and embracing their natural beauty, for others is enhancing it with makeup. Some ask for privacy, others are at ease as the centre of attention. Thus showing or hiding are not an opposition of a right and a wrong way, but simply possibilities, both equally important, women are offered to find their own freedom and self-realization. Ramati shows us the lie of the single road and invites us to explore, to experiment and to find the answer that better fits our own needs.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Lika Ramati
Exotic Bird
Lika Ramati
Fashion Democracy
Lika Ramati
Gabrielle
Lika Ramati
Head of Roses
Lika Ramati
Transparency in Gold
Lucinda Bryan “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser” (John W. Gardner)
Lucinda Bryan, after a long career in fashion, chose to devote herself to art. She is a self-taught artist who mainly works with acrylics. She attended the Gage Academy of Art and specialized in drawing, painting and sculpture. Her current work has focused on the very special historical period of the pandemic. A difficult period that has put people and things to the test. A parenthesis of extreme loneliness, melancholy and sadness. These are the themes on which the artist investigated and experimented with her painting, working with her imagination. Her works of intense blue are inspired by Toulouse Lautrec, Jean Cocteau, Matisse, Richard Diebenkorn and Helen Frankenthaler and many other European cultures. The blue color, with all its variations and shades, continues today to be one of the most favorite on the color wheel. Blue is considered the most noble of all and is a metaphor for spirituality and transcendence. This is considered the color of silence and tranquility, tenderness and contemplation. In wall painting blue was generally used for backgrounds, with the same symbolic value that gold had on the table. Marc Chagall managed to make blue a boundless color through his enigmatic paintings, Yves Klein, patented his own pigment, Pablo Picasso had his “blue period”. Contemporary artists continue, even today, to experience the uses of color, adding a rich history of vibrant blues to those that already exist. In her works Lucinda, through the choice and use of this colour, so important for the history of art, intends to provide the viewer with a sentimental dimension, that looks in the face of reality and suffering. Her images are full of sadness, accentuated by cold tones and abstract brushstrokes. For the artist this represents a metaphysical color, which unlike red, of which it is the antithesis, is linked to the reflective and meditative states of the human being. For Lucinda dreaming of the color blue, then refers to the unconscious depths and inner contact, through which you can soar to the sky and think of the immensity, eternity, infinity.
“Freely exercise one’s genius, here is the real happiness” (Aristotele)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Lucinda Bryan
Shelter in place 1
Lucinda Bryan
Shelter in place 2
Lucinda Bryan
Shelter in place 3
Luigi Carriero
An exploration of identity and duality abounds in the work of Italian artist Luigi Carriero. In Dunce Hat, the artist draws inspiration from Francisco de Goya’s The Inquisition Tribunal in which individuals accused of heresy are forced to wear a tall, pointed coroza, popularly known as a dunce hat, and stand in front of a tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition. In Carriero’s contemporary work, the accused becomes a shadowy female figure donning the same style of hat. Whilst the contextual cultural, societal, and political norms have shifted from the early nineteenth century to the present day, the dunce hat remains synonymous with shame, exclusion, and otherness. Juxtaposed against a sea of black and the ephemeral white of the female’s face, the lucid green dunce hat holds the viewer’s gaze and takes on the competing role of accessory and label, becoming both a way of adorning, and branding, the nameless figure. This duality extends to the viewer, simultaneously an observer and an inquisitor, intruding on the personal world of the woman - eyes closed and pensive - making the private public, and forcing us to confront our own notions of judgement, guilt, and perception.
Bianca Brigitte Bonomi, Editor in Chief of Harper’s Bazaar Qatar, Grazia Qatar, Esquire Qatar
Luigi Carriero
Dunce hat
Luigi Marsero “Our imagination flies – we are its shadow on the earth” (Vladimir Nabokov) Luigi Marsero, is a young Italian artist from Piedmont. At only 14 years old he presents himself with a curious and determined personality. He loves abstract and baroque art, photography and all that is creative. His artistic nature prefers in a decisive form abstract art. An art free from preset patterns, capable of transmitting a strong emotion. Each abstract work is, in fact, the inner mirror of each artist, presenting different peculiarities. Modern abstractism is based on the liberation of lines, shapes and colours, and no longer on a real representation of objects, figures and landscapes. In a certain sense, abstract artists use an approach similar to scientific: they break down perceptual experience into its essential elements, allowing us to better understand it. In other words, with the development of abstract art, artists have, in a sense, allied themselves with scientists. On the other hand, as Mark Rothko said: “A painting is not the image of an experience. It is an experience”. Vasily Kandinskij was interested in the analogy between art and music influenced by Arnold Schönberg, who had introduced a new conception of harmony. The Russian artist had guessed that it was not necessary to represent exactly what he saw, but what he felt, since the observer would associate these signs, symbols and colors to images, ideas, events and emotions evoked by memory. Luigi Marsero studied the arts of the past, in particular inspired by Kandinskij and Mondrian; taking from the first the dynamism and three-dimensionality, from the second his ability to fill the picture with lines and colors. The Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, influenced by Cezanne and analytical cubism, came to the idea that all natural forms could be reduced to cube, cone and sphere. He developed a new language of art based on simple geometric shapes, reducing color to the minimum terms (red, yellow and blue), building the essence of the image and freeing it from the content without affecting the viewer, Instead, he was free to build his own perception of the image. “Galà Surrealistico” synthesizes the emotions, imagination and creativity of abstract art. A work that deserves not only to be looked at but also to be perceived. An action that requires the spectator to participate actively in the post-creative phase. The work tells a moment of popular life, depicting a Sunday dance, in which the various figures that populate the scene are cheerful, carefree, and are completely overwhelmed by the emotions and joie de vivre, enjoying the sun of a spring afternoon, and the suspended time of being together.
“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked, why not?” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Luigi Marsero
GalĂ surrealistico
Luisa Barba
Luisa Barba is a Spanish artist, born in Barcelona, with a strong passion for art in all its forms. Her first steps as a painter are rooted in her childhood. Indeed, she began to paint with her father José Mª Barba Albiñana who was also an excellent artist. In her paintings, through the use of different shades of the same color, the artist represents a single subject managing to convey all the hidden spirituality apparently undetectable to the spectator eye. In order to do so, the painter tries to direct the viewer’s gaze towards a certain element of the painting that represents the “studium” of the work itself. Recognizing the “studium”, as Barthes suggests, basically means to coincide with the intentions of the artist, to enter into harmony with them, approve them, disapprove of them, but always understand them.
Luisa Barba
In Barba’s artwork “The”, the energy of the painting is embedded in the eyes of the depicted subject. In order to do so, the artist uses a color which is in contrast but at the same time in perfect harmony with all the other several shades of the predominant color of the painting. This particular attention of the artist towards this element seems to support the quote by Paulo Coelho according to which “the eyes are the mirror of the soul and reflect everything that seems to be hidden; and like a mirror, they also reflect the person looking into them”. Thus, the artist then finds in the painting and in the details the most sublime form of communication and the best way to create empathy with anyone who is observing her art.
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Luisa Barba
Abstract name
Luisa Barba
The
Luz Sanchez “A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” (Paul Cezanne)
The artist Luz Sanchez was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1950. Her passion towards art began to manifest at a really young age. Through the use of different colors and, especially, through the representation of the feminine body movements and facial expressions, the artist manages to convey to the viewer different solid and specific emotions. Every brushstroke, therefore, is intended to deepen that specific feeling that the artist is intended to represent. In “Exoticas”, the bright colors used by the painter automatically surround the painting with a positive aura and emphasize the feeling of serenity radiating from the portrayed subjects.
Luz Sanchez
In “Recuerdo” and “Vestida para soñar”, conversely, the atmosphere is darkened by warmer colors and lonesome settings. In both paintings, the represented women are in a state of emotional overwhelm, being completely alienated and submerged by their thoughts. Their body becomes the natural representation of their inner self and every movement is in perfect harmony with th eir flow of consciousness. In this way, the artist wishes to start a mechanism that gives life to an intimate dialogue between the subject and the viewer, bringing him to relive that specific feeling that dominated the creative process and, therefore, inspired the singularity of each technical and stylistic choice.
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Luz Sanchez
Exoticas
Luz Sanchez
Recuerdo
Luz Sanchez
Vestida para soĂąar
Luz Sanchez
Vistiendo la primavera
Maaria Rinta-aho “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Maaria Rinta-Aho is a self-taught Finnish abstract artist. She is an emotional art, whose most intimate feelings emerge on the canvas. She loves the absence of rules and the feeling of freedom. An almost childish excitement she feels every time she starts painting a new work. Vasily Kandinskij, in his first watercolor, voluntarily decides to eliminate any reference to the physical world. The lines, the spots and the marks represent only themselves. This artistic genre is called non-figurative or abstract and was born in 1910. Kandinskij himself created his own language by writing essays on his creative poetics. From then on, the artist begins his search for abstract figuration. An investigation not exclusively linked to a formal intention of linguistic renewal. His intent is, in fact, more to communicate moods and emotions using colors, lines, points and spots, organized in a harmonious way and according to a musical principle. Maaria Rinta-Aho, on the study of the Russian artist, brings on the canvas of “Dive right into the Depths of your Mind” feeling and inner strength and urges the observer to literally dive into their own mind. The surface of the work is entirely occupied by blue and pink spots. Some of them are more full-bodied and attract attention, anchoring the composition to itself. The most intense blue spots integrate with lighter marks and spots to form an agglomerate of color. Since no figurative element of the real world is verifiable, it is the arrangement of the signs that gives meaning to the composition, where the harmonization of the shades of colors creates on the two-dimensional plane the work.
“The power of imagination makes us infinite” (John Muir)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Maaria Rinta-aho
Dive right into the Dephts of your Mind
Madlen Wróbel “Being a woman is so fascinating. It is an adventure that requires such courage, a challenge that is never boring.” (Oriana Fallaci)
The woman is perhaps one of the most represented subjects in the history of art. In fact, portraits of women are present in every era and artistic current. Every artist of the past has portrayed the face of a woman for commission or for pleasure. A young woman is also the protagonist of the work entitled “Modern Rusalka” by the artist Madlen Wrobel. The artist presents a photographic shot with a very modern cut, with an aesthetic with attention to the smallest detail. Black and white predominate throughout the composition, making the atmosphere melancholy, but at the same time immersive. It is the light itself that emphasizes this chromatic choice, because there are surfaces completely in shadow and surfaces completely illuminated. The shadows stand long and dark on the floor. Even the choice of inserting the figure of the dog is very evocative of numerous portraits created throughout the history of art, because it has always been seen as a symbol of fidelity. The leading figure “Rusalka” captures all the attention thanks to the only touch of bright color in the shot, the fuchsia of the lips. The extremely minimalist environment in which it is inserted, the collected position and the closed eyes suggest an idea of peace, as if Rusalka had estranged herself from everything to enter a dream world, which the painting behind her can suggest. As the actors alone on a stage, with very few props, with an important meaning for the character, expose their inner soliloquy to the audience, illuminated by a faint light, so Rusalka reflects within herself and closing her eyes speaks to her “I” more intimate. We can only be admired for observing it.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Madlen Wrรณbel
Modern Rusalka
Malgorzata Palczewska “Action is the foundational key to all success” (Pablo Picasso)
Malgorzata Palczewska is a Polish artist and architect, who since childhood has shown love for drawing and painting. Through art she expresses everything that contains beauty, experiments colors, lines and different pictorial techniques. For the artist the elegance of the object is noticed at first glance, but a closer look reveals a weave of thin lines and details. Malgorzata is a versatile artist and one of her most used techniques is painting by combining different lines and colors. Her poetics are based on abstract art, through which she elaborates images and forms. In “Please dress me” she combines feeling, seduction and elegance. The artist, inspired by the theme of the exhibition, paints a naked body, from behind. Nudity in art is the only theme that has accompanied us since the very beginning, since the dawn of civilization. With the twentieth century we think of Helmut Newton, with his particular style characterized by glossy eroticism, or David la Chapelle photographer of the dream, the bizarre if not the excess. After all, the nude is the image we have of ourselves, the experience of our body projected to the outside, so it is certainly very immediate and natural. The nude is definitively affirmed in the nineteenth century, when it no longer needs a moral or historical-mythological justification. Paintings such as Manet’s Olympia, Courbet’s Origin du Monde, and the birth of photography and Eadweard Muybridge’s various nude experiments opened up new horizons. In this contest the painting “Please dress me” in which we can see how the woman’s body appears linear, covering the entire width of the canvas, from left to right. The figure is of shoulders, stretched on one side, in a sort of ordinary but elegant pose, wrapped in a veil of mystery. The woman’s face is not depicted, as if to affirm that the same is not a fundamental element in the painting. The shapes of the figure are wide, soft, delicate and sinuous, especially on the back and in the area of the pelvis, intentionally highlighted as evidence of femininity and sensuality. This gives the image a strong vibrant character. The light seems fragmented in a thousand flashes that on the skin of the woman are rendered through infinite filaments of pure color, approached one to the other in line with the abstract pictorial technique.
“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint” (Edward Hopper)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Malgorzata Palczewska
Please Dress Me
Manuela Moldovan
The artist Manuela Moldovan explores new artistic techniques by inspiring herself to nature. She unites materials as the oil painting, the cold cere, the alcoholic ink and the acrylic, or even elements as the sand and the carbon, by using the originality of the photos’ collage technique or of the tissues based on supports, which are every time always different. The surrounding environment’s beauty attracts the artist to such an extent that she creates new compositions based on a flower and naturalist theme, through those the life and the energy emerge inside the artwork itself. As in My Fantasy Forest, the artist intertwines her vivid passion with the color emphasis and the picture verticality. This artwork opens up the door to a new ideal world, where the forest could represent a place for leisure and adventure or being the center of the supernatural. Through these so bright tones, made possible by using the green as the main color on the canvas, the artist invites the observer to leave aside all the concerns, in the search for a flourishing and prosperous life where the imagination becomes the so-called “turning point”, that essential element which triggers the dreams, capable of making them endless. The background remains neutral, by linking this nuance to the central forest, emphasizing it even more. For this reason, by simulating long, substantial and swirling brushstrokes overlapped one another, the artist gives an extreme strength and dynamism to the whole picture. Their movement originates from the bottom up, as if they are eager to reach and connect with the divine and the supernatural.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Manuela Moldovan
My Fantasy Forest
Mar de Color
The Spanish artist Mar has translated her desire to change the world into artworks, her work is born from research, both artistic and personal. In the work, a large triptych makes the strong elements of nature protagonists, one the opposite of the other: fire and water. A real genesis, it seems to be enveloped by nothing and to witness the exact moment in which water and fire meet, only them hanging in the void. Her work is silence, it is waiting, the elements that move emit a sound but appear suspended and distant, Mar has created a balance and harmony that touch the sublime. In all ages, men have turned their thoughts and attention to natural elements, often artists have given a face and human characteristics, Brueghel was a master. In the case of the Spanish artist, her work is of abstract origin, where color is the undisputed protagonist, it becomes the means to express the energy released by the power of water and fire, a color that finds no boundaries since it is not delimited by lines of outline just as the great abstract masters teach. After all, the first completed work is a watercolor by the artistic genius Kandinsky. Mar’s work is the condensation of forces of nature and essential ties, although different and opposite, certain elements cannot do without each other.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Mar de Color
Fuego
Mar de Color
Fuego y Agua
Mar de Color
Agua
Maria Adorelle “Love is not just a feeling, it is an art. And, like any art, inspiration is not enough, it also takes a lot of effort” (Paulo Coelho)
In the works of Maria Adorelle, an artist originally from Stockholm, acrylic colors are a conscious and successful choice; she vents all her creativity by testing and combining every possible technique, creating images with bright colors, which represent a sense of denunciation towards society. In the work “Dress me out of love”, Maria represents on a fiery red background, a symbol of passionate love, a bed of busts of mannequins abandoned here and there and on one side of the painting a sweet female figure in a seated profile. The scene is dominated by a phrase “Dress me out of love”, a predominant yellow writing that stands out throughout the painting. Maria’s work has an evident symbolic message; for Maria in fact every woman does not need any type of high fashion, precious dress, or any kind of accessory beyond the love that one needs to face the world. The acrylics in this case give a strong and violent aspect, the figures are characterized by simple, clean and well-defined lines, but at the same time an explicit message goes straight to the heart of the viewer. The artist remains minimal in the representation of the images but offering a message full of emotions of positive values.
“Dress me with a kiss, it’s the only thing I need to face the world. Your love, an armor: only you and me will know it” (Saša Pavček)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Maria Adorelle
Dress Me Out Of Love
Maria Burberry
Through this artwork entitled Magic, the artist Maria Burberry captures all the seductive spontaneity of a young woman, fascinating and mysterious. It is interesting that, during the making of the painting, a little bird got into from the window of the artist’s studio: one can admire several lines on her collar, and these are the marks drawn by its wings on the surface still wet. Maria Burberry did not modify those marks, and this is also a significant and gripping element within the work. As far as this representation is concerned, the artist decides to capture a fleeting young woman as if she was a snapshot: this is a quick moment in the scene which encompasses both elegance and a sense of female independence and emancipation, elements that emerge from the painting. This portrait focuses both on the attention for every decorative detail, from the large hat to the long cloak, and on the choice of shades to be used: black and purple that turn into pink recall that halo of mystery in which the canvas is enclosed. Even if the eyes are not visible, the observer can admire a penetrating gaze, strengthened by the red lips that stand out despite the wide hat, enabling the character to be depicted in a close-up and half bust. The figure is predominant with respect to the background, which is perfectly linked to the young woman’s nuances. Through her stylistic research, Maria Burberry manages to harmonize the combination of rounded lines with a daring symphony of colors. The exciting and intimate humanity of this mysterious face is pervaded by an inner light that makes the painting even more intense. By interpreting the Belle Époque period at its best, the attention to one’s image emphasizes the beauty of being a woman, where art and fashion are closely linked.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Maria Burberry
Magic
Maria Bychkova
The works of Maria Bychkova, a Russian artist living in Sweden, exude mystery. Her choice to use black backgrounds amplify this first feeling and intrigue viewers, prompting them to investigate the drama that emerges from her works. The figure of the woman is central to the art of Maria. Each of her paintings has a female protagonist and in each of them is exalted a different aspect of the female world. In the case of the work “Here comes Alice” a woman in profile occupies almost all the canvas. She lays the weight of her head on her hand, in a position of thought. The melancholy of the woman is evident and is even more accentuated by the far-out look in her eye. The woman’s white skin makes her look like a ghost trapped in limbo where evil, represented by black on the right, and good, represented by light on the left, coexist. The choice to use pearl white for the faces is repeated in the paintings of Bychkova, fueling the aura of mystery that her works instil. “Into the unknown” is another example of how the woman seems to belong to the spirit world but at the same time exalts the feminine sensuality, placing the subject of shoulders with the face turned upwards and the mouth ajar. The most interesting work is “Lilith”, consisting of eight panels in which the central one shows the face of a woman. The black background, which once again dominates the work, is dotted with delicate colorful flowers and small fish, alluding to an aquatic environment. The water is also evoked by the delicate and sinuous blue brushstrokes that surround the subjects and the black of the background indicates that we are in the presence of deep waters. From the latter emerges Lilith, almost trapped by the darkness of the magical waters. The title clearly informs us about the identity of the subject: she is the first wife of Adam who escaped from Eden because she pretended to have the same privileges as her spouse. Lilith represents the desire for equality between man and woman and the desire for freedom and free will. She then became a demon and mother of all demons. The personality of this biblical character is best represented by the artist: the gaze is decisive and obscure, it embodies the determination of women, their power and freedom. Artis’s figurative ability combined with the impressionistic instinctive brushstrokes that surround the work, give life to unique paintings with a strong dramatic charge. Each work through pathos tells a mystery that has yet to be revealed.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Maria Bychkova
Here comes Alice
Maria Bychkova
Into the unknown
Maria Bychkova
Lilith
Maria Redrick “A person is a collage of people warring to become a portrait” (Jenim Dibie)
Maria Redrick is an American painter and designer. She studied fine arts and graphic design at the Columbus college of art and design. She’s currently working in communication in New York but she’s keeping her love for fine arts alive by using for her works, oil on canvas. When she paints her soul is as if it was overwhelmed by this force and it translates itself. Characterized by a natural greed, the artist expresses herself through art that feels like a necessity of her own soul. This way of expressing herself gives Maria to get close to certain subjects which otherwise it would be difficult to explain. It’s a therapeutic process which aims to capture human emotions, a desire to transmit different points of view to be able to portray subjects. The aim is to be able to describe - by representing a silhouette - an emotion, in order to get the audience to feel the same emotions that are represented in the artwork itself. Each of us has a story to tell and Maria, by traveling the south east Asia, finds the inspiration from people, their own stories, from places that she uses by portraying this reality. The ultimate goal for Maria is to give the opportunity to individuals to convey a message and to make it accessible to everyone because we all know that a picture can be more powerful than words. With Maria we find this ability to express emotions, memories, feelings in a very simple but direct way.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Maria Redrick
Lady Boy Blue
Maria Redrick
Lady Boy Red
Maria Redrick
Lady Boy Yellow
Marie Ange Van Meyel “Photographs can reach eternity through the moment” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
Mysterious and eclectic artist of French nationality that approached the world of photography by creating a parallelism with the real world through her shots: this is the fantastic and imaginary world of Marie Ange. The subjects and the games of light present in her works seem to come from utopian universes. Marie Ange loves to experiment and come across new artistic techniques as the one named “Fuhsing”: an innovative shooting technique that allows to mix colors and lights - fundamental elements of her art - in a unique way. The image of the works is extremely engaging for the observer who is captured by the movement of shapes and colors created with elegance and harmony. Over the years, photography has become the support of her oniric world, in which the artist takes refuge and finds herself.
“For sure there will always be those who will only look at the technique and wonder how, while others of a more curious nature will ask why” (Man Ray)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Marie Ange Van Meyel
Light and shadow
Maryanne Chisholm “An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space”(Gustave Flaubert)
Maryanne Chisholm is an acclaimed American painter whose artistic poetry is inspired by surrealism. The artist, painting explores her mind in search of a personal concept of beauty, she discovers having many points in common with this current. Surrealism is a French literary, artistic and ideological movement, born in the First World War that practices figurative art and not abstract. Its figuration is in strong dialogue with the naturalistic world. The theorist of this movement was the writer Andrè Breton who in 1924, published the Manifesto of Surrealism. Inspired by the theories of Freud, he theorized the need to reach a higher reality, in which to reconcile the two fundamental moments of human thought: that of the wake and that of the dream. Maryanne’s art is a fascinating example of forms combined with a surreal landscape that becomes realistic through beautiful colors and light. A contemporary reinterpretation with which she transforms reality into her personal vision. Her favorite theme seems to be that of the relationship between woman and nature that explodes in all its forms. Flowers that make their way into the surrounding space, through the face, as if to remind the viewer of the great strength present in nature and women, despite an appearance of delicate beauty. An illustration that sways between naturalistic poetry and female greatness. “Rhapsodic” enchants for its surreal and poetic atmosphere. What makes it so special is the care for hyper-realistic details that nothing is left to chance.
“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things” (Denis Diderot)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Maryanne Chisholm
Rhapsodic
Matia Santini
Geometry, shapes and bright colors: this is the art of the Italian artist Matia Santini. His works dazzle the eyes like a flash and when everything comes back clear, the mind is lost between colors and lines. Santini with his works looks to the early years of the XX century, when the Futurist movement was born in Italy. In particular, it’s evident the reference to the artist Giacomo Balla that synthesizes the movement, turning the visual aspect of the action into geometric shapes. The visual comparison between Balla’s work “Pessimism and optimism” and Santini’s works is immediate. On the other hand, Santini’s works approach another movement that was born in parallel: Cubism. The work “River Euphrates” especially takes the same colors as “Les demoiselles d’Avignon” by Pablo Picasso: orange lobster and blue invade the composition. This works seems to be the “decomposition” of Picasso’s work, as if it had “exploded” and the geometric components were distributed on Santini’s canvas. Circles, segments and polygons make up the work, in particular the artist uses pyramidal figures as the main geometric shape. The inspiration comes from Ancient Egypt, which also takes the traditional colors of the nemes of the Pharaoh. In this regard, he still follows the teachings of Picasso who, in “Les demoiselles d’Avignon”, looked at African cultures. Santini’s art does not aim to convey a precise message. He mainly focuses on the fragmentation of reality, creating a world made of two-dimensional overlapping planes and scattered with elementary figures, the foundation of visual materiality.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Matia Santini
River Euphrates
Max Cherman
Max Cherman is a Russian self-taught photographer, whose strong passion for visual composition and light experimentation succeeds in being his major poetic quality. In “Ambivalence” the subject is a girl shot with a slow shutter speed: the face - partially covered by her hands - is in fact delicately blurry, creating an effect that almost doubles her mysterious facial expression. The picture, which sees its protagonist completely decontextualized from her surroundings, has its primary focus on the charming dialogue between the red and green lights. Chromatically, red and green are two complementary colours, in their being opposed to each other. The light flashes, reds and greens chase and fight each other while maintaining an harmonic dance. They are able to evoke, by simply existing together, a narration about rules of desire, of both opposition and attraction. With their brightness they evoke the passions throbbing under the appearance and that “ambivalence” emerges precisely in its complexity to read the inner dynamics and feelings of the girl.
Max Cherman
As the photographer John Berger states, the quality of photography is that “its primary raw materials are light and time”. And this is what Max does in creating his photographic stories and atmosphere. Even in his picture Любование (Lubovanie), the light is once again the protagonist, which highlights the girl’s gaze in the dark background. The girl is placed in front of a beamer that projects light blue waves. The photographer explains the poetic coincidence about how “Lubov” is both the name of the model and also a Russian word that means “Love”, and from there “Lubovanie” is the derived verb that means to watch, to admire, to enjoy. And maybe is what Max, through his light composition, wants to encourage the viewer’s eyes to do: a contemplation that leads the viewer to wonder what the girl, with her loving and ecstatic expression, is looking at.
“Where light and shadow fall on your subject that is the essence of expression and art through photography.” (Scott Bourne)
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Max Cherman
Ambivalence
Max Cherman
Любование (Lubovanie)
Maya Beck
Nonconformist artist Maya Beck manages to develop an unmistakable style by creating paintings depicting close-ups of stylized female faces embellished with details that she superimposes on the face of these female figures. Her profound stylistic research manages to harmonize in an excellent way the combination of rounded and sinuous lines and often monochromatic colors to balance the design itself; Maya loves to alternate the use of different techniques: from drawing, to watercolors, from felt-tip pens, to ink. The transfiguration of the faces seems to proceed towards a melodious sequence of movements, curves that reveal, in that refined deformation of the figures, not only the stubborn peculiarity of her research but above all an emotional and intimate humanity of those mysterious faces (es. “I´M IN LOVE” and “I´M NOT SHY”). Maya loves to experiment, loves mixing techniques and venturing into new worlds, giving life to new works that go beyond tradition, as for example in the work “LITTLE CHINA GIRL” where she uses a newspaper page as a support for the representation of the face; the drawing becomes one with the newspaper and Maya gives life to a unique and impactful work.
“Drawing is like making an expressive gesture, with the advantage of permanence” (Henri Matisse)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Maya Beck
I’M IN LOVE
Maya Beck
I’M NOT SHY
Maya Beck
LITTLE CHINA GIRL
Mehak Mittal “If you have even a little mastery over the five elements within you, life will happen the way you want it to” (Sadhguru Jaggi Vasuder)
Mehak Mittal is a self-taught Indian artist who lives and works in London. The use of watercolours as her primary medium is functional to catching the essence of movement and the cosmic mystery of life. As the concept of this exhibition is Fashion meets Art, this series of artwork is a play on elements of life meets fashion. Her artworks derive inspiration from all these elements and infuses them into the world of fashion. Our entire universe is made up of 5 basic elements, “The Elements Of Life” Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Space. These five energies are different among each other for density and vibration. The element earth represents all the visible and solid matter, understood as stably and rigidity. Earth, so maternal and so nourishing it has the qualities of being patient and strong (grow and connect). Water, purifying and receptive, therapeutic and creator of life. The fire is a dynamic element as it creates transformations. It tends to purify everyone by elevating them of another level of perfection. The air is the wind. It’s dynamic controls all the movements internally and externally. And last, the ether, which is the space where all these things can happen. A path of transformation and harmonious communication describes Mehka’s artworks. In nature those elements balance the energies and in this exhibition we find a path of extraordinary beauty that emphasizes all these elements, meeting with the wild of fashion.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Mehak Mittal
Agni - Fire
Mehak Mittal
Antariksh - Space
Mehak Mittal
Bhoomi - Earth
Mehak Mittal
Jal - Water
Mehak Mittal
Vayu - Air
Michael Ryan “My partner stood in the shadow near a well-lit Kees van Dongen portrait of a woman at the TEFAF in Maastricht in 2012. That’s how long this one has been simmering on the back burner of my mind. There was something deeply feminine about the moment and I quickly captured the image and hopefully the feeling on my iPhone” states the American artist Michael Ryan on the conception of his piece and, more in general, on his affective approach to painting. In fact the artwork, mostly dominated by different shades of blue, contains multiple layers of fruition for its viewers. The most evident layer is precisely the semiotics of colours emerging from the choices made by the artist to dress and paint his memory, connected to an intimate moment with his partner. In fact, blue, as the most intense primary colour, often connects to an inner dimension and functions almost as an aesthetic urgency to set an emotional environment. At the same time, blue is also the colour of eternity and infinity, and it is exactly this character of permanency that justifies blue as the colour for bonding and intimacy, perhaps even “risking” to evoke a nostalgic suggestion as well. Maybe the immortalization on canvas is that practice that leads to a catharsis of the experienced that would never return. A feeling that invokes the philosophical topos Sehnsucht: a German term linked to a sense of desire and nostalgia for something physically far from us. Nevertheless, the blue pattern of the painting is also abruptly placed together with orange: the colours of the woman’s elegant pants. Orange is blue’s complementary colour, and it is that chromatic opposition that brings us inside the mood and the story, offering to the viewer’s eyes an ecstatic and impactful dialogue between cold and warm. Besides the chromatic suggestions it is also significant to the painter’s artistic approach and his tendency to give an emotional and affective response to a moment in reality: “In my paintings I attempt to translate the emotion aroused in me by the impact of my visual observations using colour relationships, light, form and composition” (Michael Ryan). This attitude recalls what the film critic Bazin coined as “ontological realism”, referring to cinema as the artistic reproduction of the real, where the artist’s task is to create that relationship between form and content, leaving to the represented subject its dimension of reality and its existence even outside the film (the canvas in this case). In fact Michael Ryan documenting instinctually his partner standing near another painting in the museum, created an artwork whose connection with the real is strong, though maintaining his artistic filter of chromatic sensibility and of delicate composition of forms.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Michael Ryan
Lili and Kees van Dongen at the TEFAF 2012
Michelle Monaghan “Love is the most selfish of all the passions” (Alexandre Dumas)
Michelle Monaghan is a Scottish artist who has always had a strong affinity for artistic activities as a child. Her research focuses on intimate scenes and lovers. Love, a mysterious, immense, complicated, uncontrollable feeling. There are different types and forms of love and Michelle with her work “Awakening Theodora” intends to urge the observer to romance, without uttering a word, observing those with mute and colorful traits has been able to impress on the canvas a bit of that emotion that makes us feel closer to something magical, incomprehensible to our minds. Symbolism and Expressionism merge in the brushes of Michelle who creates a powerful and passionate picture, showing us a love far from the kind and gentle, but earthly and disruptive, which is consumed in a sensual and erotic research. Carnality, then, is indeed a facet of love, but our minds still struggle to separate sex from the concept of the forbidden, yet love is also blood and not only soul, it is spirit and flesh, and this picture besides evoking the alleged sinfulness of the body, reminds us of its instinctive and primordial nature, opposed to the ideality of a certain type of feeling, so dear to the human mind more refined and sensitive. But the union of these opposites creates perfection. Her oil and acrylic paintings are a fusion of feminine and masculine; darkness and light; pleasure and passion. Each piece challenges the viewer to immerse themselves beyond the dogmas of society. Whether carnal or platonic, private or observed, lived, love shakes us and amazes us, confuses us and clarifies us, casts darkness and light on our lives. But it also makes us really understand who we are and what we want: we see ourselves through the eyes of the other in a new perspective.
“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Michelle Monaghan
Awakening Theodora
Minna Pärttö
Minna’s artistic work comes from intuition, from a creative moment that leaves no space for expressive limits. The artist throws colors and strength on the canvas, her work is pure energy and creative power. There is a deep connection between man and natural elements, Minna was able to manifest it through her work. The viewer in front of the work “Primordial” is pervaded by a sense of amazement, almost fear, it seems to witness the moment in which heaven and earth meet and give rise to everything. Colors that become body, living material that pervades the canvas almost in a continuous motion, an amorphous style that has a certain similarity with the abstract, spontaneous and emotional expressionist art. In particular, Minna’s work brings to mind some works by Rothko and Agnes Martin. In her work there is something mystical and unique, as always Minna gives us a moment of energy and magic. Feelings that become tangible, live inside the work and come out, the artist gives us a true sensorial experience.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Minna PärttÜ
Primordial
Miroslava “Up is infinite. Downing infinite. Pantheism, dualism, pluralism!” (John Cowper Powys)
Miroslava Is an artist born in 1993 in Chiclayo, Peru. She graduated in architecture at Universidad Católica Santo Toribio of Mogrovejo but she always loved art and visual graphic. By breaking down faces, mixing them with vivid colours and vibrant and energetic brush strokes, Miroslava manages to achieve her intention which is to pull apart traditional values redefining in a personal, lively and original way, how women are portrayed. With vivid colours, miroslava’s paintings emanate emotions, they produce portraits full of energy and sensuality. By doing this mixing, we can notice a very exuberant trait thanks to which creates true masterpieces. These abstractions of human beings try to reflect the beauty of human architecture through different kinds of colorful brushstrokes.
Miroslava
These artworks have two natures for the day and night, different kinds of brushstrokes, an eternal duality, good and bad, light and dark. The day doesn’t exist without night and neither life without death but most of the time we only focus on one of the two things. There are two opposites but at the same time they’re never against each other but rather complementary and they depend on one another. One is not overimposing itself into the other but is trying to coexist in harmony and with balance and this is what emerges with this artist. When one disappears it actually transforms itself into the other, they don’t create two different realities, they coexist. For this reason, if one disappears, it’s only temporary because it leaves room for the other.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Miroslava
Eternal duality No. 2 - Serie
Miroslava
Eternal duality No.1- Serie
Mirva Hamdi
Mirva’s art is lively, curious and full of verve, a breath of fresh air. Bright colors stand out on a white background, come to life, it seems that the brushstrokes are about to take flight, or like fish swimming in water. Mirva lets herself be carried away by emotions, sensations and often it is nature itself that inspires her. The artist thinks that chaos is certainly more interesting than order, but her works that also arise from chaos are of a unique harmony. The viewer finds almost comfort in the observer, the speed of the brush strokes and the bright colors make the works dynamic, they move in space with balance. Mirva’s art is undoubtedly abstract, free from real and well-defined forms, the colors find life within the work without the need for contour lines. Somehow her artistic work refers to the technique of Japanese writing, or rather to the art of calligraphy, the Shodo. The brush strokes can be decisive or uncertain, fast or slow, thin or thick, in the same way Mirna acts, her brush strokes change, from thin they thicken and from insecure strokes decisive marks develop. Mirva’s artistic work becomes a path that arises from the interior, the composition is based on rhythms, balances, full and empty. The brushstrokes dance harmoniously in the space.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Mirva Hamdi
Are you ready
Mirva Hamdi
It is what it is
Mirva Hamdi
The revolution
Montse Zuñiga
“Mexican jaguar” is the title of Montse’s work, in fact it seems to roar. A work full of energy and strength, the meeting of clarion and bright colors that are part of Mexican culture, make the work lively and dynamic. Montse through her work shows great character, the colors are given with decision, there is no afterthought, it is fast and of great impact. A composition of color, open spots without contour lines, joined to each other, tones that mix or overlap. The colors are the focal point of the work, they seem to breathe in space, they give life to an expressive abstract structure. Montse uses the spray can to create her work, this inevitably refers to the mind, to the works of Street Art, but her tile is to be found in abstract art. Montse’s work has the expressive capacity of great abstract works that find strength through color. In particular there is similarity with the early works of Kandinsky and Pollock. Ultimately, Montse’s work gives the viewer a moment of wild emotion, observing the work means running with the soul together with the jaguar, being transported into unknown dimensions.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Montse ZuĂąiga
Mexican Jaguar
Motoo Saito
Thanks to new technologies, new scenarios are opening up. The contemporary artist’s activity now has even wider and more extraordinary expressive possibilities: the use of digital. New techniques of photo processing, image generation, pictorial effects that can also be applied freehand, renew the potential of painting and photography of the past. And so it happens for the Japanese artist Motoo Saito that through the search for a personal identity led him on this incredible journey: the media. His work has evolved becoming unique and stylistically recognizable. His artistic maturity led him to translate a fantasy, an idea or a sensation into something sensitive: the artist who confronts an audience in search of meaning and emotions, of symbolic and sometimes even pragmatic values, manages to catapult the observer inside the work being overwhelmed by the whirlwind of shapes and colors that Motoo represents with great harmony and elegance. The real artistic innovation in the digital age lies precisely in the ability to generate forms capable of conveying content to be shared, leaving - in the same way - space for the intuition and personal growth of the individual. Motoo Saito is a master of creativity in this.
“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on “ (Albert Einstein)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Motoo Saito
Harmonized Moonlight Night
Motoo Saito
Harmonized Morning
Motoo Saito
Hellish Storm
Motoo Saito
Peaceful Paradise
Motoo Saito
Venetian Fashion
Nacho Peinado “White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities“ (Stephen Sondheim)
Nacho Peinado is a self-taught Spanish artist who was born in A Coruña. He is a painter, a sculptor, a ceramist and also a photographer. Nacho’s multifaceted and multidisciplinary creative journey starts from the idea that every blank piece of paper is nothing more than a path towards new discoveries; a process in which it is not important to desperately seek for new things, but the essential element is to always have new eyes and to keep an open mind. In his instinctive, colorful and sometimes voluntarily primitive compositions, the depicted figures and characters seem to come out of the artist’s dreams and nightmares, by representing and expressing his deepest fears and strengths, lights and shadows in a continuous game of opposites. The result is a melting pot of styles and techniques, used and combined in order to transcend the expressive limitations and to open the doors of perception and emotions in a psychic universe which is not dominated by logic and reason. In Nacho’s powerful and fascinating artworks, the aim is to liberate the need to create and to establish a deep connection and a profound dialogue between art and the inner self: drawing becomes the key that unlocks the box of imagination and lets the feelings fly high. He continuously experiments with various media and techniques because, in his vision,the world pragmatically often ends where our language ends, but creativity is an endless river in which everything flows and nothing is unthinkable. This approach establishes an infinite cycle where the actions of imagining and painting become the two spokes of a wheel which never stops turning.
“The world is but a canvas to our imagination“ (Henry David Thoreau)
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Nacho Peinado
Not logical or reasonable
Nacho Peinado
Queen
Nacho Peinado
Wild
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart “When art has changed, it’s because the world was changing” (Corita Kent)
eN, was born as Naomi Scala, and she’s a photographer of Italo-American origins, although she calls herself a gipsy for her DNA composed of migrants, travelers and artists, whose footsteps will follow soon. She decides not to use her real name, like every photographer, she wants to be invisible during her shoots, showing the modern society that she witnesses constantly. Her degree in art let her discover different artistic techniques but at the end she chooses to use paint where she will incorporate images made out of flowers. Eager to learn, she graduated in environmental Architecture and she will gain a master at Politecnico di Milano. After this, She will understand that her true passion is photography and after having worked for national geographic she continues to perfect her photos. In her works are hidden important messages that are based on social issues such as feminism, noticeable as well in this series that are representing iconic women followed by deep and important thoughts. In her works we can find a minimal contemporary pop style which marries the strengths of the message with the freedom of her creativity. Her works represent different aspects of the art world where there are no boundaries between old and contemporary. We can define Naomi like a creator of images where the protagonists are caught in a moment of transformation.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Cheeeeeze
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
She comes in colors ev’rywhere
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
The hole
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Trust me! NO!
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Why not?
Nathalie Gribinski
Through her artworks, the Franco-American artist Nathalie Gribinski highlights emotions, bright colors and expressions belonging to the existence of the human being. She does not look for precise themes, but extrapolates different symbols and ideas from what surrounds her, inserting these into her paintings, emphasizing in this way her love for art. By inviting the viewer to immerse himself/herself in her artworks and open the imagination, the artist wants that one can benefit from that vibrant and abstract dream world that is hidden in the soul. As in Dancing Butterflies, contrasts, light and darkness create a dynamic tension full of strength and determination. This sense of movement flows into every corner of the canvas, emphasizing the constructive beauty of the individual figures and generating a halo of mystery through the use of black as in the background. The butterflies dance rhythmically in an attempt to free themselves and emerge from the work itself, floating in a fourth space-time dimension, understood as an aesthetic, expressive and compositional variable. While in Dream Park, where there is a similarity to Alexander Calder’s graphic artworks, Nathalie prefers to focus on the purity of form, by enhancing the grace and beauty of this great constellation of two-dimensional figures, united by fine and wavy lines that create a symphonic harmony. The whole is captured by an imperceptible movement: everything is pure poetry that is closely linked to abstract art. The attention is not focused on the objectivity of the design, but it aims to capture a great symbolic value: the ability of every single stroke to come alive, unleashing fantasy and imagination in the observer. Finally, in Glory of the Bird the use of color, which reflects the changing emotional experiences of the artist, gives rise to a painting rich of vibrations, fleeting emotions and spiritual energy. From all of that intensity, a strong dynamism comes back into play: inside the canvas everything seems moving vertically, as to recall the continuous flapping of the birds’ wings, creating an atmosphere so alive, at the limit of the surreal.
“Just as you can compose colors or shapes, you can compose movements” (Alexander Calder)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Nathalie Gribinski
Dancing Butterflies
Nathalie Gribinski
Dream Park
Nathalie Gribinski
Glory of the Bird
Nic.kda “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion” (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel)
Nic.kda is a German artist with an interest in art and architecture. She began to paint and experiment abstract practices, using acrylic colors. Her art, surpassing the figure, represents a continuous experimentation with a thousand shades. This artistic avant-garde has characterized the entire twentieth century, with works of art “pure”, abstract, not figurative. The roots of contemporary abstraction can already be found in Romanticism, Impressionism and Expressionism, where artists place a greater emphasis on the visual sensation of things and not on the representation of them. This search for perceptions of reality in the representation of images, leads directly to the construction of the artistic language of abstract art. The neoplasticism of the group Destijl, and in particular Piet Mondrian, and Paul Klee, are the example of an avant-garde geometric abstraction with the background of the search for something that is both mystical and scientific. Mondrian, in particular, was interested in the new abstract language that combined art and architecture. After a period spent among the ranks of post impressionists, he began to take an interest in geometric abstraction and the use of primary colors and their complex relationships with geometric shapes and lines. This gradual transition has affected artists of all kinds who have begun to experience impressions, forms and feelings. Nic.kda in her work brings to the extreme the process of reduction and decomposition of the cubist image, creating an art in which the structural elements are limited to vertical and horizontal lines, to primary colors such as yellow, blue, white and black. A radically simplified world that of “Strandgut” made by Nic.kda, with fundamental elements reduced to two or three; so essentialized as to leave the viewer a feeling of meditation on values that have nothing material but just spiritual.
“True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Nic.kda
Strandgut // Floatsam
Patrícia Patylene The paintings of the artist Patrícia Patylene are the result of a strong union between her passion for painting and 3D modelling. They are real sculptures on canvas: they are dense, full-bodied and have different textures, as if they were sculptures. To emphasize the sense of depth, the artist uses different materials to compose the various textures of her artworks, such as sand, sawdust, mud, ash and much more. She always looks for new materials to represent different and unusual shapes. Patrícia finds inspiration in every element of everyday life, even for everything that can be unnoticed or ruined by time. Moreover, nature is fundamental: through her artworks, in fact, one can see unknown territories and the great beauty of the surrounding environment. One example is Black Hole: it would seem an enormous hydrographic basin framed from space. The observer’s gaze looks at every single inlet and penetrates into an indefinite and mysterious universe. Everything that ends up inside disappears totally from sight, arriving in another unknown dimension, from which every element can reborn. One has the curiosity to enter that darkness, to look inside it and discover places never seen before, to venture into the abysses, until reaching the core, the primary component of the work. The painting turns out to be a project open to perceptions and interpretations, aiming at the user’s subconscious and succeeding in stimulating optical-sensorial sensations. While in Ocean the essence of the material emerges from the canvas: an immense expanse opens up that follows the shades and the swaying of the sea almost in storm. From all these ripples one can admire a coral reef that turns from red to orange. Even a large ocean can be a parallel universe, made up of an infinite galaxy of marine and plant species. Every tonality is so vivid and penetrating that it involves anyone who observes the work. As in the constellations, this three-dimensional space is made by numerous details, a multitude of hidden cracks from which one cannot escape. Finally, in Shadows a beam of light, surrounded by various shadows, penetrates the canvas radiating the surrounding atmosphere. In this case one can see the presence of a high level of penetration of the matter, since it is the matter itself that, melting on itself, creates a miscellany with different cavities. The bound between the cohesion of matter and the transformative power of the forces of nature finds representation in this chromatic expanse. The user feels the need to immerse himself/herself completely in the artworks of Patrícia Patylene and to let himself/herself go, in order to begin a journey into his/her own introspection and deepest emotions.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
PatrĂcia Patylene
Black Hole
PatrĂcia Patylene
Ocean
PatrĂcia Patylene
Shadows
Pauline Schulze
The German artist and designer Pauline Shulze fully embraces the concept of the MADS exhibition “Dressme” literally dressing her works. Her art best exemplifies how the concept should prevail over aesthetics. In today’s world based on the outward appearance of things, superficiality and a strong desire to appear, Shulze makes a statement of simplicity and naturalism. In her work the artist literally pastes fabrics on canvas, combining them with flat color backgrounds. In the case of the work “Connected” a soft background with delicate colors receives a cut of white raw cotton painted with light blue and three more pieces of fabric. Nowadays the reality that surrounds us prevents us from dreaming. We are constantly bombarded by images such as advertising and television that cloud our judgment and turn off our imagination. Fashion is inspired by colorful fabrics and textures. This prompts the artist’s choice to use raw cotton: it is a challenge launched by the artist to her viewers in order to simulate their imagination. Faced with an almost white work, contemporary viewers are somewhat baffled and feel deprived of what they have been accustomed to: colors, sounds, quick flashes. This drives them to use their imagination to fill the void left by the artist. Conversely, viewers may decide to distance themselves from their first impression and to concentrate instead on the calming image of white and light blue. They have the opportunity to stop for a moment and, once again, take a deep breath distancing themselves from the chaotic world. Shulze’s work is certainly a conceptual art. It draws lessons from Dadaism and it approaches Arte povera through the choice to use raw and natural materials, rejecting the idea of mass production. “Connected” is proof that a strong emotional charge can be transmitted even by the simplest material, just like a piece of white cloth.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Pauline Schulze
Connected
Peach Pair
Peach Pair is a digital artist who, after a degree in music and the study of the Buddhist religious concepts, decided to deepen her passion for art. For this reason, a lyrical value and an intense symphony emerge from her works. Through Digital Art, traditional disciplines such as painting, drawing and sculpture have radically developed: this helps the artist to imagine and visualise her work. The detail that excites her the most is the desire to produce ever-changing visual effects, combined with a great adventurous spirit. The artist draws with the mouse and each movement is highly expressive, almost as if it was a pictorial brushstroke on a painting. Peach Pair achieves an excellent link between technology and art, creating a positive and pleasant influence for the viewer. In Bleeding Hearts, a vase of flowers winds towards the sun. There is a juxtaposition between the axes of the work: the vertical one corresponds to the sun, crossing and dividing the painting into two sections until it reaches the vase; moreover, this verticality is recalled by the protraction of the branches with their bright green leaves. Instead, the horizontal axis coincides both with the horizon line, beyond the mountain, and with the other stems branching out from the vase with those rich magenta-colored flowers. As for the background, there is a series of shades that perfectly connect with the elements of the work. The artist was inspired by the music of Norah Jones and the art of David Hockney, one of the main exponents of Pop Art. While in It Takes a World, Peach Pair invites the viewer to take part in a “declaration of resistance”, that emerged with the US elections in 2016. In the first part of the work, which has been placed in the background, there is the American Constitution, to recall the commitment and all the motivation to have in the “resistance”, as well as to observe and respect the fundamental principles of the nation. Above it is written “We the People - E Pluribus Unum”, another reminder for all those who profess respect for the dignity, holiness and equality of all human beings. Moreover, six raised hands represent the multi-ethnic diversity of the country, as the issue concerns any person, regardless of skin color, religion and much more. In the last section is placed the great American flag: the 50 white stars have been replaced by an image of the Earth superimposed on the poem “New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus (an inscription that also appears on the Statue of Liberty), as a beacon of hope and light (I lift my lamp beside the golden door!). Finally, in The Orchard a naturalistic and perfectly symmetrical landscape emerges, inspired by the works of Gustave Klimt, as in the Farm with birch trees. Each tree has its own space within the painting and the whole creates a harmonious vegetable symphony. As in Klimt’s paintings, there is a sense of order and stability of perception. Moreover, the presence of orderly vertical straight lines and small horizontal segments evoke the structure of a precious Art Deco fabric. The work is indissolubly linked to the gentle melody of Keith Jarrett with “Köln Concert”.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Peach Pair
Bleeding Hearts
Peach Pair
It Takes a World
Peach Pair
The Orchard
Peter Bobbett “The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence, but in the mastery of his passions” (Alfred Tennyson)
Peter Bobbett is a self-taught artist, who from an early age has found art a fascinating way to channel his imaginative mind and to create. He loves to explore, from the abstract to the fluid, the landscape, the portrait and the comic strip. “Moving colours” created by the artist is inspired by the imagination to build his abstract composition of geometric type. The form is the result of the encounter between the artist and his world, in an alternation of empathy and abstraction. The term “abstractionism” contains several non-figurative experiences and is opposed to the objective reproduction of reality, due in part to the spread of photography. Abstract art, in fact, is the one that does not represent reality, but seeks to express its contents of the paintings in the free composition of lines, shapes and colors, without reference to the outside world. The affirmation of this art is a logical stage in the evolutionary process of modern pictorial philosophy. After the nineteenth-century rebellion against academic art, after the geometric and prospective experimentation of Cubism and the affirmation of the dominance of emotion over aesthetics, abstract paintings eliminate the subject and its recognizable figurative representation, creating a revolutionary artistic language. Peter linked to the expressive and symbolic function of color, with “Moving colours” producing emotions and moods. Almost the entire surface of the painting is occupied by an irregular multicolored geometric composition, whose lines create regular lattices inside, in which the observer can space his imagination. These signs are made with a minimal figurative language reminiscent of a vortex that almost seems to want to protrude out of the picture.
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all” (Oscar Wilde)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Peter Bobbett
Moving Colours
ReCreativeArtwork “My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them” (Jack Kerouac)
ReCreativeArtwork, was born in Norway and is a non-practicing lawyer. She is a self-taught artist, who mainly does abstract art. She loves to express herself creatively through art and so began to paint, first with normal acrylic painting, mainly realizing geometric shapes. She has also recently discovered acrylic casting, alcoholic inks and spray paints. For her works she rarely chooses brushes, preferring the use of everyday materials such as paper, glasses and other. For the artist in the pictorial act is important to follow the flow and find joy in what comes out of mixing colors. This is a strong metaphor for life and acts as a mirror of our convictions. Almost always comes out a painting different from the one originally imagined. Fantasy and experimentation are two main tools that the artist uses, not following specific rules or theories. Is fluid art. In joining the colors they are able to create the same effects similar to marbled paper, as can be seen from “Legally Fashionable(u)”, in which some patterns reproduce the patches of color of a marble surface, proposing shapes and colors present in nature. Her works do not express an objective or subjective reality, but release a tension that in great quantity has accumulated in the artist. It is an action not conceived and not designed in the modes of execution and in the final effects. A pictorial technique very similar to the “Action painting” experimented by the American artist Jackson Pollock, who was one of the major exponents.This type of painting consists, in fact, in pouring or dripping the colors directly from the tube or jar on a canvas placed on the ground. “So I feel closer to the painting, I can cross it, I can approach it from all sides and enter it, literally,” Pollock said.
“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people” (Leo Burnett)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
ReCreativeArtwork
Dress In Layers
ReCreativeArtwork
Legally Fashionable(u)
ReCreativeArtwork
See Through Velvet
Regina Dantas “There’s nothing more inspiring than the complexity and beauty of the human heart “ (Paulo Coehlo)
Regina Dantas was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She graduated at the Guignard School of Visual Arts and she is currently living and working in Rio de Janeiro. Regina’s art focuses on the investigation and research for musicality and harmony by experimenting with colours, forms, textures and materials with the aim of reinterpreting the world around her in its countless facets. In the exhibited series daydreams she shows, by using the art of mandala, five feelings using circular motions and circles to define a sacred space. Vanity, laziness, charm, perseverance and hopefulness are represented by using the circle that corresponds to spiritual perfection and its symbolic meanings strongly connected with both life and death in a circle of continuous birth and evolution. Moreover it includes the acceptance of the conflicting sides we all have within ourselves. The use of different shades of light blue and blue give a meaning to the imagination. The black colour signifies the need of reflection and purification, a pause to free herself, on the other hand the violet implies a state of meditation and creativity. These artworks are like labyrinths that are helping us to find our center or the emotions explained above. Vanity implies the frivolous appreciation of one’s qualities as well as the self. Laziness it’s a reflection of someone that neglects the enrichment avoiding the Charm is nothing else but that strength that attracts everything you desire, like an elegant call. Perseverance it’s translated into that tenacity to achieve something. Hopefulness suggests faith in the waiting, which is the base of her thought. Regina with this series wants to point out how important it is not to have everything under control otherwise we wouldn’t be able to feel those emotions and have those feelings.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Regina Dantas
Daydreams 1
Regina Dantas
Daydreams 2
Regina Dantas
Daydreams 3
Regina Dantas
Daydreams 4
Regina Dantas
Daydreams 5
Renata Lempicka “For me I only want the sweet Muses, as Virgil calls them, to take me to those sacred places and their sources, away from anxieties and worries and the need to do something every day against my will” (Tacitus)
In Greek mythology they are Olympian gods, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the Memory, and are in the wake of Apollo. In Greece they represented the ideal of Art, one of the greatest representations of the divine. The Muses were invoked by poets so that they could inspire their lyrics. Hence the modern use of the term, especially in the artistic field, as a source of inspiration, a person or object that inspires the imagination and mind of the artist, then leading him to create a work of art. They have always been depicted in the history of art as beautiful women who enchanted the minds and hearts of men. The Polish artist Renata Lempicka with the work entitled “Muse” gives a modern representation of a muse. Renata represents with human features the inspiration that strikes her unexpectedly and leads her to transfer the energy and strength received on the canvas. The contrast between the muse’s clothes and the background against which the figure stands are representative of how this inspiring energy suddenly ignites and it is so disruptive. The artist’s energetic and elongated brushstrokes manage to give the idea of energy and sudden, fast movement, like the wind that suddenly creates a vortex and destabilizes calm. And just like a whirlwind, inspiration moves the artist’s soul. The color chosen by the artist for the muse’s dress is also representative: red has always been the symbol of passion and life energy. And it is precisely the passion for art that guides the hands of the artists along the wefts of the canvas, to fill it with colors and meaning.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Renata Lempicka
Muse
Romana Jelínková “The color blue responds more to my visual language and with blue I can best express my thoughts” (Romana Jelínková)
Romana Jelínková is a Czech artist who has a passion for nature and human feelings, emotions and the energy of what surrounds her. She also uses alternative tools such as a spatula, natural materials and her hands to make a painting: in this way, the artist is inextricably linked to the pictorial material. The focal point of her work is dark blue, placing it at the center of each of her paintings as well as in drawing or porcelain. In fact, in Wild Daisies this shade invades both real and mental space with its power and strength, creating a fusion of art and life. In this way, one can witness to its transformation from pictorial matter to a moment of indescribable poetry. Lines, contours, shapes and perspectives are absorbed by that single-color drawing, which is unfirming and compact, that will color the space of the canvas in its totality. Just as for the French artist Yves Klein, famous for his Monochromes and “his” blue, for Romana this nuance and its use is a search for style and a philosophical model. Blue invites us to embark on a journey into our soul, a personal spiritual search: looking at it, the observer’s gaze is infinitely lost as the essence of color becomes animated by a permanent inner movement. Several decisive and dynamic signs prevail, and the whole creates delicate daisies. The meaning of such a flower contains above all purity and innocence, spontaneity and patience. Appreciated for the beauty of its apparently simple beauty, in this work the daisy becomes “wild”, to symbolize a youthful and carefree innocence, free from any sense of guilt. The aim is to create an artwork that actively involves the public, between candid feelings and an enveloping serenity, in order to make it participate in the painting itself.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Romana Jelínková
Wild Daisies
Sanna Marja “The true art of memory is the art of attention” (Samuel Johnson)
“Compassionate art” under the guidance of her grandmother, that’s how we could describe the artworks of Sanna. Her grandmother used to invent stories in order to entertain her grandchildren. After her death, the artist understands how important it is to have an imaginative mind and how important those stories were. Stories that talked about compassion between one another and towards nature. The day after the grandmother’s death, she found herself on the floor, in front of an white canvas and with a brush in her hand and she felt that her spirit was guiding and encouraging her to paint.
Sanna Marja
Her works can be compared to those tales she used to listen to, they express timeless concepts that resemble a slide full of emotions and feelings. It’s a dimension without a logic but where the space creates and describes the sensibility of the artist. Compassion is the key to read sanna’s works where she wants to transmit good-will to the audience. Enjoying the moment trying to treasure it.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Sanna Marja
Embrace, you
Sanna Marja
Release, innerpower
Sarah Peguero “The hours I spend in front of the easel are pure contemplation, happiness and balm for my soul. When I paint, the world outside my studio could end, and I would not notice” (Sarah Peguero)
These are the words that Sarah Peguero attributes to her love for art. She was born and raised in the Caribbean, later she moved to Paris to learn French and study fashion illustration. She has exhibited her paintings in numerous galleries, art shows and associations in Denmark, where now she lives. What you notice immediately, looking at her works, is the mastery in the use of color, both in the most lively, shouted forms, than in the nuanced, rarefied, transparent ones. Her emotions, her way of seeing, her sensitivity are varied and profound; she paints straight away, the picture comes from something that is in her soul and that needs to come to light. Her art is inspired by that of abstract expressionism and this can be understood above all in the vibrant use of colors and geometric shapes that she attributes to the female figures she paints. She manages to uncover all her most intimate emotions with great skill through the brush. The violent signs that cross the canvases are strong expressions, mixed with the consciousness and the will to change, the dripped and furiously tangled colors refer to the complexity of existence. For this artist, art must not be an individual experience, but a collective one. Therefore, the choice of the subject becomes fundamental, it has to be “tragic and eternal”, with an universal meaning.
“The modern artist works to express an inner world; in other words: it expresses movement, energy and other inner forces ” (Jackson Pollock)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Sarah Peguero
Gossip
Shoma Morishita “Reality produces a part of art, the feeling completes it” (Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot)
Shoma Morishita was born in Japan and specializes in creative technology. He uses the latter to focus on the different forms of human perception, transforming into art the inner emotions of Japanese thought concerning the changing of the seasons. Technically, it uses GPGPU, a technology that performs generic computer calculations, to create a three-dimensional representation of countless autumn leaves. In the history of art there are many works dedicated to autumn, the most loved are certainly those of Atkinson Grimshaw, who with the precision of the Pre-raphaelite and his very personal drafting of the dominant color, takes us through the streets and in the country avenues, so vivid that we can smell the musk, the damp leaves of rain and whisper the sound of footsteps on the golden carpet of leaves. The warm color rendering of the autumn woods is immortalized by Van Gogh, in which we can almost feel the swarm of leaves, or in grandiose views where we feel all the wild power of the still untouched nature of America in the 19th century, in Frederic Edwin Church. Shoma in “Floating Universe of Autumn leaves” aims to evoke, through warm and golden colors, the sad but brilliant atmosphere of nature that is preparing for winter. The moment represents an intense and nostalgic sadness, connected with the autumn and the vanishing of the world. This according to Japanese culture denotes one of the four moods of the “furyu”, called “aware”. The term “furyu”, which in modern Japanese means “elegant”, was used in late medieval poems to indicate a vision of aristocratic and nostalgic life: literally means “wind and water flowing” and probably the Zen decided to make it his own for the ideas of naturalness, instantaneousness and ephemeral beauty that he brings with him, as well as for the characteristic of the wind to be felt but not seen, and that of the water to be formless, tangible yet elusive. In the wake of this culture, Shoma’s art is almost sensory, and transports us into a lost space. It represents the warmth of the world, which is expressed in the background through a series of countless autumn leaves dancing, emphasizing everything that is extremely simple, daily, spontaneous; a moment at the bottom quite banal and common in the life of every man.
“I will be an artist or nothing!” (Eugene O’Neill)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Shoma Morishita
Floating Universe of Autumn leaves
Sindhuja Galipalli “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable” (Robert Henri)
Sindhuja Galipalli, was born in India, but lives and works in Dubai. She is an emerging artist and pharmacist by profession. She is currently experimenting with acrylic and oil painting, but is constantly looking for new techniques. Through art, Sindhuja investigates a broad spectrum of emotional and psychological hues. Her intent is to show on the canvas the varied world of human emotions and moods. In the transition between 800 and 900 the psychological states have become the subject of study and study in various fields, and in particular in the literary and artistic. Scientific and technological advances have broadened knowledge of man, perception and psychology. All this had an impact on consciences and was reflected in the restless and multifaceted imaginary that the artists of the period represented in their works. The period in which this passage took place is between late Romanticism and Verism up to the avant-garde. Melancholy and alienation, contemplation and empathy, communion and harmony, fear and hallucination, radiance and enthusiasm, fusion and ecstasy, become the protagonists of the paintings of many artists. A figure certainly emblematic in the Italian art scene is Umberto Boccioni, an artist very interested in the expression of psychological interiority that realizes his triptychs entitled «Stati d’animo». Boccioni intended to create canvases that were faithful transcriptions in the form of lines and colors of different human emotions. For Sindhuja art is the same thing. “Happy Bloom” expresses the positive vibrations of a flowering personality. It represents an optimistic character full of happiness, hope and pleasure. A work with bright, warm colors that transmits joy to the viewer. “Burning Rage” in contrast, represents the pessimism that slowly envelops a person. Anger, depression, anxiety, dark greed that involve the subject in this abyss, surrounded by a feeling of powerlessness. “Strong essence” depicts a confident woman who can illuminate the atmosphere with her own light. In this strong work is the essence of passion, trust, power and charm. It is clear that each of her works is a “silent story” that turns to the eye and not to the ear, according to which the viewer needs nothing else than the work itself. Sindhuja with her art manages to infuse grace and ingenuity in her subjects, making fascinating her language that injects color directly into the veins.
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser” (John W. Gardner)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Sindhuja Galipalli
Burning Rage
Sindhuja Galipalli
Happy Bloom
Sindhuja Galipalli
Strong Essence
Snježana Ćirković “Colours ripen overnight” (Alda Merini)
Snježana Ćirković is a self-taught abstract artist based in Vienna. Colours, motion and harmony define her artworks, by which she explores her inner self and her feelings. “Painting is for me a way to transmit all my energy and emotions, like an exciting journey where I am discovering hidden corners of my soul” – she says. The title of her artwork, Technicolor Dreams, refers to the famous cinematographic process of technicolor, the most widely used in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952. Famous for saturated and realistic colours it is evoked in this painting by the variety and brightness of the colours used by the artist, spread through full-bodied brushstrokes of different materiality. But, as suggested by the title of the painting, the colours of the rich Snježana’s palette bring to mind also the psychedelic atmosphere typical of dream, where the different layers of imagination, emotion and reality are intertwined. The painting by Snježana envelopes the viewer in this fantastic symphony of sensations, immerging him in a kind of colorful daydream.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Snježana Ćirković
Technicolor Dreams
Sonnhild Kost “Creativity takes courage” (Henri Matisse)
Sonnhild Kost is a self-taught artist who lives and works in Germany. After having worked as a draftswoman for 35 years, she decided to take her artistic journey in order to be able to freely express and manifest her inner world. In the exhibited series, the artiso wants us to pay attention to some aspects of our life. In the fors work highlights sonnhild wants to stimulate us. The routine is easy, convenient, it saves us a lot of energy but at the same time it dries up our potential. The major issue is to get used to living with the automatic pilot losing everything that surrounds us. In the second artwork moment we understand the importance of the little things. What are considered small details are actually the most important things. In the last one patch, we notice the power of colors, the vital energy and the creative restlessness, the coloristic vivacity that express an authentic love for life. The painting expresses through colors the artist’s emotions. Sonnihld’s art, which goes from traditional to innovative digital painting,becomes an experience which is aimed at translating her feelings and deepest hidden tensions into colours and images: emotions that are way too powerful to be expressed through simple words. The objective of the artist is to create compositions that are able to emanate light, love, power and vital energy throughout the environment where they are exhibited, like mirrors reflecting her bright and fascinating psychic and emotional dimension.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Sonnhild Kost
Highlight
Sonnhild Kost
Moment
Sonnhild Kost
Patch
Tjeerd Doosje
Tjeerd Doosje photographs beautiful, angelic girls on stages purposefully set for the occasion. His shots show an extreme care to obtain the perfect picture, the product of a thoughtful and careful plan from the angle chosen to the setting to the lights. They tell a story product of years of experience, passion and study. The results are breath-taking shots of vivid colours that transport us into a fairytale world, invited by kids with big eyes and flawless skin. Doosje ‘s little models pose as one could find on a fashion catalogue, each one perfectly inserted into their context and one can play searching each time the link between the model and the overall scenery. Often it is the colours of their clothing that calls back to their surrounding. Thus the warm yellow of a sweater compliments the orange-red of a carpet of fallen leaves, the pastel blue of a flowing gown the same of a blurred background, and the black of the shirts the grey of the wall. Sometimes the link is in the shapes, like the flowers blossoming both living around a girl and embroidered onto her dress.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Tjeerd Doosje
Catinca (0508)
Tjeerd Doosje
Claartje (0201)
Tjeerd Doosje
Claartje (1019)
Tjeerd Doosje
Fay (0108)
Tjeerd Doosje
Merel en Roos (0101)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (0115)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1213)
Tanti Yulianty “Art sweeps our soul from the dust of everyday life.” (Pablo Picasso) Tanti Yulianty, is an abstract artist self-taught. Currently resides in Doha, Qatar, but has Indonesian origins. She uses painting as a means of expression and every unique life experience nourishes all the artistic instincts of Tanti, necessary to create works of art. She loves to play with different materials and styles, such as acrylic painting and media, obtaining abstract works. Abstractionism is one of the leading trends in 20th-century painting and sculpture. It is a type of art that does not represent recognizable scenes or objects, but on the contrary consists of shapes and colors chosen for their pure expressive value. More or less pronounced, the abstract expression was not only a visual revolution, but a step forward by artists towards a better world. The idea of having a mission to accomplish, the foundation of abstractism, was a unique feature compared to other avant-garde movements. This current is, therefore, constantly in search of direct individual emotion. The same that Kandinskij manifests with his “improvisations” and “compositions”. Thus a world made of lines and colours is born that, finding inspiration in the sensations, becomes an expression of the psychic content, that is the so-called “inner necessity” of the artist. Each color is therefore the bearer of a precise emotional message, which is also associated with a specific acoustic meaning: in Kandinskij, painting and music in fact blend into a single form of synesthetic art, which impetuously overwhelms the viewer. Tanti who, from abstraction, make her poetics and inspired by the Russian artist, follow the flow letting her imagination be unleashed. From her works a powerful effect of dynamism transpires, as if the colors chase each other and move each other. In “The eye of the forest” wide brushstrokes of a dark green provide a rich spectrum of pigments that illuminates with the solemnity of the colored shades, creating an explosion of light. The sudden shattering of color vibrates against the retinas of the observer and echoes in her ears as the emotional and spiritual fear of this painting becomes a physical experience. With this landscape work, there is a representation of the environment devoid of idealization, in which trees and vegetation, plays of light and shade, acquire the dignity of autonomous subjects of the painting. Nature is already an art form that the artist must know and understand precisely by living it in close contact. This is what Tanti intends to do through art, explore the wonders of life and dedicate her energies to create something fascinating and exceptional.
“Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable.” (Robert Henri)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Tanti Yulianty
Blue cosmos
Tanti Yulianty
Eye of the forest
Tanti Yulianty
Love flower
Tatsuhiro Nozaki
“In the middle of the mellifluousness” is the result of Japanese Tatsuhiro Nozaki’s entire artistic experience, as the artwork eclectically represents both his past and present styles. “The main feature of my painting is to make the sky and the sea look fantastic. Lately, I’ve been trying fashion art because I have been inspired by fashion from my experience as a show model and portrait” writes the artist. What is most interesting about this piece is the predominance of sky on the virtual canvas and the absence of land - stars in this case where a model is sitting on- almost left black, painted only with the colour’s shuffling coming from the brushes above. A strong contrast between sky and earth that intentionally leads the viewer’s eyes to get immersed in a dreamy setting where the blue of the night dialogues gently with shades of pink, orange and red, maybe recalling to a stunning sunrise. The presence of the blonde model at the centre of the drawing, wearing a red outfit and posing - maybe in front of a photographer, or maybe just rehearsing for a future shoot - becomes another focal point of the drawing. The red’s semiotics suggest vital energy, both mental and physical. The use of this colour opposes passive energies by infusing a captivating spiritual and physical strength. “In the middle of the mellifluousness” is a honeyed and pleasant vision with powerful energy, thanks to a skilful use of colours and composition.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Tatsuhiro Nozaki
In the middle of the mellifluousness
Tehila Avraham “Turning off all the lights and observing the world every now and then is good. How strange it is that the world goes on anyway whether I observe it or not!” (Virginia Woolf)
Each of us leaves the imprint of his passage in this world, in the heart of those we love, in the memory of those we met, in the gestures we make every day. The world around us, on the other hand, runs fast, undeterred, and every day reserves us new surprises, new adventures. It is then up to us to grasp what beauty offers us. This is what the young Israeli artist Tehila (Glory) Avraham does with her unconventional art: she captures what life offers her unpredictable, to give life to surprising artistic creations that go beyond conventional schemes. She manages to give a truly unique interpretation of the world around her. In her work entitled “Beyond the world”, the artist manages to merge man, his life and his gestures, with the world that surrounds him, which progresses and does not stop. Man and reality thus merge with each other. Innovation and progress are now a fundamental part of our lives. But even a small gesture from us can change everything. The technique used by Tehila is surprising: she managed to create 30 shades of colors starting from the five primary colors. Furthermore, the richness of details in the representation of the hand leaves you speechless: it has recreated a real world on the fingers of one hand. Instead, thanks to the wide shades of color given to the background, the protagonist of the painting is highlighted even more. The viewer is forced to carefully observe every single detail and get lost in what the painting can tell him.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Tehila Avraham
Beyond the world
Terry Hulsing
Terry Hulsing is a self-taught artist always eager to try different artistic means, from acrylics to oils, to expand her passion for art. She recently discovered a particular interest in Fluid Art: a new great love that helps her to overcome her own limits, without having control of the elements used, imagining and being surprised by the final result of the work. As in Dreamers Illusion where the chemical reaction, resulted by the merge between the White House paint and an acrylic extender, caused the formation of cells from which the painting originates. The selection of the shades to be used for the creation of the work is of crucial importance as the artist is careful not to confuse them with each other in order not to create wrong sequences. For example, water green infuses serenity in the observer and, being a natural nuance linked to the sea, it is extremely relaxing and pleasant. While purple, which symbolically represents mystery and magic, is the color of spirituality par excellence; moreover, it stimulates the mind and creativity and, on an emotional level, soothes from sadness. The overall movement within the painting attracts the attention of the observer, transporting him into his moods, reaching a carefree place with any kind of concerns in it. All this strikes the subconscious, giving a wide space to the unreal and dreamlike. Imagination and interpretation are of vital importance: in this way, every person can be involved by this work, letting himself be lulled by a sense of peace and quietness.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Terry Hulsing
Dreamers Illusion
Tiia Henriksson
The first traces of the use of gold date back to Ancient Egypt, where this color was used to best represent the divinities, as this is a shade that cannot be reproduced and, for this reason, alludes to the unreal, the unreachable, to something mystical, in a way to underline what is sacred. In all this, the artist Tiia Henriksson proposes an updated vision in the use of this color: the essence and form of every detail in the painting Pour the gold on me, baby! is entirely sprinkled with a single, broad golden shade, creating a dazzling monochrome. And it is in this way that one can notice the use of gold as the subject of the work, as reality, as truth and beauty, idealism and action, fertility and royalty. Gold as light or as a natural and mineral element: a creative mine that the artist discovers within herself, capable of expanding the soul and matter, expanding her perceptive and cognitive abilities. A nuance that turns out to be one of the purest materials presents: everything that was external now becomes internal and the universe is concentrated in the only possible reality, the one of the sensitivities of this color that leads to absolute freedom. The result of this experimentation corresponds to the purification of reality, namely the surrounding environment is annulled by virtue of the innocence released by the color which is itself a work of art. Reality becomes part of the ideal artist’s world, that keeps constantly changing up to “becomes gold”. In this cathartic process art is mainly a therapy and a way to channel the artist’s feelings, involving great emotions and moods.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Tiia Henriksson
Pour the gold on me, baby!
Tim Guse “The muse has kissed me and now live appears in abstract shapes and colors” (Tim Onday)
Tim Onday also known as Tim Guse, is a young and talented German artist; he has been entering the world of art for some years with an abstract tendency. For Tim, color is not an accessory tool: it is a choice, indeed a vocation. His ability to involve the observer, to initiate a dialogue with him, a path in which colors speak to each other, is evident in his works. The artist thus triggers a pleasant, alienating state of mind in which to continually walk the traits of the figures he represents in search of unlikely similarities, but with the certainty that part of those faces belongs to us. Through the most disparate figures with decomposed shapes, Tim expresses his most intimate emotions: the amazement, the expectation, the anxiety of our age, especially in expressive works such as the “Split” and a “Balance” of considerable beauty. If the artist reconstructs reality, only after filtering it, breaking it down and analyzing it, the observer has the task of carrying out the reverse process, of going beyond the first impression, penetrating into the deepest folds of the image.
“Art is anything you can get away with” (Andy Warhol)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Tim Guse
Balance
Tim Guse
Split
Tim Guse
Shining
Tina Corrales-Mader
The artist presents us with a multi-technique painting of a sleeping woman. Looking at it, Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” comes immediately to mind. The subject shows us not an alluring seducer, wielding all weapons of womanhood, but a simple, innocent and defenceless woman. There is indeed an absolute simplicity in Maeder’s woman. She is naked, but her nakedness is not to please someone or elicit a scandal. Instead, it is perfectly inserted in the context of her surroundings. Men are born naked and only naked they can really fit into nature. Sleeping, the woman does not care for any potential witness and we are not part of the scene, it’s simply our eyes glancing over. Someone might even think the woman is not sleeping, but dead, lying in the place of her eternal rest while flowers slowly take over her body. The title of the piece “In Dreams” prevents us from a similar interpretation. Yet, it is difficult to deny the return to nature, shedding clothes and everything born from man’s hands. We can imagine her stopping for a moment and deciding to lie down to take a pause from the outside world. Probably the woman is still too well groomed to have forgone the modern world, Yet, for an instant, she belongs here. Given society’s demand for modern womanhood, this pause is a rare luxury. In this pause, raw beauty blossoms just as the field flowers around the woman’s body. For now, she does not answer to anyone but herself. She does not need to hide in the latest fashion, or to alter her features with make-up. She is alone and sleeping and she is self-sufficient. Sleep is one of Maeder’s main themes and a constant in her works, where dreams play a fundamental role igniting a new inspiration. In the minutes before going to sleep, the artist’s mind blooms with new ideas that she must sketch down or they would disappear. The woman’s dream is a mystery we will never know. Lips, eyebrows, the whole face is relaxed, she is neutral in her sleeping. No nightmare is troubling her, or is laying heavy on her chest, and yet the dream is not beautiful enough for a smile either. Quite the contrary - if we take a step back, the eyebrows almost form a frown. Even in this parenthesis of Elysium, something of the outside world keeps bothering the woman. It is a memory maybe, or a person she’s lost, or even something too vague to be grasp on canvas and explained.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Tina Corrales-Mader
In dreams
Tine Mynster “Let me, oh let me immerse my soul in colors; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow” (Khalil Gibran)
Tine’s artistic work is a complete immersion in a sea of vibrant colors, the viewer is completely transported by the current of them, as in a shipwreck is catapulted into a whirlwind of emotions. Big brushstrokes, pasty and vivid colors play the role of protagonists on the stage of the canvas, light tones that contrast with dark and gloomy backgrounds, contrasts of colors, light and shadow, are characteristics that make Tine’s works strongly evocative and suggestive. Like Friedrich’s “The wanderer above the sea of fog”, so the viewer feels in front of Tine’s works: overwhelmed by the sublime. In fact, the work of the Danish artist could be defined as a “romantic abstract”, there is no presence of real forms, only colors disconnected from any constraint, therefore abstract, and at the same time it is romantic because it arouses deep feelings. Brushstroke on brushstroke, layers and layers of color, as if to condense in them all the passion that the artist possesses and that she wants to convey, Tine’s artistic work is born from instinct, from impulse and the creative act is clearly visible . Her works are ardor, they are so intense as to overwhelm and make the soul jump of the viewer.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Tine Mynster
At a distance but close by
Tine Mynster
Most of all is love
Tine Mynster
Sunrise
Toby King-Thompson “Both art and the artist do not have their own identity, but they acquire it in the encounter of one with the other.” (Harold Rosenberg)
Toby King-Thompson is a contemporary London artist. He has a rare perceptive phenomenon called synesthesia. Toby sees words and names in color. So his fascination with color and his perception are considered truly innate gifts. His art recalls the canons of abstract expressionism, considered one of the most important artistic currents of the postwar period. Developed in America, it represents the leading phenomenon in the general affirmation climate of non-figurative painting, which characterized the second half of the 1940s and 1950s. It was the first typically American artistic phenomenon to influence the rest of the world and helped to radically move the artistic capital from Paris to New York, and more generally from Europe to the United States of America. The term “Abstract Expressionism” is due to Alfred H. Barr jr. who coined it in 1929 by commenting on a painting by Vasily Kandinskij. The movement takes its name from the combination of the emotional and self-expressional intensity of German expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetics of European abstraction schools such as Futurism, Bauhaus and synthetic Cubism. In addition, the movement possesses an image of rebellion, anarchist, highly idiosyncratic and, according to the thinking of some, rather nihilistic. In its genericity, the term “Abstract Expressionism” has the merit of highlighting two fundamental attributes of the whole current: the central role assigned to the artist’s individuality and the development of an abstract pictorial language that represents perception and reality.Toby in his works, through the use of acrylic painting, expresses his daily visions imprinting everything he feels in the depths of his soul, free from aesthetic conventions. At the center of his work is the individuality of the artist who puts his own existence at stake in a psychological and spiritual sense. The canvas becomes the place of the artist’s being and of the art itself, in which it conveys its emotions and its vital energy. His is an art understood in the sense of “Action” not in the motor sense, gestural, existential and his works exist because he chooses to act. “Action” is understood as taking the risk of painting the picture, letting it arise and reveal itself at the moment. “Action”, therefore, as a self-confirmation of the artist’s existence.
“If I were called upon to define briefly the word Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature, seen through the veil of the soul” (Paul Cezanne)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Toby King-Thompson
Elation
Toby King-Thompson
Hope
Toby King-Thompson
Waves of Relief
Tracy White “The only true source of art is our heart, the language of an infallibly pure soul. A work that has not flowed from this source can only be artificial. Every authentic work of art is conceived in a holy hour and given birth in a happy hour, often without the artist himself being aware of it, through the inner impulse of the heart.” (Caspar David Friedrich)
Tracy White is an American artist with a strong passion and interest in art. She experiences painting, mixed media and sculpture. Her life path is the mirror of her painting. Art for the artist has, in fact, always provided a way out of the confusion and turmoil of life. Tracy’s is an art of escape. A metaphorical, imaginative escape that offers a look elsewhere to find yourself and begin to imagine a better future. From today, for tomorrow. Art offers extraordinary escape opportunities, and artists are second to none. Many have practiced escape from the world, reinterpreting the latter through a different look from the real that surrounded them; Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and the French impressionists among all. Tracy, through the canvas and brush finds comfort and can get lost in the pictorial process and devote herself to this completely. Making use of an abstraction lens describes intense personal moments incorporating rules and omissions, often involving the viewer through circular forms and impressions. “Life has put a Crack in My Soul” is an abstract work that evokes emotion, intellect and memory. The dominant colors are white and gold. The first is understood by the artist as absence of sound, place of purity, place of nothingness or place of the invisible, able to tell stories of silences, of progressive subtractions up to the threshold of nothingness. This “symbolizes beauty and strikes us as a great silence that seems absolute to us,” as Kandinskij explains. The second, gold, is a perpetually shining stainless element. Tracy through the use of these two colors paints those places where she would like to escape to reach her lost happiness again.
“Who wants to know more about me, that is, about the artist, the only one who is worth knowing, look carefully at my paintings to find out who I am and what I want. “ (Gustav Klimt)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Tracy White
Life has put a Crack in My Soul
tuxedodoom “Form itself, even if completely abstract ... has its own inner sound.” (Wassily Kandinsky)
Claudia Taccia was born in 1988, active as a painter and illustrator, forging her works under the pseudonym of “tuxedodoom” mixing techniques in order to achieve the characteristic texture, the acrylic dream. Tuxedoom is born based on contrasts; it’s the result of mixing what’s stormy in life, with the lightest colours. She plays with the idea that there is no such thing as objective representation, and that the mind, feelings, beliefs, moods and attitudes of the artist influenced and distorted even the most faithfully rendered depiction of people, landscapes, objects and moments in time. Her art is stronger than ever and it’s particularly suitable for the art collector who wants to have a pure emotional connection with her work. Abstract art is a release of the entire emotional charge of the artist. It appeared as a manifesto against naturalism, as a rebellion against the laws previously known. In abstract art, colors have the largest role, through them the artist communicates the whole story of the painting. By coloring, a painting speaks and provokes emotion. For a better understanding of Claudia’s work, you must open the door of your inner thoughts, feelings and mood.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
tuxedodoom
Une
Vanda Parker “Life for me is a gift and should be appreciated as a gift. I love people and life is for people. Sharing what I can express is the most beautiful thing in my life” (Vanda Parker)
Through these words, Vanda Parker praises a supreme and unequalled good, the life of every living being. Despite this complex moment that has put the entire planet to the test, the artist does not lose hope and is confident for the future. Is it possible to obtain, from such a dramatic situation, a precious gift? Tragedies bring with them changes of all kinds and reality is turned upside down. There are different ways of representing and telling it: it is precisely the purpose of Vanda’s visual and perceptive language, capable of compensating and supporting the public through her love for art. “Hands” is the key word of the whole process, to which the most significance is placed to contrast the spread of the virus. An instrument so important that it becomes part of the mind itself, like an articulation of it. Hands express the soul of each individual and they can give life to a unique language. With Wash your hand before the shake, Vanda Parker proposes an awareness-raising and purification campaign, by sharing with the observer a key message in this difficult period that the whole world is experiencing: the act of washing one’s hands becomes a true artwork, through the extraordinary and lively use of bright colors. This image is full of strength and light. The hand creates a non-verbal language that accompanies the words, intensifying and highlighting them with a crucial emotional scope, which strikes the interlocutor and provokes many emotions. At the same time, the viewer can immerse himself/herself in the painting and understand this invitation. A hymn to help and improve oneself with a small gesture that can make a huge difference.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Vanda Parker
Wash your hand before the shake
Varda Levy
Varda Levy paints four portraits of women, each different and unique. Focusing on the portrait allows telling a story without being distracted by other elements safe for some accessorize. They float and pop out from an unreal background of colour, almost a non-place. Her women are real, people anyone could easily meet in their everyday life and their own uniqueness makes it hard to find red threads connecting them lest one wishes to generalize a certain femininity to every woman. There is still a certain interest in glamour in every portrait though each one expresses it in their own way. Thus a woman wears a large pair of glasses reminiscing of a diva, another a pair of precious earrings and another one yet a beautiful and bright necklace.
Varda Levy
Some even express their identity and creativity in their hair, reviving it with unusual and colourful dyes. Levy’s women are thoughtful, peaceful and serious, lost in their world of reflection, and we are not given any hint to discover what that world may be. We can try to guess and infer their lives outside this instant but the lack of external elements makes it impossible to have any confirmation and in the end it doesn’t even matter. We do not need to have proof of these women’s inner and private lives, to spy on them, to appreciate and respect their existence. We are told they are unique and this must be enough.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Varda Levy
Diana
Varda Levy
Golden Brown
Varda Levy
Margo
Varda Levy
Shiba
Virginia Lozano Garcia “Art has a voice – let it speak “ (Rochelle Carr)
Virginia Lozano Garcia was born in Madrid and since a very young age she started to communicate through art. His grandfather was his mentor which infused in her the passion for art and taught her how to express her emotions and feelings onto canvas. After achieving the diploma as a graphic designer, she went back to her old passion and she picked up her brushes again discovering abstract art. She found it was the best and spontaneous way to convey her emotions. It is like a magic filter where colors are merged together creating lights and shadows, giving life to shapes that are nothing more than her feelings. A fluid paint that is able to transport the ink into another dimension creating a personalized palette that captures the continuous change of her emotions. Everything starts from an intuition, she wants the other person to get closer to what is her intuition by letting them feel what she feels. The canvas becomes a tabula rasa where the deepest feelings can be applied and transferred in a specific moment. In this picture, abstraction is for her the most immediate form of personal manifest against the modern dogmas,requirements and clichés which our society demands and expects. The energetic and vibrant brush strokes and the use of deep colours are aimed at reproducing the variety and multiplicity of the feelings that accompany the artist’s experiences. The work “Destellos en el mar” is inspired by the Indonesian island of Pantai Merah, characterized by its pink sand and turquoise water where everything becomes magical when at sunset the sun casts its shimmer onto the sea.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Virginia Lozano Garcia
Flashes of the Sea
Wax
Wax comes spontaneously from the artistic mind of Rinaldo Alessandro Malvermi. Born in Bucharest, he grew up in Italy and currently based in Amsterdam, after an experience living in the US. Wax is both the alter ego of the artist and the protagonist of his pieces. The adventures and life experiences of Wax can’t help but evoke satiric strips, and are nothing more than casual life settings that everyone could potentially experience and witness. Every real artistic piece comes from the urgency to say something, and we can sense that the artist decided to delegate to Wax his urgency to express his own social and existential discontent, while maintaining an ironic and visually pleasant expressiveness for the viewers. Wax is an amorphous character which finds its corporeal dimension by almost possessing and embodying the individuals he wants to focus the attention on. In “Opium” we see Wax taking on the semblance of a woman - or even a man - smoking opium poppies alone on her/his doorstep in an undefined place that could be a desert of the Southern United States. Even the artist’s use of colours, extremely bright and saturated, evoke a captivating lysergic aura. The character seems to be waiting for someone, maybe for some guests, as the elegant and expensive outfit may suggest. But this does not represent the focal point of the artist’s provocation. What Wax wants to point out in “Opium” is a subtle message against capitalism. He seems to scream: “I wear elegant clothes for myself and not to nourish the social expectations in curating my appearance and in pleasing others aesthetically. I wear elegant clothes at home, in a desert, even while appreciating narcosis”.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Wax
Opium
Wildstahl
Jochen Krobath is an Austrian artist and engineer born in Bruck an der Mur. His peculiarity is the eclecticism of his work, able to shape unique artistic pieces due to the support of steel and to his artistic sensibility. “Wildstahl” is the result of this unique synergy between the artist’s technical background as project manager in metal construction, and his creative vocation. Wildstahl is now a company, a project to which Jochen gives an all-round contribution as product designer, steel artist and CAD-designer. “Canvas and pen were exchanged for sheet steel and a computer. The brush is called the mouse, colors are called vectors and pixels, the biggest secret is the shadow play that is thrown on the wall by the works. True to the motto: We bring sheet steel to life. Elegance meets rust, chaos meets perfection and dreams meet reality”.The interesting element of this operation is the possibility to apply this artistic formula to multiple objects of representation: humane figures, famous icons, urban landscapes and so on. The poetic quality of the artist coincides with impressing - through steel - his subjectivity and identifying style. Jochen’s artworks “Eye”, “Passion”, Face” are rigorously black and white. In art, black and white have the power to generate an immediate tension and to effectively communicate without any additional intermediaries.
Wildstahl
The match of black and white wants to demonstrate that the viewer doesn’t need any realistic elements or recognizable background for an authentic fruition: the viewer should instead get invested by the pure message entrusted to the chromatic contrast. These two colours coincide with “the end” of the chromatic circle: white contains all the colours, and recalls the idea of a fusion and luminous union. Black, on the other hand, represents an absence of colour, and it is often linked to an idea of emptiness and darkness. But together, black and white act on our perceptual system, communicating much more than their “traditional” acceptations: eye and mind get activated and interact with each other, looking unconsciously for deeper meanings, worlds and an intimacy evoked by this complementary combination. The black and white triptych by Jochen depicts details of the human figure: an eye, a facial close-up and a passionate kiss between two lovers that, thanks to their chromatic opposition and unique manufacturing, result to be even more intense and visceral. The exception is played by the fourth piece “Marilyn” as it is softly coloured. The artwork is an artistic homage to the iconic picture of Marilyn Monroe, and shows the consistency of the artist’s poetics: a versatile attitude in representing different subjects while maintaining that artistic encounter between creativity and the potential of the material, steel.
“Stay wild! Is the motto. Wildstahl gives its steel laser cuts with hand-finished surfaces a special ‘wild’ touch. Each individual work of art is unique thanks to a wide variety of techniques” Jochen Krobath
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Wildstahl
Face 01
Wildstahl
Marilyn
Wildstahl
Passion
Wildstahl
The Eye
Yamauchi Sayaka
Yamauchi Sayaka is a Japanese advertising designer and illustrator. She mostly creates hand-painted artworks, often using Japanese pigments. “Mermaid” is a one-minute-long video in which the artist synergically merges an harmonic design and composition of the moving image with a fascinating use of bright colors. The video is a moving painting able to capture the viewer at a visceral level starting from the mermaid’s presence that, in her being charming and seductive, brings the audience on a marine and flowering journey. The mermaid is already per se a persuasive figure, capturing the sailors with her fascinating beauty, grace and magnetic melodies, but this video, in its being silent, focuses its attention only on the visual aspect and the dynamism of color and image, succeeding in being incisive. At the beginning of the video a rain of petals encounters an explosion of colorful seaweeds from which the mermaid reveals herself, looking for an eye-contact with her audience. Perhaps the mermaid wants to encourage the audience to an emotional surrender where the analytical vision is completely supplanted by a mere affective fruition, following the sensitive and vibrant video’s flow. The artwork is an invitation to lighten our gaze and let the mermaid - the irrational - immerse the viewers in unruly seas of dreams.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Yamauchi Sayaka
Mermaid
Zlatan Woszerow “My inspiration comes from the act of creation itself, which consumes me completely being the source of indescribable satisfaction” (Zlatan Woszerow)
Emerging artist of Polish origins, Zlatan Woszerow thus attributes his artistic inspiration. His works have been exhibited in international shows. Inspired by art since childhood, he creates digital art centered around geometric shapes and vibrant color palettes. Starting from an abstract drawing or a portrait, the artist manages to create true masterpieces using the Ipad as a digital support, instead of a brush, his fingers and a virtual palette instead of colors. His -mainly- is an abstract digital painting, simple but impactful, made of simple elements and bright colors. His conception of art is very peculiar and extraordinary, because he wants to express subjective emotions in the form of colours and informal components. In his works we find a surprising balance, a strong rhythm and dynamism that drags the viewer inside the work itself, transported by different and contrasting emotions.
“Art is not what you see, but what you show others” (Edgar Degas)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Zlatan Woszerow
Greeny blue is in the air
Zlatan Woszerow
Poseidon’s gaze
Zlatan Woszerow
Rain of rays from X543
Curated by Art Directors Carlo Greco and Alessandra Magni Critical texts by Art Curators Alessia Perone Cecilia Terenzoni Erika Gravante Erminia Abbuonandi Federica D’Avanzo Francesca Brunello Giorgia Massari Giulia CalÏ Guendalina Cilli Lorenza Traina Marta Graziano Mery Malaventura Silvia Grassi Vanessa Viti
“If you take pictures of a stranger, the minute you click the shutter, that person stops being a stranger, because you will always bring it with you.” There is so much truth in these words by Giuseppe Tornatore. It is not a factor of equipment, of light, of location or even of the subject in front of the lens: when a picture provides us inexplicable sensations, there is only one reason. It’s called trip back, starting from the two-dimensionality of the photo: a journey into it, that will allow us to enjoy the story, trying to perceive “why” and then “how” we got out the result, unconsciously accessing to all information that characterize it. We will know the purpose and finally we will witness a genetic transmission, just like a gesture of love. Study, experimentation, refinement and finally coherence, will be fundamental and determining elements that can be traced back to the artist’s style and his DNA: only through small gestures of analysis, we will be able to understand, even years later, who made that specific photograph. They are rare gifts, the balance between feelings and thoughts, between rationality and perception, gracefulness and simplicity, delicacy and elegance, dialogue through a look, elegant composition dominated by energy and visual impact, refinement to the maximum exaltation of beauty. John Berger, writer-legend, art critic, poet, essayist, playwright and winner of the 1972 Booker Prize with the novel G., stated in one of his writings that “you learn to read a photograph as you learn to read an imprint, or a cardiogram”. The goal is always the same: learn to see. We must learn to see before to photograph, but to photograph can become a way to learn to see.
“To photograph is to hold the breath when all our faculties converge to capture fleeting reality: at this point the image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” (Henry Cartier Bresson) Concept by Alessandra Magni, Art Director
Alex Kosyak “It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not.” (Charles Baudelaire)
Alex Kosyak is a Ukrainian photographer who was born in 1984 in Romny. Always passionate about art, he is attracted in particular by the surrealist movement, especially by the works of Salvador Dalì. Only later he approached photography, certainly influenced by the typical characteristics of Surrealism. His photos are often set in city centers, but it would be an understatement to define Alex as a street photographer. His photography does not want to be a document of everyday life on the streets, but a continuous research on the dimension that the body assumes in relation to architecture. One thing that photography fails to do, in fact, is to communicate the real dimensions of things. In each image of the triptych presented here, we can see how the presence of the body acts as a useful element for understanding the proportions. The architecture of his photographs engulfs all the space and the bodily element remains at the mercy of it without awareness. Alex’s language is mainly characterized by highly contrasted blacks and whites, which convey a feeling of restlessness despite the regularity of the lines and respect for the composition. Buildings that now graze the sky, ever taller buildings, magnificent ever more imposing architectures envelop our daily life. The sensation that exhales from these images increases a doubt of malaise. All these buildings do not allow the vision of a real horizon, of space and very often also of the sun. Masses of people move from one city to another every day. They live and work in large urban centers. The relationship created over the years between man and the urban landscape is constantly expanding. Will we be able to survive far from our origins?
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Alex Kosyak
Personality shadow
Alex Kosyak
Step
Alex Kosyak
To avoid oblivion
André Mascarenhas “All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” (Gabriel García Márquez)
André Mascarenhas is a Brazilian-American photographer who lives and works in Berlin. He choose street photography to express his vision of the world. In this photograph he captures a very particular fragment of everyday life. Our eyes do not meet those of a person on the street, as often happens in this photographic genre, but those of a dog in a parked car. The way he looks at us raises several questions because it is not just any gaze, but rather something that calls our attention in a visceral way. The windows become like mirrors that reflect the surrounding world. This dog seems to observe the outside world like from the inside a of a bubble. While we are out in the world caught up in our routine, work and responsibilities, he is alone in the silence of that car, observing and intimidating us. We only see him and we can barely distinguish what is inside his bubble. The glass acts as a shield to the outside world. It seems to want to tell us not to forget our intimacy and so to be swallowed up by the frenzy of everyday life. It reminds us of the importance of the warmth of the environment in which we retire when the day comes to an end. That space for ourselves that no one can enter at all.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
AndrĂŠ Mascarenhas
Dog car reflections
Andres Herrera “Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light.� (Le Corbusier)
Andres Herrera is a Colombian photographer. His research is strongly influenced by the interest he has in design. In fact, his photography is made up of geometric shapes resulting from perspectives of buildings and glimpses of architecture, which no longer seem to assert this role. In some moments, we find ourselves immersed in places where the third dimension disappears, leaving us surrounded only by lines that cross the visual space, to meet in specific points and then reconnect with others. The use of black and white transforms architecture into a real uninhabited skeleton. Andres empties the buildings to the bone, to recover their hidden lines, precision, shapes and intersecting planes. The skies turn black and majestic white lattices rise above them, glowing in the dark. It breaks the limits of reality to abstraction, to take us to another world and then, suddenly, the light. Colored surfaces, less violent shapes and lines are now the main subjects of his photographs. A pastel orange envelops the blue of the sky in which a palm tree appears and a lilac wall is the backdrop to three salmoncolored openings. In this dualism, the only trace of the man are these buildings, the earth no longer seems to be inhabited. Our shape prevents us from belonging to this abstract world, a world of otherworldly geometries and balances. What Andres takes us to, is an utopian journey made of symmetries and visual proportions, far from reality, where lines, planes and points are sovereigns of a perfectly organized space.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Andres Herrera
Converge
Andres Herrera
Curbside Palm
Andres Herrera
Living in repetition
Andres Herrera
Ornage-Geometric-Windows
Andres Herrera
The Gap between us
Angela Stout & Neysa Wellington
The painter, Angela M. Stout, and the photographer, Neysa Wellington, both from North Carolina, collaborate in the realization of the project “Suppression”. Welligton takes a photograph of an African American man covering his nose and mouth with the American flag. The photo is black and white, except for the flag that stands out from the composition thanks to the vivid colors. With great skill, Stout makes an exact copy of the photograph using acrylic paint as her medium. The realism that emerges from this painting is stunning. The work on display expresses a strong need for protest in the wake of recent police brutality events in the States, which resulted in the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Unfortunately, the racial injustice that affects America, and the world in general, is not a recent problem. It has deeper roots that stem from the exploitation and slavery that African populations were subjected from as early as the 15th Century. Angela and Neysa express through art the need for equality and belonging. The American flag, the visual focus of the work, highlights the fact that all citizen of American must be treated as equals, with the same rights and duties. “Suppression” is therefore a work with a strong message, a message that needs to be heard and, above all, understood. Injustice, amorality and persecution must end.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Angela Stout & Neysa Wellington
Suppression
Behrouz EZ “What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.” (Roland Barthes) Behrouz’s photographs tell of city life, strictly in analog. In 2017, in the streets of London, Behrouz bought an old Leica in a flea market and began to photograph the street. When he takes the camera in his hand, he is aware that perfect photography doesn’t exist. The process that leads to shooting becomes much more important. In the images he captures from the outside world, the continuous oscillation between movement and waiting is evident: hurry is the engine that regulates people’s lives. In his lens, however, the hurry comes alive with a new life, made of geometry, lines and solitude. So, the subway, the pedestrian crossing and the race in the morning to get to work on time become, for Behrouz EZ, a pretext to tell the story of the modern world in a poetic key. Photographing, in this way, becomes an aesthetic act and, at the same time, cathartic, because it forces everyone to reflect on an otherwise lost moment. There is no difference between the process and the result, since what remains is the image of a unique movement immortalized forever in a click. Behrouz creates situations that are repeated: and yet, in every photograph, the running, the waiting for public transport, the traffic lights, the pedestrian crossings never seem the same. Everything, in his images, is a reflection of the flow of urban life, of social progress that goes hand in hand with loneliness. Behrouz recounts today’s society with a personal style, that does not give up geometry but not even emotions. As Roland Barthes affirms, what you need to look for in a photograph is the punctum, that is, the sudden emotion aroused by any element impressed in the photograph. When you look at Behrouz’s photographs, you can’t help but think of punctum as a detail, which moves an unspeakable, spontaneous and unpredictable emotion: a crossed leg, a foot inclined slightly upwards, a tie moved by the unstoppable race, a hand that opens a handbag can lead the observer to rediscover the very essence of photography.
Art Curator Giulia Calì
Behrouz EZ
Between The Lines
Behrouz EZ
Dancing In The Street
Behrouz EZ
Yes I’m Lonely
Boris Milojević “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” (Søren Kierkegaard)
Boris Milojević is a Croatian photographer who lives and works in Canada. In recent years he has concentrated his work, documenting the protests aimed at safeguarding the planet from climate change. This image is part of a 2019 project dedicated to Toronto’s “Fridays for Future” movement. On this occasion, people decided to demonstrate by adopting an impactful communication, dressing their bodies with costumes and symbols that recall the theme of death. Black and red are the dominant colors, one indicates death, the other blood. People gathered in a procession accompany a coffin through the streets of the city. Women, with veils over their faces, are already suffering from the loss incurred. Boris was able to capture the energy spread in the air, a combination of anger and determination, as well as anguish. The fate of the planet is in human hand. We will suffer the consequences of our actions and determine what will be best for the future. If the Earth stops breathing, then, we will carry the weight of its body on our shoulders.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Boris Milojević
Extinction Rebellion
Carly Tyll
The Canadian artist Carly Tyll creates works in media mix, her mastery in blending photography and painting produces unique works. In the “ Milano Photoaward” exhibition are exposed two series of different genres: the first, entitled “Arcadia”, is composed of three panels in which Tyll adds painting to photography; the second, entitled “Phantom”, is composed of four computer-edited photographs and subsequently concluded by the use of the marker directly on the printed photograph. The first series “Arcadia” sees as the protagonist a woman who releases an intense sexual energy, even more accentuated by the addition of sketches of painting. The juxtaposition between the emotions released by the woman and the energy transmitted by the gestures of the splashes, creates in the viewer an “exploding” sensation. Even more, the choice to use warm colors, such as red and orange, combined with white and a cold blue, creates a strong visual contrast that gives the work a strong emotional charge. Totally different is the message given by the series “Phantom”: in each panel are represented different people of which you can only glimpse the true appearance. The figures are in fact superimposed by human skeletons, as if they were X-ray scanned. The addition of the inscriptions: “I am he”, “as you are he”, “as you are me” and “and we are all together”, accentuate the message that the artist wants to give. A message of union. We’re all the same, we’re all made of bones, whether you’re a man or a woman or whatever ethnicity you belong to. We’re human, we’re part of the same world. It’s a strong message that reaches the viewer and confronts us with a problem that humanity still faces: the acceptance of the other people and the need to recognize them equal to you.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Carly Tyll
Arcadia - 1
Carly Tyll
Arcadia - 2
Carly Tyll
Arcadia - 3
Carly Tyll
Phantom - 1
Carly Tyll
Phantom - 2
Carly Tyll
Phantom - 3
Carly Tyll
Phantom - 4
Cecilia Albrektsson “It is my hope that photography may fall in line with all the other arts and with her infinite possibilities, do things strange and more fascinating than the most fantastic dreams.” (Alvin Langdon Coburn) Cecilia Albrektsson is a Swedish artist who started making art with acrylic painting and then moved on to digital photography. In her work Shine it is not important what is represented, the energy that transpires even just by observing it is strong and enveloping. The artist herself states that when she creates she never has a well-defined idea at the beginning. She gets carried away by the artistic moment and her emotions from the moment she begins to create it, so she never knows what the final result could be. What emerges from this is a play of lights and colors that chains and captures the visitor’s attention and takes him on a journey with himself. The effect of a kaleidoscope symbolically leads the viewer to create a link with the work based on the present and past sensations in a very intimate and experiential abstractionism. This kind of private and personal storytelling takes us back to the dawn of American abstract photography of the late 19th century. Alvin Langdon Coburn, one of the first exponents of abstract photography in America, created a photographic series (Vortographs) developing an apparatus called vortoscope, a sort of kaleidoscope in which the photographed objects acquired a geometric and kaleidoscopic aspect, almost completely erasing the shapes of the original image. If one thinks about the function of mechanical and descriptive reproduction of reality, the word “abstraction” used for photography might seem a paradox. However, the fact that a photograph is difficult to recognize is not incompatible with one of its definition, “a printing light on a photosensitive surface”. Whatever its nature, the photographic image always remains an image or representation of something, even if the photographer uses various processes to make the viewer not understand what it really represents.
Art Curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Cecilia Albrektsson
Shine
Craig Preston Roberts “The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.” (Charlotte Bronte)
Craig Preston Roberts is a New Zealand photographer who lives and works in London. Obsessed with the documentation of life on the streets, he focuses his attention above all on the homeless and on the degradation in the suburbs. Through his portraits we see closely the people who live on the fringes of our society. Craig creates a contact with them. A dialogue and dig deeper before taking his photographs. He discovers their stories and wants to narrate those for us through their gazes. Tired and empty eyes that generate conflicting sensations in the observer. Fear, emptiness, loneliness and melancholy. Their gazes speak to us, drag and suck us into their lives. Lives so far from our eyes, so far from our mind and so difficult to conceive in our normality. Yet they are there too and have a lot to tell. Each of them continues to live by struggling every day, each with their own identity. We can read every detail of their faces, every wrinkle on their skin, their fingernails, every hair, every dress they wear. The eyes are the access key in daily communication with anyone, they are the fulcrum of our feelings, what we don’t say passes through them and a good reader knows how to understand. As we often hear, the eyes are the mirror of the soul and in Craig’s photographs, each person is like a book to read. Every particular and every detail contribute to tell a story.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Craig Preston Roberts
Here’s to the crazy ones
Craig Preston Roberts
Ezekiel
Craig Preston Roberts
On every corner
Craig Preston Roberts
The Hustler
Craig Preston Roberts
The King of 49th Street
Daniel Inacio
Daniel Inacio is a young Portuguese photographer who prefers monochrome shots. His photographic production focuses mainly on the realisation of series shots, connected by a single basic concept. One of his last works is the series entitled “Border�, of which three shots are exhibited at the gallery M.A.D.S in Milan. The title refers to the moment in which Inacio went to the land border between Portugal and Spain, at the time of its reopening. The border remained closed for months due to the emergency caused by the spread of the Covid-19 virus. The shots capture the passage of some cyclists on the border bridge between the two states. The play of light and shadow is predominant. The light comes from the right and is behind the subjects, that become shadows of which only the outlines are delineated, silhouettes. The movement is perceived thanks to the shadow of the geometric structure of the bridge, which creates elongated and intertwined lines on the roadway. The perfect geometric background contrasts with the chaos dictated by the shadows, creating a strong visual contrast. The ability of Inacio is to capture with drama the first moments of freedom of people, remained closed for months within the walls of the house. It captures the freedom to change state, to move without limits.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Daniel Inacio
Border - 1
Daniel Inacio
Border - 2
Daniel Inacio
Border - 3
David Houghton “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” (Susan Sontag)
“On the Way to Shimoda” is the work of the British photographer David Houghton. Although his origins are Western, his research has always moved to Japan, where most of his photographic repertoire comes from. His style is characterized by the condensation of several images placed side by side on a single surface, with clear references to the art of Agnes Martin and the photography of the Becher couple. David’s analysis is immersed in the theme of passing time, analyzing moment by moment the details that every moment brings with it. It amplifies and expands the use of the photographic medium by pushing it beyond the single image. Every moment ends up breaking into many small details. David abstracts reality by marking precise points in order to document a time frame, in this case, the journey to reach Shimoda from Fujisawa, Japan. A journey of almost three hours, documented in three hundred and twelve shots, very precise moments useful for the description of the urban landscape that runs along the entire route of the train along the Bay of Sagami. The passage of time narrows and expands, our perception changes in line with our mood and the situation around us. David, during this journey, noted many details that, to the naked eye and in motion, he would not have had time to see. He marks specific points on what could be seen as a photographic map. Now it is up to us to read this image dedicating it the appropriate time.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
David Houghton
On the way to Shimoda
David Ortiz Fuertes “History teaches us that from the beginning, painting, sign, image and creation moved in parallel, intersecting manual and mechanical skills in an almost secret, hidden way.” (Luca Massimo Barbero) Photography and painting are historically distinct and sometimes opposed in common thought, but, already from the end of the nineteenth century, they have sought dialogue, confrontation and union, that is not always easy. In fact, already at the birth of the first images of the protophotography, the photographers tried to add color and the artists immediately grasped the ability of photography to stop the most authentic truth. Starting from the second half of the twentieth century, this meeting becomes closer, and the riches of oil and the transparencies of watercolor, the scratches of the pencils and the hieroglyphs of the marker, have been able to blend and unite with photography. Thus, it was created what is increasingly emerging as a possible “genre” of extraordinary richness and heterogeneity in the search for an expression that is contemporary and traditional in the same time. For this event, the artist David Ortiz Fuertes has created his very personal idea of how painting and photographic images can merge to create works of art with a new and innovative flavor, but at the same time winks at tradition. David used very different photographic shots as a starting point and inspiration. For the works entitled “Liberacìon” and “Encerrada” David used two very energetic and communicative shots by the Spanish photographer Miriam Franco. In the first he managed to recreate the movement of photography also in the model’s body, through a dynamic and material painting. In the second, however, he created a sharp contrast between the subject of the shot and the painting: to the closure of the subject and the geometry of the bars, David contrasted a liveliness of colors and a painting, that transmits energy and joy. Instead, in the work entitled “Fantasìa en Milàn”, David gave new life to a fashion shot, creating a catwalk for the model with painting and an innovative design for clothes and accessories, in which we find David’s unmistakable pictorial style. The model dressed in art and color.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
David Ortiz Fuertes
Fantasía en Milán (ph Silvia Grassi)
David Ortiz Fuertes
Encerrada (ph Miriam Franco)
David Ortiz Fuertes
Liberaciรณn (ph Miriam Franco)
David Shepherd “It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.” (Voltaire)
David Shepherd is an English photographer. Since his childhood he has dedicated himself to this form of art, only to discover his interest in dance photography. In his images the lightness of classical dance emerges, told through the graceful movements of the dancers, who gently accompany the dresses in motion. But what the spectator sees of the dance is not what the dancer feels on stage. The effort that belongs to him, even if masterfully hidden, is not small, the moment of performance requires concentration to balance each movement with the right expression. In this “Strength and Grace” photograph, David focuses on a detail, the tip of a ballerina’s shoe which, in ballet, is the place where all body weight is concentrated and where balance and labour meet grace. He allows us to step onto the stage and see beyond the performance. Our attention is suddenly drawn to a myriad of details. The traces of dust left by the plaster used to prevent slipping, the curvature of the instep developed with years of exercise, the lace that tightens the ankle, the creased shoe that tells the story of the dancer, the effort in the search for perfection. A single instant, the one in which the dancer puts her foot on the ground to lift her whole being, creating a new shape in the air and giving life to every sensation, in order to convey harmony and grace to the eyes of the beholder.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
David Shepherd
Grace and Strength
DKsight “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” (Pablo Picasso) Dksight, was born and lives in Belgium. The artist is a self-taught digital photographer with an interest in portraits and landscapes. He began a series of abstract black and white images during the lockdown period as a means of expressing and sharing difficult emotions. Whether it is photography or painting, the images tell, the images represent the sheet of paper on which to lay the ink to tell a story. At first the cameras only worked in black and white. Then the colors arrived. Today it is certainly easier to get photos with sharp colors, spectacular, but black and white for many photographers remains an artistic choice, a way to communicate a drama and a link with something that has been and will not be anymore. Black and white is not a retouching, therefore, it is an interpretation, which distorts and captures the soul of those who look because it gives the subjects or landscapes to history. Photography is already in itself an art form with an almost ethereal taste, able to stop an image and make it eternal; the black and white one, then, takes on an even more timeless and delicate charm, giving the shot the “great effect” of yesteryear. Dksight uses this interpretation in nostalgic photographs, in which he necessarily intends to accentuate the perception of time, as in the case of “Stop This!”.In this photo, lights and shadows become the greatest allies, having a double task: that of making the human mind perceive even the colors, despite they are not there. Here the eternity and the perception of blocked time, like the historical period that has seen us protagonists in this last year, are very deep feelings, accentuated by the very strong contrast used by the artist. The charm of this shot is accompanied by a roundup of emotions that the observer feels unconsciously in front of a photo without colors. The same ones that intend to represent the soul of the artist, with such retro and immortal charm.
“A great artist is always before his time or behind it.” (George Moore)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
DKsight
Stop This!
Eric Franklin
Contemporary society constantly places all of us in front of photographic images, in particular images of bodies. The ideal of beauty we have today comes from what we see in newspapers, on the web or on social media. If photographs sometimes make bodies perfect, strong and invulnerable, Eric’s work certainly shows something else. His photographs have fragile and vulnerable bodies as subjects, often referring to a surreal imaginary. A bandaged body that appears as dead or as a larva, a weak body but that will soon transform and take flight, overcoming all limits. A chained body, without the possibility of movement, but which has a large eye, which becomes a symbol of research and intelligence. An eye as a mirror of a more intimate self or as the freedom to look and think. Eric’s work is of great impact and possesses an enormous aesthetic value, the viewer is completely captured by the figures that stand out strongly, which appear from black and gloomy backgrounds: a body that is light and life. The representation of the human body has ancient roots in history, in particular in art, over the ages the needs of this representation have changed and have taken on different values. When Eric places a sort of texture above the body as in the photo “Kiela”, he brings to mind the photographs of Ave Pildas, in fact, using the texture he enhanced the image. Eric, one of a kind, creates photographs that shake souls, that pose questions, raise doubts. He gives the viewer mystery, reflection and beauty.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Eric Franklin
Kiela DSC07051
Eric Franklin
Nicole DSC8847
Eric Franklin
The Box L001830
Evan William Plunkett “Representing the world with awe and wonder allows me to access it later, remembering rare and beautiful moments.” (Evan William Plunkett) Evan William Plunkett is a multimedia artist and his work focuses mainly on photography. Through his works he extrapolates numerous connections between objects, surfaces and materials. A crucial point of his art is to devise an alternative reality in which the observer, intrigued and attracted by the unusual, can immerse himself completely. As in “Pole Puddle” where one can see a bright reflection, in sharp contrast with the greyish tones of the wet tarmac. The mirrored image is a door which connects the inside with the outside, the real world with a parallel one. One can evince the desire to discover a vision, evocative and pragmatic, and to tell all that is found in that determined astral dimension, beyond what we can reach just with a simple gaze. Therefore, what is it real? The reflected surface generates a paradox, a non-existent place capable of creating an alternative universe, an illusory space where anything can happen. In “Rust Eye”, it is interesting the attention given to an unusual object, covered by the rust and the effects of time: the whole picture creates a texture rich of cracks almost of natural origin. The observer’s attention is placed on the subject of the photograph, reducing at minimum any other element. A personal and particular image characterized by a framing of detail, with bright colors, plays of shapes and coves that define the urban environment that surrounds this figure. Through this photograph a clear idea can be extrapolated, with the aim of attracting the viewer’s perception, inviting him to observe the picture always more closely, in order to discover what infinity lies beyond the central hole. Finally, in “Umbrella” a central and isolated figure is overwhelmed by a dynamic vortex full of emotions and moods. This movement is typical of a frenetic reality, usual in a contemporary city. The bright red brings energy when it is compared to the other colors in the picture. This enables to create a beam of light that enhances dynamism, totally eliminating the contours of the various forms. Everything flows as if it was constantly evolving and the movement is unstoppable: one can prevent and contemplate it while is happening, or one can freeze it into a static image and break it down into a series of moments, but it is impossible to stop it. Movement is an intrinsic characteristic, an immutable principle that defines the essence of reality in which every human being lives.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Evan William Plunkett
Umbrella
Evan William Plunkett
Pool Puddle
Evan William Plunkett
Rust Eye
Federica Lugaro “I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” (Vincent van Gogh) Federica Lugaro, painter, actress and model, approached the world of painting beginning to paint abstract paintings and using different techniques. Federica Lugaro’s artistic research focuses on the concept of sublime, questioning the immense. From Dante to Romanticism, analyzing the poetics of Leopardi and the painting of Friedrich, passing through Foscolo and Van Gogh, many sensitive souls of great artists and poets have been influenced by the relationship with the unknown and the greatness of the universe, the infinite. The concept of the sublime, that is the fear and beauty that provokes the sight and thought of the infinite, was born during the Romanticism, the largest and most complex cultural movement of the first half of the nineteenth century. This dual feeling that is felt before the immensity, derives from the philosophy of the German thinker Immanuel Kant and became a real ideal in the Romantic age. The movement focuses on what it feels like, on the most intimate emotions. Man feels the need to show his fragility, he feels small and afraid in front of the eternal and looks for very current answers on the meaning of existence. The French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire stated: “Who says romantic says modern art, ie intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite expressed with all the means that the arts offer”. Federica, with the work entitled “Assordante”, wanted to represent this same immensity of which the great artists of the time spoke. The beauty and greatness of art is precisely the representation of a motion of the soul, a feeling, managing to make it visible without words and without explanations. In the work, although in its abstract conception, the contemplation of infinity finds its maximum expression. As defined by the concept of sublime, however, we also see, on the horizon, thanks to the difference in colors, an abstract landscape that metaphorically lets glimpse the light that calms us and places hope in us. The feeling is melancholy: the observer seems lost in the immensity of nature that finds the union of earth, sea and sky, in his soul although small but able to contain all this.
“ 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)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Federica Lugaro
Assordante
Gala Zabruskova
Gala Zabruskova is Russian photographer whose passion for creating and composing pictures and scenarios has been with her since she was young. Her major poetic quality is precisely a spontaneous and childlike gaze, interpreted as a dreamy and fairy-tale way of representation that the time didn’t consume. In order to get immersed in the artwork’s environment, the viewer should leave behind those superstructures that may pollute the meanings’ fruition. The photographer encourages the spectator to achieve the truth not merely through reasoning, but instead through an intuitive and irrational process, looking at things with an amazement and auroral wonder, as if it were the first time. At the same time, the childlike way of imagining stories is not always linked to the picture’s message: that fabulous aura is here a form that shapes a more adult and visceral torment. “I would like to represent one of my conceptual arts «Passionate Amanita», which touches upon a very acute problem of the modern world – toxicity. Toxic people and toxic relationships – I think most of us have experienced those” states the photographer. The picture represents therefore an artistic exorcization of what she may have experienced and suffered in life. Framed by a green natural context, the picture represents a girl dressed up with a costume of the poisoning mushroom, empathizing that contrast between attraction and repulsion. “The metaphoric personification of toxicity has been made through the image of the amanita mushroom: it is so attractive, alluring, and even seductive, but to be safe one is better stay away from it; otherwise it can poison, affect your life or even kill you.” Because of her passion for fairy-tale, Gala succeeds in staging a picture with a solid storytelling made of symbols and meanings, following a formula that gives to the audience an immediate contextualization of what she aims to communicate, though maintaining an irrational and fanciful aesthetics.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Gala Zabruskova
Passionate Amanita
Gregorio Funes
Gregorio Funes is an Argentine digital artist, based in Cordoba. His work focuses on the relationship between art and design. He uses images that come from different sources: old books, maps, consumer images of the networks and famous paintings. Funes takes these already existing images and gives them a new life, a new meaning and purpose. His work entitled “Surprise!” is a great example of this reuse of images. This Funes’ digital composition is an appropriation of the painting “The surprised nymph” by Edouard Manet, which had been purchased by the Argentine government in 1914. In “Surprise” the nymph is removed from the natural setting and is taken to the street. The nymph of Manet becomes a sort of advertising billboard ruined by time and by the writers’ tags. The artist chooses this context because it reflects the image of Argentine cities where the walls of buildings are used as “canvases” by which a protest message, often political, is sent. Many of these messages are related to women’s rights, so Funes decides to use a naked woman, caught in the act of being watched. The artist does not choose any naked woman, he chooses the nymph of Manet, a work of art that is therefore not contestable. Gregorio Funes, through a contrast of colors like the bright yellow that surrounds the figure of the woman, gives prominence to the nymph that seems to belong to that wall since always. The artist adapted a work of the nineteenth century, giving it a current meaning and making it interact with the people.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Gregorio Funes
Surprice!
Gregory Menard “Do not fear mistakes – there are none.” (Miles David) Gregory Menard is a self-taught artist currently living in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a versatile artist and as such experiences different art forms. From acrylic painting to spray painting, from collage to photography. What Gregory is pressing is to bring himself out through his own language, outlining a personal style within the most innovative and up-to-date currents. In photography, the artist considers the body a fundamental means of artistic expression, using movement and the environment as the theatre of creative activity. The history of photography is made up of many small innovations that since its official birth, in 1839, have led to what we know today. The Lumière brothers, already inventors of the cinema, decreed in 1907, the true birth of color photography. The technical difficulties and the subsequent years to shoot in black and white had accustomed the vision to the grayscale. But it is the communicative power of colours that transforms them into a real photographic language. The French photographer Henry CartierBresson is recognized as one of the greatest photographers in history, with his unmistakable style has characterized the photography of the twentieth century. It is not by chance that it is still nicknamed “the eye of the century”. What characterizes his photography is the ability to grasp the moment. In this he was certainly a forerunner, since in the immediate post-war period photography was conceived primarily as something to be done in the studio. For Gregory, as for Bresson, real photography is the one that takes place in the street, made of spontaneous moments and little conjecture. No pose makes one shot truer than another. This is precisely the artist’s research, which through his street shots tries to highlight the everyday life of people. “Inception” metaphorically indicates something that begins and takes shape. What the observer dwells on as an observer are the feet, deliberately placed in the foreground and with a very important symbolic meaning. It is the steps of life that will lead us somewhere, we do not know where. But the important thing is to walk and build for ourselves the journey. The life.
“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” (Robert Henri)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Gregory Menard
Inception
Héctor Lopéz “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.” (Pablo Picasso) Héctor López was born, lives and works in Madrid. City that allowed him to study and practice art. His inspiration comes from some of the greatest contemporary artists such as Mirò and Picasso. Artistic research finds its basis in abstract poetics. A trend born in the early decades of the twentieth century that tends to conquer total freedom from any imitative form, in an attempt to abolish content and express emotions only through form and color, excluding any relationship of the artistic form with the aspects of the sensitive world. Quite peculiar to the artistic experiences of the 20th century, this new form of expression has its roots in previous artistic experiences with Van Gogh, and in the no less stimulating intellectual and social achievements of the late 9th century. Parallel to the success of the expression abstract art, consolidated as opposed to figurative art, manifests itself in the same semantic context. Héctor López makes abstractionism his artistic philosophy, interpreting an illusory and abstract reality from nature, providing the creation of a more new and concrete. “In the Garden II” uses color spots to recreate flowers and natural elements. Flowers have always aroused interest among artists, poets and philosophers. Since ancient times, in the various cultures, they have been sacred symbols, essential elements of worship and protagonists of scientific studies. The first flower depicted was the blue lotus, nymphaea caerulea, in the wall paintings of the Egyptian tombs; this represented the Sun and rebirth. In classical culture many plants are associated with deities, or are metaphors of human vices and virtues, as in the myth of Narcissus. With impressionists, including some passionate gardeners, the theme of flowers is among the privileged for new experimentations. Renoir, Manet, until the water lilies of Monet. The filming in his garden of Giverny during the various hours of the day, in the last decades of his life. They are light and color, the extreme synthesis. In contemporary painting, Georgia O’Keeffe, pioneer of American modernism, with her pictorial macrophotographs, essential and sensual. Representative of the pop-art, Andy Warhol with his Flowers of 1964, transforms the initial flower, in graphic image, decorative, with many variations of color. Fascinated by the beauty of flowers, even contemporaries, Alex Katz and David Hockney, with their flat colors, intense and their essentiality, continue to capture them.
“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”(Vincent van Gogh)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Héctor Lopéz
In the garden II
Hilde Carling “They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” (Hermann Hesse)
Hilde Carling is a Norwegian photographer author of several projects. A recurring element in her works is water. The settings of her photographs often see her subjects interacting with or surrounded by this element. Identifiable with all that is liquid and flowing, according to the Greek philosophers, water is one of the arches of the cosmos and, for Thales, is the primordial principle that determines life. Over the centuries it has taken on very different symbols. The flowing water symbolizes time, purification, life and death, eternal youth and much more. In this Hilde’s photograph, there is a girl turned from behind who is looking at the horizon, in front of her there is only an infinite expanse of water and a high wind that ruffles her hair. We don’t see her expression, but we can feel the urge to breathe deeply. Black and white brings our attention to the details: the blonde hair, the blouse buttoned down the back, the clear sky and the sea. There is movement but not confusion, enthusiasm and not nervousness. This photograph conveys electricity and the will to live, a metaphor of pure youth at the mercy of the wind, but eager to experience.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Hilde Carling
Departing
Ian Hughes “Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.” (Bob Marley)
Ian Hughes is a street photographer born in 1969 in Heswall, England. He soon discovers his passion when he starts working on cruises as a photographer. Infinite colored rolls available to document the most varied circumstances, make cruises his laboratory. From an early age, Ian moved around the world, slipping through the streets, touching every surface and every new culture that opens up before his eyes. His style is characterized by strong colors and street scenes that portray everyday life in its most unusual aspects. For the past twenty years, Ian has focused his investigation on the beaches of Brighton. He says “I moved there because I knew it would be a great place to photograph people every day”. In this photograph “Brighton Beach and West Pier”, we can see a more introspective and silent style of Ian. The colors are more toned thanks to the humidity of the evening, it’s almost a black and white picture, completely distant from his classic approach. He captures the beach in a moment of tranquility, in the last hours of the day. We see a dog playing with its owner, the tide is going down and the wet sand seems like a mirror. This image tells us of a day that is slowly coming to an end. Metaphor of everyday life, where each of us finally finds his own intimacy. A warning to remind us of an important value: our freedom.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Ian Hughes
Brighton Beach and West Pier, England, 1998
Ibolya Cserfalvi “If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” (Edward Hopper) Ibolya Cserfalvi, is a Hungarian artist. She works with digital arts, graphics and animations. The uniqueness of her images comes from the fact that she works with fractals during their creation. These are works of art, made with digital devices, using computer algorithms. The intertwining of lines, traced by Pollock on the canvas, reflected the fundamental characteristic of the fractal, observed Richard Taylor, the “autosomigliance”: in a fractal object, each smaller part is similar, but not necessarily identical, to the larger forms of the same structure. This is one of the fundamental characteristics of this new art, now part of digital art. The fascination of these forms is that there is a total absence of intuition, as Mandelbrot states, the mathematician who was among the first to study fractals. The latter are forms that have become effective models for investigations of all kinds, fundamental to the study of chaos theory. And the artist also arrived at the fractals, not with the analysis of the mathematician, but with intuition, demonstrating once again what a deep link exists between mathematics and art. Thanks to the computer that allows you to easily create fractal objects of extraordinary beauty, have then multiplied in recent years the experiences of fractal art.”My painting does not come from the easel. I almost never stretch the canvas before painting. I prefer to nail it, not stretched, on the wall or on the floor. I move further and further away from the painter’s usual tools - wrote Jackson Pollock - such as the easel, the palette, the brushes..”Ibolya Cserfalvi a bit like Pollock moves away from pre-established artistic schemes synthesizing her concept of art in “Soul”. A digital image printed on canvas, characterized by contemporary combinations and characterized by a strong chromatic contrast. A modern and innovative work that leaves room for imagination and from which emerges the soul of the artist, a deep soul, made of abysses and ascents.
“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” (Francesco Bacone)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Ibolya Cserfalvi
Soul
Ingrid Gielen “All perceiving is also thinking, all reasoning is also intuition, all observation is also invention.” (Rudolf Arnheim) Ingrid Gielen is an artist who lives in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. After being a social worker all her life, five years ago she decided to take the step of attending the Academy of Visual Arts and photography finally became an integral part of her existence and activity. Due to her work in a psychiatric hospital she was always in contact with people struggling with their thoughts and emotions. With this project she tried to express these thoughts in pictures. Ingrid wanted to make it recognizable for each of us, because we all have moments in life, in which we struggle with our thoughts. The artist uses a diptych for each thought, one expresses the state of the mind for which she uses common objects, the other expresses the state of the body, where the model takes different postures under a cloth. In this exposition she only presents the bodies, they become a human sculpture. She used the same - unrecognizable- model in each picture, so he became part of the object and experimented with different light settings but finally chose natural light because of its soft effect. Ingrid’s work is a broad reading and rich visual documentation that testifies to this relationship we have with our fruitful thoughts, turning them into matter through the use of the body and photography. She approaches this form of expression with her experience by playing with movements and lights to guide us towards “a reform”. She seeks a dialogue through these secret worlds with a philosophical aesthetic approach where the psychological and anthropological aspect dominates. Psychology and the arts have this in common: that both the former and the latter cover the entire sphere of the human mind. Here the artist examines the processes of the mind (emotional, intellectual and motivational) to arouse a particular experience, underlining and examining its being a signifying form. In the mirror of her photographs there is always another mirror. Becoming seems to quiet down when we give a name to a feeling, when we identify it with something within ourselves. But if the identification becomes fluid, then the form does not stop and becomes the kinetic energy of the feeling that in its maximum expression does not seek any answer, enjoys its being desperately free.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Ingrid Gielen
Thoughtmill
Ingrid Gielen
Pain
Ingrid Gielen
Fear
Ingrid Gielen
Drained
Ingrid Gielen
Introvert
Iori Inohara “My bohemian spirit lives in the wildlife’s utopia.” (Iori Inohara)
Iori Inohara is a self-thought Japanese digital artist. Fascinated by nature since her childhood, during a solo trip in Iceland, she discovered her true vocation inspired by the extraordinary performances of this wild land. The sight of the soft orange sunset that melts over the drifting ice, glowing white and blue; the glance of a horse passing through the forest; the morning light that slowly dies, made feel Iori the need to share with the world this dreamlike perception of mother nature. Through her digital collages, Iori create a fictional macrocosm. By juxtaposing breathtaking landscapes, child figures and wild animals, she gives birth to empirical images that speak about freedom and inclusivity. All these elements, can be appreciated in the work presented for this exhibition, titled “Undiscovered Lion-liness”. The little boys approaching a resting lion in a cavern – reminiscence of Plato’s myth – suggest a sense of deep spiritual communion with mother nature. With the decomposition and redial of subjects that may been deem as extreme opposites, Iori invites the viewer to look at the surrounding with innocent eyes, free form any kind of preconceptions, in order to rediscover a sense belongingness to the world. Her approach to art is joyful and spontaneous that seeks and believes in the utopia of a greater union between creatures.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Iori Inohara
Undiscovered Lion-liness
Irene Kalents “There is someone living inside of me. When I am receptive to beauty around me, we are both in harmony.” (Irene Kalents)
The photographer Irene Kalents relies on her Armenian roots to get inspiration and connect the present and the past, aspiring to a more serene and harmonious future. In constant search of expressing what she sees incisively, the artist experiments and refines her technical skills. It is not relevant the subject, the material or the means used, but what interests Irene the most is the chance to arouse different emotions through her works. Just as in “Flower of Peace”, commonly known as the “lily of peace”, this dancing flower purifies the surrounding environment and promotes peace and harmony. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, the meaning of the lily was associated with Hera / Juno, goddess of marriage and procreation, who while breast-feeding Hercules lost two drops of milk: from one of these was generated this flower to which the meaning of love, loyalty and birth was attributed. The lily emerges from the black background in all its royalty and purity, inviting the observer to persevere and not to give up to his freedom and independence. Fundamental is the act of getting up in face of a difficulty, trying to get increasingly more resilient and fighting for a united and better world. In fact, through this photograph, the artist wishes to take the opportunity to increase the war awareness that is currently taking place in Armenia. Hoping for the civilization protection and the purification from violence, the picture urges everyone to stop the imminent crimes even with a small gesture, full of love and understanding, to help humanity to continue its growth and improve the environment in which we all live.
“Being free does not only mean getting rid of one’s chains but living in a way that respects and values the freedom of others.” (Nelson Mandela)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Irene Kalents
Flower of Peace
Ivan Luchin “I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.” (Diane Arbus)
Ivan Luchin is a collector of situations. His photographs have a spontaneous style and at the same time show details that the naked eye would not see. Using the camera as a prosthetic eye, its perception of reality acquires added value when it focuses the lens. The street photographer, Ivan Luchin, does not renounce immortalizing life that flows: forgotten places, tireless workers, old lovers walking, or reflections of passers-by. With RIFLESSIoni, he manages to create an alienating effect that certainly recalls much art of the Historical Avant-garde, from the studies for mannequins by George Grosz to those painted by Giorgio De Chirico. Striking, in this sense, is the resemblance to Pragerstrasse (1920) by Otto Dix, in which the painter recounted the contradictions of the world after the Great War. Ivan Luchin took RIFLESSIoni in a particular historical moment for us contemporaries: life after lockdown. So, the mannequins captured by the photographer, like fake and naked bodies, stripped of their function, seem to arouse the path of a man returning to work. If the contrast of the colors – between the mustard yellow of the mannequins and the light colors of the shirt of the man reflected in the window – it was not enough to give an alienating effect to the image, it adds another element, at the top right: a bust of man, in classic style, without arms, arrived from who knows where. A mystery, then, in which the observer is immersed, forced to stay inside and outside the image, and to decide how to interpret what he sees.
Art Curator Giulia Calì
Ivan Luchin
RIFLESSIoni
Jane Gottlieb “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)
The idyllic world of Jane Gottlieb is characterized by the predominant presence of unrealistic colors and shapes of several objects which are often depicted in the foreground of the artworks. Some of the artist’s favorite scenarios are the big cities. Thanks to the chromatic energy that is radiated by the work, the artist manages to transform monuments, museums, buildings and other urban elements in a surreal vision that transports the viewer into a parallel dimension where everything becomes brighter and more showy. In fact, this is precisely the strength of Jane Gottlieb’s art, succeeding in overturning what is perceptible to the human eye, upsetting the ordinary and promoting a new unique way of perceiving reality. The purple of the buildings, as in the works NYC Dusk and Pompidou view, for example, contrasts with the yellow of the sky, as if the colors of the sunset had turned upside down. The green of the plants, conversely, in the work Curtain call, blends with the blue but is immediately contrasted by pink. The artist, through her technique teach the viewer that, with imagination, anything can be perceived in a different way. Not only does everything appear brighter, but the careful study of chromatic contrast highlights every form present in the work. The world of Jane Gottlieb therefore is characterized by ordinary scenarios that patiently wait for our senses to grow sharper in order to become magical and fascinating.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” (Wayne W. Dyer)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Jane Gottlieb
NYC Dusk
Jane Gottlieb
Rome Cafe
Jane Gottlieb
Pompidou View
Jane Gottlieb
Curtain Call
Jane Gottlieb
Paris Buddha
Johann Neumayer
Johann Neumayer is an Austrian artist who realizes his works through the sofware Rhino 5. Neumayer’s works are the result of a collaboration between the artist, the designer, the software and the printer that become part of a single system, indispensable for the realization of the work. Digitally made, its three-dimensional models lend themselves to be 3D printed and become real sculptures. On the other hand his creations seem surrealist paintings in which to get lost with imagination. His greatest series is called “The space and dream imaging machine” in which the human figure is central. In “dressme” exhibition, Neumayer presented three of his creations focused on the figure of the woman, in this new exhibition presents five works with the same subject. The image number 1 is an evolution of the previous work called “BLACK”. The two women, from black become dressed in a shining gold. It’s interesting to analyze the human figure in picture number 2, in which some figures are larger than others: small human figures seem almost to be crushed by huge boots. This work can become a parallelism with life. There will always be someone to crush you, but you must always be ready to react. Another interesting work is the image number 5, in which the artist uses the human figure as a module, repeating the image of a woman many times and in different positions. This creates “human” lines that compose geometric figures. The art of Johann Neumayer is a surrealist art, through which the artist gives vent to his imagination and creativity through digital. His creativity allows him to create works free of any pattern, without following imposed rules.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 1
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 2
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 3
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 4
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 5
Kampski Kampski is a Dutch artist who uses the means of photography to tell stories full of fantasy, overwhelming the viewer both perceptively and sensorially. Through his photographs Kampski give rise to his impetuous emotions, conditioned by the urban environment or the beauty of nature, wrapping everything in an intimate, mystical and dreamy atmosphere. In “Desire”, a girl stands out from an abandoned church with her candid white dress, underlining the purity, the simplicity of the pose and a gloomy symbolism. Lying on the ground there is another dress, struck by a subtle beam of light, in sharp contrast with a background that brings a sense of restlessness. An important detail concerns the model’s blindfold, suggesting uncertainty and fear for the future: in this way a relationship originates between visible and invisible that refers to the narrow boundary between dreamlike appearance and reality. The space is constructed in way as to best distinguish each element present in the work, but these separate parts move and change, shifting the observer’s attention and the sense of the general organization of the image. In “Destination Unknown” a change is represented within the personal path of each individual. The open door reflects an unknown and unimaginable world, still to be discovered. The woman is getting up and she is about to leave: this gesture is full of spontaneity, purity and authenticity. The desire to go “elsewhere”, to look for unknown and uncontaminated places, often comes from a dissatisfaction with one’s own current situation, perceived with no way out. Even if you encounter many obstacles in the course of your life, you need to have the determination to overcome them, to enter into a new path and start your own rebirth. Finally, in “See The Truth” the model is blindfolded again with darkened glasses. The message is placed clearly in front of the observer: sometimes it is not necessary to see in order to get the truth. The comparison between image and language is strong and the artist hides one of the main senses which enable us to express and to see reality. In this atmosphere of waiting and mystery the sight does not allow to ascertain an evident truth, which remains still pending to be uncovered. For this reason, the observer is invited to immerse himself in the photography, and to see beyond his own sight for unveiling this truth.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Kampski
Desire
Kampski
Destination Unknown
Kampski
See The Truth
Katrin Loy “What exactly corresponds to reality and what to imagination? What is reality and what is imagination? It is all a matter of consciousness, a paradox. Life is only a dream of a higher awakening.” (Katrin Loy) The artist Katrin Loy, through the use of the photographic instrument, undertakes a journey into the soul of the human beings, focusing their introspection, cognition and intuitive acts. This emerges in the photograph “Echo and Narcissus”, where the comparison with one’s soul and the opposite sex is crucial. According to the myth, which derives from the “Metamorphoses” of the Roman poet Ovid, the nymph Echo consumes herself with love for Narcissus, who rejects her; subsequently Narcissus will be punished by the Gods and will be drowned to death, in an attempt to capture his own image with which he had fallen madly in love. The self-portrait, the gestures and the sense of spirituality/mysticism are found in this Narcissus as now as it was then, marking the history of the Western culture, from psychoanalysis to the artistic imaginary. Through the superimposition and digital alienation of images, Katrin Loy emphasizes a new imaginary that differs from mere reality, by creating a continuous link between present and past. Exactly as the Caravaggio’s famous work entitled “The Narcissus”, Katrin divides the space vertically, creating two perfect mirror sections. Moreover, here the female image of Echo is present, even if it appears to be semi hidden by the dominant figure of Narcissus. On the top right the artist adds a curious detail, a little bird, which represents the freedom of the soul and reflects the Echo’s matter of love. In the age of the selfie, where it is difficult to distinguish collective identity from the individual one, photographic art restores solemnity to the individual. By posing herself very profound questions about imagination, reality and the process of identity definition, the artist investigates the close bond created between the conscious and the subconscious, which allows the viewer to immerse himself in the photographic construction and, as if he was a mirror, to reflect his own inner myth on it.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Katrin Loy
Echo and Narcissus
Keiko Hosoya “Time expands, then contracts, and in tune with the stirrings of the heart.” (Haruki Murakami)
Keiko Hosoya is a Japanese conceptual artist, born and raised in Tokyo. Keiko’s work sweeps between different medias combining analogic, digital and musical techniques. She juxtaposes natural elements – such as water or light – and handmade compositions with industrial materials and digital processes, interweaving a thread that connects different stages of human’s history and evolution. Starting from a Buddhist perspective - which she has practiced from childhood through her family influence – Keiko blurs the line between what is organic and what is industrially made by creating a connection between past, present and future. Her philosophy is masterfully represented in the piece she chooses for this exhibition. This artwork is a video-based collage in which she reflects over the concept of time. Through a composition made by selected video shoots of a knitted thread, Keiko overlaps different timelines producing an atemporal image, in which the slowness of a human gesture is both opposed and integrated into the speed of digital technologies. The fusion of these two macro-themes creates an inclusive vision of the human presence in the world, which transcend a defined notion of time and it elevates into a spiritualistic approach toward medias and materials.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Keiko Hosoya
Untitled
Lika Ramati “The renunciation of the human figure is the most difficult of all things for photography.” (Walter Benjamin) No genre developed as much as the portrait in photography. It was an extraordinary success. Despite all the innovations that have developed, photography has continued to be associated with the representation of people. Photographic portraits are now a central and well-incorporated aspect of contemporary visual culture. The photographic portrait is still today a very intense artistic communication tool. An example of extraordinary artistic value are the photographic portraits presented for this event by the artist Lika Ramati, who shows us five portraits of five completely different women. The beauty of the black and white portrait is timeless, as can be seen in the shots entitled “Casablanka Lily” and “Train Station”. In the first shot, we are able to relive the timeless beauty of the stars of Hollywood films, as the title of the work refers to an iconic film from the 1940s. Their simple and delicate beauty, but at the same time full of sensuality, showed through their every glance and movement in the film. So here the model exudes that delicate sensuality by making a small and simple gesture. In the second shot it is the everyday simplicity that shines through. The title of the work itself recalls a typical waiting place, the train station, where it often happens to casually meet the gaze of an unknown person who steals us. In fact, in this shot the absolute protagonist is the dazzling and magnetic look of the girl, who observes us intensely. The direct gaze to the viewer is also found in the work entitled “China Town”, in which this literally shimmering gaze captures all attention. The photographic cut chosen and the choice to focus on the girl’s face contribute to the creation of a shot of absolute intensity. Instead, in the “Green Green Grass” shot we find the idea of a slightly retro shot in the choice of photographic technique, but also in the look of the model. It seems to really take a step into the past. It seems to immerse us in another era also with the shot entitled “Mary b.”. In which a femme fatale seduces the viewer with her pose and her dazzling gaze, becoming a symbol of sin, and representing a sort of challenge towards the sacred image behind her in which sinners are punished.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Lika Ramati
Mary B
Lika Ramati
Train Station
Lika Ramati
China Town
Lika Ramati
Casablanka Lily
Lika Ramati
Green Green Grass
Lina Khei “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” (Georgia O’Keeffe) Lina Khei is a self-taught French artist with an innate sense for art discovered at an early age. For many years she has worked as a professional makeup artist and is now developing a strong interest in art and beauty. The woman in all her splendor is a true inspiration for this artist, through whose works emerges power, femininity and sensuality. Women, great protagonists of literature, cinema and music, have always had a leading role in the world of art, both as muses and as creators. What makes an iconic woman in art more than anything else is undoubtedly her beauty and sensuality; we think of the power of Botticelli’s Venus. Women, with their being mothers, daughters, wives, lovers, friends are the engine of the world, and they owe their fame and their success to that aura of femininity that distinguishes them. After all, all the great artists have painted in honor of a woman, inspired by her beauty or moved by love for her. The art of the twentieth century has been marked by many masterpieces dedicated to the female figure, one of them is undoubtedly Gala, muse of Salvador Dalì, protagonist of a passionate and total love that has influenced the art and psyche of the Spanish artist. Women who create, women who inspire as in the case of Lina, whose work “Oro” embodies the perfect harmony between the voluptuous curves and the mysterious shadows of the face. An ideal symbiosis of passions that reincarnates, drawing inspiration from all the splendor and complexity of the female universe, as a result of a real effervescence of pleasure and power. Her woman, covered in gold, with a firm complexion and a fleshy mouth, does not look at the spectator but I invite him to get lost in her look and voluminous eyelashes. Perfectionist in the heart, transmits and brings out through her works the emotion, energy and mystery that emanate from the beauty of human features, emphasizing them with the use of the most noble of colors, gold. The only color that no one is able to reproduce, and for this reason has always been a symbol of the unreal, of the distant, of the divine just like this woman. Beautiful and unattainable.
“In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Lina Khei
Oro
Liz Casey
We can start from this photograph’s title to try to understand it. “To The One I love”, it states, and the same love is incarnated in the spikes at the front. Looking at it, with a bit of imagination and personification, we can begin to see not two ears anymore, but almost two people. We watch and the grass begins to have feelings, to love and to care. In the curve of the taller spike there is indeed a parent’s tenderness when they bend to kiss their child on the forehead or, tending their arms, to hug the kid and hold them close. The parent smiles, patient and caring, and the child listens with giant, innocent eyes. It is saying, “I am here, I love you, I will protect you”. Despite the spikes being at two different levels, there is nothing in the picture that suggests an imbalance in power. The taller spike does not dominate, does not impose, but on the contrary, it bends as much as possible to be at the lower spike’s level. If spikes could talk, we could be maybe hearing the little one calling the taller for attention, to share a story it has to tell. It is a newborn bird in the nest when mama bird comes back. Surely, the photographer leaves us the chance to give the picture our own interpretation, always in the realm of love; love in all its infinitive form. Whether between parent and children, sibling, lovers or friends, what matter it is how this picture transmits comfort and solidarity. The picture focuses on two specific stalks and the general scenery is only an anonymous field. Still the same love and tenderness surpasses the borders of the field and of the photo itself, for grass can also be nourishment, food and community. It is life and creation. Indeed, in the space between the spikes there are glimpses of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”, the stalks God and Adam’s index fingers stretching to each other without touching for eternity. The Omnipotent Father and the first Son.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Liz Casey
To The One I Love
Maki Amemori “Creativity takes courage.” (Henri Matisse)
Maki Amemori is a professional photographer, visual director and artist based in Tokyo, Japan. She began her career as an independent photographer in 2014. She mainly makes portraits and her strong point is to produce images that make people more attractive to make them understand how unique and beautiful they are. Her artistic research is based on the reinterpretation of the past, present and future. “Bottomless” is a digital photography that marks, in a decisive way, the passage of two times and that embodies all the contemporary art that is the basis of Maki’s research. In the imaginary of the artistic disciplines a current is composed, in its turn, of a great variety of currents. This has been the case since the 1960s.In 1975 a Kodak researcher, Steven Sasson, began working on a revolutionary invention: the first digital camera, which had the ambition to overcome the film, creating a new camera that could digitize the images just taken. In its malleable numerical incorporeality, however, the digital image bends infinitely more easily to manipulation and fantastic invention. As Joan Fontcuberta states, photography has always been a «kiss of Judas» that betrays reality at the very moment in which it seems to declare her love. The canvas for Maki is a place of emotions and feelings, pain and joy, pleasure and discomfort, life and death. It expresses the deep, infinite places that every human being encounters unexpectedly in her own life; chasms of which we do not see the bottom, inaccessible mysteries, a place to which we are prevented access.Her work of art consists in combining three artistic concepts that for centuries challenge artists and their interpretations. It is an experimental world made of colors and innovations that gives joy to those who observe and create it. It is a world “mixed with old and new”, “Chaos of the Times” and “Parallel World”.
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” (Andy Warhol)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Maki Amemori
Bottomless
Marc’S “Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem.” (Kurt Cobain) Marc’S is a French photographer born in 1974 in La Rochelle. Free and uncontaminated, she grows up in art and photography as a self-taught person, forming herself day by day, absorbing every possible stimulus. Curious and attentive to everything surrounds her, Marc’s is a dynamic artist who is constantly looking for novelties to create something new. Her greatest source of inspiration is her own imagination and, thanks to the staging, she materializes all her ideas. Her style is characterized by an alteration of colors that become almost fluorescent, sometimes pink and sometimes blue, catapulting us into a dystopian and surreal world, but which has a lot to tell about the real one. Often, in fact, it also draws inspiration from everyday consumer society. How we are absorbed by progress and how this has led, and is leading, a radical change in our interacting with ourselves and with the world around us. The series presented here at M.A.D.S., is called “Screen Addiction” and is part of the “Junkie Society” project. Through this work, she investigates the addiction to television and screens, which has been instilled in man over the years. There is a boy who is completely alone by the sea. Everything seems like a distant dream. The only company is an old television which, although is no longer functional, he continues to stare. An empty screen, a box that does not breathe, that does not walk and does not even speak anymore, has now become an extension of the boy’s body. The only way to survive. These photographs tell us about a serious problem that is afflicting our society, especially through the use of smartphones, which are increasingly necessary and increasingly difficult to remove. A machine that cannot function without us, but without which we are suddenly unable to function.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Marc’S
Junkie Society «Screen Addiction» 01
Marc’S
Junkie Society «Screen Addiction» 02
Marc’S
Junkie Society «Screen Addiction» 03
Marc’S
Junkie Society «Screen Addiction» 04
Marc’S
Junkie Society «Screen Addiction» 05
Margarita Kalcheva
A girl stands in the middle of a forest, in wait. She’s facing the woods, supposedly wondering what possible road to take next. Indeed, the forest offers infinite possibilities but for one right path, ten could lead to further loss. The woods can be a mysterious and dangerous place and Miss Kalcheva tells us. She does it by distorting the photograph and the space with it. As by the title of the photograph, this girl is in a labyrinth - this is the fundamental key - a labyrinth of trees, trunks and branches. Not only the woods are a labyrinth by nature, but they magnify this by swirling on themselves till they become something unreal and nightmarish. It is a forest from the darkest fairy-tales, the stories parents used to tell children to warn them from the dangers of the world. It’s curious that the woman is wearing a red shirt, almost a modern Little Red Riding Hood crossing the metaphorical forest of life. It is a creepy Wonderland; woods where a smiling Chesire Cat might pop out and float above a branch at any moment. This is not our reality, it is a distortion of time and space. Here, normal coordinates lose meaning. We can guess the arrow of a compass would simply turn and turn forever unable to find the North. Without the help from instruments, we, together with the girl, are left to our instincts to find a way out. She is her only coordinate, the solid centre of chaos. All the other reference points are not to be trusted. The trees curve and melt and the down becomes the above. Here you cannot see the sky, only the terrain and the girl herself stretch to an absurd degree. It could as well be the girl is inside a bubble, a glass sphere like the ones with snow used as ornaments, forever trapped inside in a single instant as we watch from the outside.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Margarita Kalcheva
Labyrinth
Mari Halttunen “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” (Kurt Vonnegut) Mari Halttunen is a Finnish photographer. As an artist, through photography, she wants to capture moments that are only visible for a short period. The sadness in a person’s eyes, the mischievous smile on a child’s face. Many are her half-length portraits, which intend to focus the viewer’s gaze on the psychological introspection of her subjects. The photographic portrait is a genre, in fact, born from the idea of showing physical and moral qualities. The first psychological portrait photos presented by the academic photography were those of David Octavius Hill, name followed by many others such as Nadar, Disdéri, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, Gustave Le Gray. Later, the genre evolved in parallel with the evolution of the history of photography, which is why, together with photographers who devote themselves exclusively to a more orthodox photographic portrait, we find photographers assigned to specific movements that approach the photographic portrait with the use of ideas and techniques all different. The portrait is intended to narrate the most intimate expression of the subject. Her color, dark and dim, has the ability to focus the attention of the observer on the most emotionally charged traits of a face or a person. The inclination of the face, the attitude of the subject, the position of the hands and body, transmit more than you can see: an attitude, an emotion, a desire. Light, another key element, to read the narration of a photo, can take on different interpretative tones. Mari, not surprisingly, chooses a dramatic tone, characterized by strong light with high contrast and areas of darkness opposed to areas of light, a soft light that highlights the somatic features of the face. Even the cutting light can give dramatic connotations to the portrait. Together with the function of light, the gestures of the subject photographed, emphasizes particular emotional connotations. With her photos, Mari intends to give the public the opportunity to create their own story providing all the features and details necessary for its construction. What is the girl thinking in the picture? What does she feel and why? Why is the look in her eyes what it is? You make history.
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Mari Halttunen
Untitled
MarioVaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Mario Vaccaj <<mr WAVE>> is an Italian artist and DJ based in Sardinia. His style conjugates his passion for painting and photography with his studies as a researcher in gravitational waves. “I like expressing through art how the individual is simply a microscopic particle travelling in the universe”. “Butterfly Wave” is the result of a synergy between art and science, between natural and artificial. The artwork represents primarily a butterfly that comes from a picture taken outdoors. The artist then manipulated the picture giving it a new identity: a process of digitization able to highlight all the saturated and contrasted elements of the picture. The chromatic choice of the artistic is made of a blue palette of the grass opposed to a light yellow of the butterfly’s body. The digital manipulation allows the viewers to focus the attention and to viscerally contemplate the “soul” of the butterfly and its surrounding, with an almost anatomic fruition of it. “Butterfly Wave” shows how every particle is essential and that can be an object of artistic representation. The artist, thanks to his passion for physics and ultrasound, is able to aesthetically transpose on his virtual canvas the movement and the beauty of the natural particles and elements. Physics becomes therefore the means that nature uses to express and offer an artistic experience.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
MarioVaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Butterfly Wave
Meley Laetitia SIE
Meley Laetitia SIE is an Ivorian Fashion and Fine Art photographer based in San Diego, California. Her photographic work is the result - and work in progress - of her passion for fashion and aesthetic composition, and of a more political mission: raising awareness on the importance of roots, on the value of viscerally connecting with our own cultural and historical heritage, as a means to strengthen our own subjectivity. “In 2020, she found her true identity during her travel back to her home country Cote D’Ivoire, West Africa. This trip helped her redefine herself as an artist. She reunited with her African heritage, and she created the true essence of her art: promoting African culture, black beauty, black excellence, and Christian faith. She creates images showcasing different aesthetics of blackness using natural scenes, color, warm and neutral tones”. Meley’s pictures represent an homage to her homeland and to the precious and empowering bond she has with it. Her way of composing and staging pictures, mirrors her artistic urgency to investigate her own origins, as a powerful means that gives authenticity to her authorial work as fashion photographer and storyteller. “Connect with your heritage for a brighter future” portraits two women with a suitcase staging a movement that evokes their intention to discover and explore. “I wanted to stress that we can reconnect to our roots through travels, research, documentaries, etc. By reconnecting and learning about its African heritage/ culture, the young African is empowered and breaks down misconceptions that he had about his culture” writes Meley. “Silver water” represents an elegant composition of a black woman dressed up with a silver dress, while being immersed in water. The interesting element is precisely the setting: the woman posing and dressing like a model melted with a natural landscape, instead of a catwalk. “The silver color, water texture, and the color of water create a beautiful and peaceful harmony. I wanted to show tranquillity, harmony and peace. Where there is peace and harmony, there is justice. I believe that as black people, we will experience true justice when equity will be put in place. We want justice, we want to breathe peacefully” states the photographer. The sense of well-being and beauty the spectator perceives from the picture recalls Meley’s message to establish in society the same sense of equilibrium and balance between the individual and his surroundings. “Unexpected” talks about that “magic trick” photography often brings with it. If the impulse to visually communicate something and to leave an impact on the collective consciousness pushes the artist to create and act, what comes as a result is however surprisingly unpredictable. The telescope the girl is using may symbolise the excitement and curiosity to see the artistic outcome taking shape. The synergy between Meley’s acuity in composing captivating pictures and her political attitude is able to make her photographic poetics an autobiographical work, faithful mirror of her personal and cultural heritage, while reaching effectively a large audience.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Meley Laetitia SIE
Connect with your heritage for a brighter future
Meley Laetitia SIE
Silver Water
Meley Laetitia SIE
Unexpected
NAE “Art is the stored honey of the human soul.” (Theodore Dreiser) Nae, born, lives and works in Salzburg, Austria. As a traveler of analogue digital synthesis, the self-taught visual artist never stops exploring. Aristotle pointed to a strong distinction between objects created by nature and those that are realized by human action, because the latter are the result of an intellectual elaboration by man, which is not the case with the former. This mental elaboration is defined by the philosopher precisely as a technique. The term technique, is derived from the Greek “tèchne”, that is art in the sense of know-how, which in the modern and contemporary era has led a large number of artists to give up more and more technical perfectionism in favor of a more subjective artistic language. Nae, in his works synthesizes digital photography and painting in combination with subtle shades of color, strokes and gestural signs. In his works, which are first created pictorially and then processed digitally, Nae creates a transformed atmosphere that should allow the viewer to feel, perceive and discover a new reality. His paintings represent opposites, polarize and therefore are rich in contrast. His style is extremely realistic, in which the work is deeply expressive, and based on the technical ability of the artist to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, an increasingly innovative art. Since its appearance, photography has been labeled as inferior to painting, as a technical tool not worthy of expressing a subjective artistic sensation. Around 1925 the lessons of the Bauhaus clarified how all forms of expression existed in order to collaborate, constituting a shared symbolic language, on which is based the understanding of the message transmitted by the artist. The “Blck series” is a clear example of what has been said so far, through which the artist looks back, showing the strong impact caused by social changes. The world of art, but also the same that surrounds us has changed, is different, is difficult to perceive. To express such a vision, the artist uses the black color, which well contrasts with the bright colors that we possess within us, joyful of life.
“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
NAE
Blck Suzanna
NAE
Blck Kelly [RMX Two]
NAE
Blck Mamba
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart “A picture is worth a thousand words but the memories are priceless.” (Rebecca McNutt) eN, was born as Naomi Scala, and she’s a photographer of Italo-American origins, although she calls herself a gipsy for her DNA composed of migrants, travelers and artists, whose footsteps will follow soon. She decides not to use her real name, like every photographer, she wants to be invisible during her shoots, showing the modern society that she witnesses constantly. This is a series that contains its origins starting from Sicily and her childhood. Small details that include and enclose her whole world and have made her the person and artist of today. Particularly important are the moments of “solfeggi” with the mother that lead her to live in her universe always in a very imaginative and colorful way. Each of us is tied to our childhood memories because they represent a “treasure” of priceless value. Memories of eN are like the waves of the sea, they come and go; capricious and sometimes malevolent, they bring us closer to a moment of the past: a voice, a perfume, a sound, a moment marked by sadness or happiness. We are all made of memories that determine and constitute us, they are our roots and define what we are: beings who experience, grow, mature and learn. With these photographic collages the artist exposes these two concepts, memory and emotion, where they are so united that the simple fact of feeling happy, scared or afflicted almost always leads to the emergence of a memory of the past: it is an affective reaction that demonstrates how much weight the memories have about our personality and our world and in this case about our creative process. All the events with positive energy that we have experienced in certain moments of our existence have the power to recharge us with a good spirit in the present. The mystery behind all this, is that positive memories can be used to enhance our resources in the present time and through these artworks we can see this force that feels like a warm hug.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Welcome to Sicily
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Un tuffo al cuore! (A dip in the heart!)
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
In a world where personality is everything...
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
The End of the World
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;INFERNO. D.Alighieri
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life
Naomi Scala aka eN.aart
To My Mother
Paolo Rossi “Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” (Carl Gustav Jung)
Paolo Rossi is an Italian photographer. He approaches photography in 2008 and since then he has been the author of several projects, most of which are oriented towards an inner investigation, both of himself and of the human being more generally. The camera becomes for him a tool to illuminate those spaces within each of us, which often hide and remain unexpressed. In the “Not aware” project presented here, his goal is to give voice to the unconscious and literally shed light on it. Starting from the studies on the color perception on how colors communicate with the unconscious, Paolo started this project in 2019. According to this theory “[…] Color is the visual processing generated by the nerve signals that photoreceptors of the retina send to the brain. Perception is therefore created by our brain and is capable of provoking different emotional responses and psychological attitudes.”
Paolo Rossi
Therefore, each of us would have a â&#x20AC;&#x153;personal color paletteâ&#x20AC;?. By involving other people, Paolo takes on a central role and helps the other in self-discovery, through the use of color and photography. A part of us expresses itself by painting our faces and Paolo documents it. Fluorescent shades twirl in the dark, imprinting themselves on the camera sensors. The only light comes from the colors that each subject has decided to use on the face, digging inside himself and letting that usually darkened part emerge. Trajectories dictated by instinct, therefore, give life to real portraits of the unconscious.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Paolo Rossi
Asphyxiation
Paolo Rossi
Be the change
Paolo Rossi
Lost boy
Paolo Rossi
Radiant
Paolo Rossi
Speak a little louder
Paolo Rossi
Tell me Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m safe
Patti Roberts “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else.” (Judy Garland)
Patti Sanford Roberts is an American photographer. She has always cultivated an interest in photography, focusing her research on the female figure within the domestic environment. His works “The Iron Lady”, “The After Prom”, “In the garden”, “Electrolux” and “?” are part of “Soundings from the Homefront” series, where her vision of Catholic education received in childhood emerges. The duty of women in managing the home environment is shown here by Patti, with an ironic note. Through self-portraits, she tells us about a female figure apparently distracted in carrying out her daily tasks, but who actually hides a mischievous streak and great fortitude. The settings are perfectly organized, the spaces clean and tidy, the gardens perfectly manicured, all without a slightest detail out of place. The choice of colors is not casual, in fact, it manages to transmit energy, strength and dynamism. It tells us about a woman who fights with the home environment every day in order to create the perfect and ideal place, but at the same time enjoys it by teasing the old ideals of the Catholic tradition. Actually, the flowering trees, show the woman in her prime, still capable of taking what she wants in her dignity. Patti, with these photos, addresses all those women who, in order to achieve their goals, have had and still fight against old stereotypes that have not been demolished yet.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Patti Roberts
After Prom
Patti Roberts
Electrolux
Patti Roberts
Iron Lady
Patti Roberts
The Back Yard
Patti Roberts
The Front Yard
Paul-Yves Poumay “Art doesn’t have to be pretty. It has to be meaningful.” (Duane Hanson) Paul-Yves Poumay has a background in finance and marketing and extensive work experience in the banking and insurance industry. His passion for art finds its roots in his childhood, his work kept him away from it for several years, until one day this situation changed and, following his heart, he enrolled at the Art Academy of Spa in Belgium. Provocative and ironic, hypersensitive yet incredibly optimistic, Poumay’s work has many intentions, but it is mainly oriented towards others. Labeled as a utopian, he expresses his indignation at the corrosive power of money. His photographic discourse thus intertwines with historical reconstruction, social reflection and political analysis. The approach of his photography is shaped by the desire to focus culturally on turning points and changes, contrasts. Paul, a photographer who managed to build a sensitive theme like that of the homeless, understanding right from the start that talking about these people through such a powerful medium as photography was a very complex process. In this photo what immediately comes to the eye of the observer is the emphasis that the artist wanted to put on the contrast that today afflicts our society daily; a way made of power and weakness, a world of those who have everything and who have nothing. The society of the extremes, which proposes few intermediate means. A reality that strikes the eyes and the heart. He translates his questions into an eccentric expressionism, going from the most colorful to the darkest. She is self-taught and instinctive and, through the use of art and absurdity, challenges the world to give voice to all those forgotten people. Many photographers who through the photography of reportage have brought to light themes still in the shadows: Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, journalists photographers, who used the images to bring to light stories of poverty in America at the beginning of 900, to the great interpreters of contemporary society, such as Sebastião Salgado or Henri Cartier-Bresson.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” (Henry David Thoreau)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Paul-Yves Poumay
Les belles manières
Penja Hesselbäck
The shots of the Swedish photographer Penja Hesselbäck have a strong dramatic charge, perceptible at first glance. Through his photographs a sense of desolation and anxiety emerges, dictated by the artistic choice to capture desolate landscapes shrouded in mist and to prefer black and white shots. Another favorite subject of Hesselbäck are the forests: in particular she focuses her attention on the verticality of the trunks of the trees that come close to each other, creating a dense network of vertical lines. The feeling of bewilderment and anguish is inevitable. In particular, it is interesting the photo entitled “First Circle of Hell” which portrays a pond from which a thick fog is released. It envelops the whole composition. The horizon line, from the hill behind the pond, cuts the composition horizontally in half. This suggests the division between the real world and the otherworldly world. This parallelism is even more accentuated by the trees and reeds that are reflected in the waters of the tand. The title conditions the spectator who is mentally catapulted into the first infernal circle: that of the violent, described by Dante as a river of boiling blood in which they are immersed violent against the other people.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Penja Hesselbäck
First Circle of Hell
Peter Konečný
Where can we place the boundary between dream and reality, between conscious and unconscious? On that thin line that separates us from the dream world, Peter’s works are placed. The photographer transports the viewer into a dimension made of magic and energy, he shows us something intangible and unattainable, the bodies can be glimpsed, the living presence is perceived but we are not allowed to reach them. The human figure has always had an important meaning for artists of all ages, the representation of it assumes a notable role for man for the interpretation and knowledge of himself. Perfect and idealized bodies are those that the classical age has elaborated, reproductions, sometimes of vices and virtues, or models to imitate. But the ideal of perfection in the course of history has changed and distorted, the human body often becomes a symbol of discomfort, like the figures represented by Schiele. What Peter does is something aesthetically wonderful, which goes beyond the very limits of the human body, the figures he shows the observer do not want to exhibit beauty or ugliness, perfection or defect. Before us appear, more or less clearly, bodies that tell a story, gestures that move in space and have a meaning, captured in a snapshot, made eternal and immobilized. There is a great harmony in Peter’s artistic work, a strong balance that releases positive energy. He, through lights and shadows, black and white, writes stories, traces stories and it will be up to the viewer to listen to them through his personal interpretation. Peter’s photographs, both for the subject and for the shooting mode, and again for the composition, bring to mind the photographic series Amnios by Eric Ceccarini. Clearly there is similarity in the works, which are of great impact and strong evocative power. Defenitely, Peter’s work gives the observer a moment of sensual harmony, magic and delicacy.
“If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.” (Walt Whitman)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Peter Konečný
Owner of a Lonely Heart
Peter Konečný
Reflection
Peter Konečný
I live upstairs from You
Ricard Berenguer “We humans, are capable of greatness.” (Carl Sagan)
Ricard Berenguer is a Spanish photographer and designer. He started approaching photography inspired by the work of Henri Cartier Bresson. Indeed, Ricard’s images highly focus on urban photography: he explores the every-day life of people looking for the “decisive instant” that discloses the rawness of human nature. Ricard uses his camera as a narrative instrument, hence, “The Betrayal” is the visual representation of a part of the plot of a series of pieces focused on the rawness of humanity. The woman, captured while smoking a cigarette and starring at the camera, is speaking about her personal betrayal: the betrayal of a world in which she believed in and turned its back on her. This portrait is an act of courage of the subject, who is not scared to show her desolation using it has a powerful weapon of rebellion. Her strained mascara, her misty-eyes, and her severe glance are sublimed in a stance against silence and indifference. With this shoot, Ricard desecrates the disregard of society towards individuality by showing the misery of the human condition as a state that is deeply ingrained in our being, which is, however, capable of make fell us closer to the others and part of a spiritual collectivity.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Ricard Berenguer
The Betrayal
Rima Virbauskaite “The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.” (Honore de Blazac) Rima Virbauskaite is a contemporary Lithuanian photographer. Starting with and old Zenit camera, she then approached medium format pinhole camera and black&white film developing, followed with 4x5” format and later 8x10” format. At the moment, she mostly works with large format pinhole camera, using film and direct positive paper. At the same time, Rima operates with environment friendly developer caffenol C - composed by coffee, soda and vitamin C - and alternative print processes such as oil print, lumen print, cyanotype, liquid emulsion, solarization, solargraphy and black and white images coloring with natural dyes. Her interest in nature is reflected in the series titled “Plants therapy”. Three pieces from this series presented in the M.A.D.S Milano photo awards exhibition. Each image is realized with large format 8x10” pinhole camera on black&white negative, which is processed with caffenol C. The sheets are solarized during the development process, obtaining a mystical and intimate vision of the world. Indeed, Rima captures the subconscious human need of a close contact with nature. Plants can be considered the symbol of the collective memory of the world, being appeared on our planet 470 million years ago. By observing and interacting with them, we can regain our ancestral contact with mother earth, often denigrated in the rushing modern times. Through her work, Rima suggest to the viewer to rediscover the sense of belonging to the universe, as a fragment of a more complex being. The techniques used, incentive this invitation with the creation of a dream-like pictures, which transcend the simple representation of the world into a spiritual, almost religious, approach to nature.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Rima Virbauskaite
Achillea
Rima Virbauskaite
Nymphaea
Rima Virbauskaite
Zantedeschia
Robert Harper “How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that... for that... I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”. (The picture of Dorian Gray, O. Wilde)
Robert Harper is a London-based photographer who works for the most important fashion brands. In his photographs we also meet well-known personalities from the world of entertainment. His research is mainly focused on portraiture, an approach he uses as personal research, as well as work. In fact, here we look at one of his projects, which presents a portrait style that breaks with the classical character. The young girl’s face is not centered, but lateral, as if she were sitting leaning against the right edge of the image. Leaving the back wall uncovered, it seems to have someone beside her, a person we cannot see. That empty space communicates unease. It calls our attention first, and it is almost completely master of the image, occupying a large part of the visual field. Everything is wrapped in a black and white rich in contrasts. The girl’s face hints at a grin and the black sweater, whose folds we can’t distinguish, unravels in a single shape up to her neck. An almost evil beauty hides behind her face. The back wall accompanies our mind in the past, in those Renaissance paintings, where the neutral background served to give importance to the subject in the foreground. At the same time, however, it is superb, and wants to excel over the young girl. A timeless background, to which no age or time can be attributed, fights with human beauty destined for transience, a beauty at the mercy of time, immortal only for the photography.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Robert Harper
Genevieve
Rusty Orange
Urbex Photography, shortened form of Urban Exploration Photography, is a branch of architecture photography that explores the urban habitat. Mystery, curiosity and passion for the forbidden characterize this genre, which documents the decadent charm of the abandoned buildings and the re-appropriation of these places operated by nature. In these sites, usually old factories or derelict residences, all sorts of oddities can be found, from antique furniture to old machines, from stacked crockery to dusty books; each forgotten object contributes to give to the photographic subject this dark and mysterious atmosphere. With his selection of artworks Rusty offers a wide view on this genre, by submitting three photographs, taken in three different places, but united by the same subject: the staircase. In S.A.C.C.I. the staircase, view from above, intriguing the viewer and conducing him to lean out, symbolically, in order to discover what is hidden at the end of it, in a perspective game reminding the masterpieces of Escher; instead, in De Naeyer, the mystery gives way to a sense of decadence, visible in the plaster peeled off from the ceiling, which contrasts, however, with the elegance of the ancient Belgian building, embellished by delicate decorative details, such as the stained glass window and the refined motif with golden shoots running along the walls under the ceiling. The same contrast returns in Orfanotrofio, in which a broad and stately staircase, frontal framed, embracing the view of the spectator, by introducing him in a rich but decadent hall with a decorated pavement. Here the ivy covering the floor, the plaster peeled off and a wild garden visible through the window, remind the words of the artist, by which â&#x20AC;&#x153;more quickly than you might expect, grass will sprout through roads, trees will engulf buildings and wildlife will return to city streets. Eventually nature will reclaim the environmentâ&#x20AC;?. Striking words which urge us to reflect on the natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power and on its delicate relationship with human.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Rusty Orange
Orfanotrofio
Rusty Orange
De Naeyer
Rusty Orange
S.A.C.C.I
Santina Mastrangelo “It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.” (Vincent Van Gogh) Santina Mastrangelo is an English artist, whose work consists of several layers of images, texts and signs in relation to a journey, whether short or long. “The Seer V1”, an abstract exploration that incorporates the concept of stratification, in which Santina makes color and the idea of landscape its focal point. Her research focuses essentially on the human condition and its totality through the evocation of visual and mental landscapes that unite and involve any human experience, be it subjective or objective. Her artistic work, through research and deconstruction, creates visual narratives that evoke mental landscapes and scenarios necessarily interconnected with each other. An imaginative superstructure, which takes on its own connotations of stratifications of memory and personal knowledge. Painting is presented in multiple aesthetic and material forms, where the surface becomes an integral part of the artistic process. The materials used by the young artist are also born from a pragmatic and meticulous study of a story that wants to be told and represented not only visually but above all experientially. Through their use, Santina reinterprets and reworks the past, the present and the future, as a formal prerequisite to achieve a personal identification of a certain vision that is often hidden under patches of color. Like linguistic stratifications, the artist’s work is made of precise narrative codes, a sort of writing that is told through symbols, hieroglyphs or visual compositions. It is an archetypal language that works through combinations to produce cognitive processes that activate the narrative between the human being, the environment and the culture that surrounds him. Her, are abstract compositions that must not represent what it is but what has been imagined over and over again, reassembled, superimposed or collected in the course of their own growth processes. A concept of ideal nature that starts from memory to rework a union of inner emotions in perpetual change. The choice of supporting materials highlights both the absence of a precise temporal flow: a language shared and constantly evolving through which the viewer tries to complete its features and to rebuild its emotional characters.
“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” (Auguste Rodin)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Santina Mastrangelo
The Seer V1, 2020
Shawn Park
The artist Shawn Park studies and uses different tools to find the best way to develop and give life to her dreams. From photography to sculpture, from drawing to oriental paintings reaching to technologically advanced digital programs, Shawn wants to express her moods and emotions, visualizing the boundary between ideal and illusion. Each methodology used within her works has precise characteristics and interacts with the observer in a different way: for this reason, the artist is constantly looking for the perfect means that is in line with the historical moment and the new generation of our day and age. For instance, in “Aura” the entire work is lightened by a single focal point placed at the center of the photograph. The light, emanating from that perfect form, helps the artist to interact with different fields, from science to visual art. That halo of mystery that surrounds the light source gives rise to a surprising vision, transforming the entire space of the work into a real black box designed by the luminous material. The white strikes the viewer as a great silence that seems absolute: the white becomes absence of sound, as a place of purity and invisible, capable of telling abstract stories drawn from pure imagination. While in “Stream”, what attracts the attention is the texture of this rock which becomes sinuous and soft like a silk. The red shades accompany this evolutionary process, moving together like water in a stream. Even in this case a light beam completely radiates the inside of this basin, creating a remarkable contrast between the upper and lower space. Finally, in “Tranquil Peace”, art and nature come together to create a pure and perfect image of such a harmonious and heavenly environment. The lush vegetation gives color to the water mirror just like a real painting. A mystical and serene atmosphere emerges, in which each element recalls the famous series on water lilies by the impressionist painter Claude Monet: in fact, through this representation, the boundary between art and reality is subtle and clearly visible. Shawn Park’s narrative works aim to broaden the view of the world, with the aim of reaching the public through a fairy tale composed of images, stimulating the imagination and creating a unique means to communicate directly with the observer.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Shawn Park
Tranquil Peace
Shawn Park
Stream
Shawn Park
Aura
Simón Calle “Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I simply should recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.” (André Breton) Simón Calle was born in 1989 in Bogotá. His personal photographic research accompanies us on a journey made of comparisons. His investigation of the human soul is both through the art of portraiture and through more conceptual images that, instead, want to give shape to the subconscious. He opens us to a confrontation with different cultures, traveling to Colombia, he documents situations of social conflicts whose difficulties can be seen on the faces of his portraits. Tired and marked faces full of dignity. The strength of his portraits lies in giving full power to the face of the person who is in the foreground, where the eyes and the details of the skin prevail over everything else. Black and white eliminates any distraction and all we see is the experience of these people. The work proposed here is, instead, part of the investigation relating to the subconscious. His style is characterized by the use of black and white with an effect that looks like an old film. Burns and errors are intentionally inserted in order to communicate a landscape far from reality and at the same time a bit dark and difficult to see clearly, just like our unconscious. We see two men by the sea, we understand that they are talking, one points to the other in a direction, it is night and we only see their silhouettes that emerge thanks to the sea waves illuminated in the background. The light sources are difficult to place, they do not follow a precise logic and this helps in making everything unreal. The few people present in these photographs of Simón, are always from behind and their faces are not visible. For this reason, it is easy to identify and find yourself immersed in these surreal settings, at the same time peaceful and disturbing. The journey within ourselves begins at the moment of our birth and continues every day in billions of different ways. What Simón continues to investigate with this project is open with multiple interpretations. Everyone sees with their own eyes and reads with their own mind, trying to listen to their own unconscious.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Simรณn Calle
Thoughts in the desert
Simรณn Calle
The nocturnes
Simรณn Calle
Alice
Simรณn Calle
Childhood memories
Simรณn Calle
Under Sea
Sonsoles Romero “It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism. There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.” (Mark Rothko Sonsoles Romero is an Argentine artist and photographer. Photography, drawing and painting for Sonsoles are necessary tools in order to investigate human nature, digging deeply into its heterogeneity, to extrapolate the best of each individual. With this idea Sonsoles summarizes the deep meaning of her art. A way for her to observe the other, approach him, “steal his soul” and grasp his essence through the camera. Her portraits speak with the eyes, have a perfect and natural understanding, are unaware of being photographed and this inevitably makes the image more spontaneous and true. Her is a careful and sensitive look at human nature, narrated through black and white images that reach a unique harmony focusing on the relationship between individuals and the surrounding space. The Argentine photographer, in regaining the connection between these two thickets, manages to reveal to herself and to others, intangible things, lights and shadows, beauty. Her shot is immediate, understandable and attentive. The immortalized subject is living her everyday life, as every day. She’s on the street or in a subway car, in the middle of a crowd, absorbed in her thoughts. Her gaze does not clash with that of those who are watching her, nor with the viewer of the photo. “Panoptic” represents a set of elements that make the artist deeply sensitive and able to grasp even the invisible. Historically Panòpticon is a project of an ideal prison thought in 1791 by the philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham. The idea was to allow a single supervisor to observe all the cells, all the corridors, all the entrances and all the exits of the structure. The idea of the panòpticon had a great resonance, also as a metaphor of an invisible power, inspiring thinkers and philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Zygmunt Bauman and the British writer George Orwell in the work “1984.
“I will be an artist or nothing!” (Eugene O’Neill)
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Sonsoles Romero
Panoptic
Stéphanie Pfeiffer “The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.” (Robert Doisneau)
Stéphanie Pfeiffer is a Parisian photographer that has focused her work on documenting the faces of the inhabitants of Paris for years. Every day she walks the streets of this city looking at new subjects for her blog, with the aim of making the most disparate characters known to the world. Extravagant looks, aged on a walk, young couples, friends sitting at the cafe. We can see infinite smiles in her photographs scattered with details that describe the Parisian lifestyle: a distinguished gentleman has just finished reading the newspaper “Le Figaro”, two boys are leaving a venue with a baguette under the arm. The strangers stimulate Stéphanie’s curiosity and she does not just take a picture, but also searches for their story, giving a real face to these people. Enhancing them, she shortens the distances between us and them, whetting our interest in the culture of one of the most famous cities in the world. It is an unusual Paris that she takes us to. Thanks to her work we can experience this city in a different way, seeing through her eyes. Only the inhabitants can reveal the true identity of a place. They are the ones who shape and model every space at any moment. Sometimes photography has the power to change value and take on new meanings with the passage of time and with the change of society. Thanks to Stéphanie, one day we will have access to a historical documentation of a 21st century Paris.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
StĂŠphanie Pfeiffer
Dome Villiers Serge
Stéphanie Pfeiffer
La fête dans ma tête Boulangerie
StĂŠphanie Pfeiffer
Rodrigo Place St.Georges
Tjeerd Doosje “Faces rarely deceive. You have the soul of your face and the face of your soul.” (Paul Brulat)
Tjeerd’s photography is a kind of journey to discover feelings and souls. Young women are the protagonists of his works, they are the center of the composition, the whole surrounding environment revolves around them and it almost seems that the space adapts by hosting and welcoming them. Lively looks and intense gestures are the driving force of the photographs, from which energy is released. Artists have always turned their gaze to the human face, in particular to that of women. Faces that were intended to represent vices and virtues, feelings and passions. The portrait is an extremely topical issue despite having very ancient roots, in contemporary society the image of one’s face is what we use most, just think of the world of social media. If we are used to seeing, in advertising, continuously images of perfect, almost unreal, flawless faces, Tjeerd’s photos feature women with real feelings, their faces reveal sensitivity, shyness or even self-confidence. When Vermeer painted “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” a masterpiece of simplicity and sweetness emerged, as happens with Tjeerd’s faces, he manages to capture the simplicity in the extraordinary beauty of these faces.
“The truth is always found in simplicity, never in confusion.” (Isaac Newton)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1405)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (1143)
Tjeerd Doosje
Pien (0709)
Tjeerd Doosje
Teline (0833)
Tjeerd Doosje
Claartje (1803)
Tjeerd Doosje
Selia (0212)
Tjeerd Doosje
Claartje (1504)
Valerio Brignola
Valerio Brignola is an Italian photographer, born and based in Napoli. Photography has been his passion since he was a child and aftersecondary school, he decided to study photography. His favourite subjects undeoubdly are landscapes and macro subjects. An example of the great sensitivity that emerges from his photographs is “The hidden man”, a shot taken during the quarantine period in which, because of the Corona virus, we were forced to remain closed for months within the walls of our houses. The choice to shoot in black and white accentuates the dramatic charge of the shot that portrays a man walking with his dog: one of the few reasons why people were allowed to leave their homes. The decentralized subject and the large number of lines that visually intertwine, give movement and dynamism to the photographic composition. The light, coming from the right, stretches out the shadows of the man, the dog and the light pole, behind which the man’s face is hidden. The play of light and shadow that is created, produces a sense of desolation that brings to mind the world’s difficult period, due to Covid-19 outbreak. All this is even more accentuated by the perspective: undoubtedly Brignola takes the photograph from a window of his home, the only way left to observe the world outside the home.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Valerio Brignola
The hidden man
Yuika Asoi
The young artist Yuika is first of all a researcher, she goes in search of places where she scrutinizes the details and the beauty that is in them. Yuika takes us on a journey into nature and manages to completely immerse the viewer in it. The Japanese artist, through photography, captures moments, sounds, smells and sensations. Mirror of water in which small and light waves sway, giving life to a unique spectacle. The colors that tell the passage of time and the seasons create textures of extreme beauty. Small details, such as a leaf gently landing on the water, are there to capture the viewer’s attention and move him. Yuika’s art is true landscape photography but with an impressionist soul. If the painters of this artistic movement have given great value to light, just as Yuika makes good use of it, it is no coincidence that the etymology of the word photography is “writing with light”. The main subject of the young artist’s work is water, the great masters who throughout history have paid homage to this element immediately come to mind. Undoubtedly the works of Yuika make one think of the works of the great genius Monet, it seems that Yuika has traveled in time and stole the shots where Monet painted his water lilies. In Yuika’s photographs one perceives a great calm and a strong balance, the viewer is pervaded by a wave of serenity, the one that only the sight of nature can give. The composition of the works is extremely balanced, her work is the perfect fusion of shadow and light, color, movement and sound. Yuika gives the viewer a moment of true happiness.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Yuika Asoi
A swaying planet
Yuika Asoi
Autumn
Yuika Asoi
Garden
Curated by Art Directors Carlo Greco and Alessandra Magni Critical texts by Art Curators Alessia Perone Camilla Gilardi Cecilia Brambilla Erika Gravante Erminia Abbuonandi Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo Francesca Brunello Giorgia Massari Giulia CalĂŹ Giulia Zanesi Guendalina Cilli Lorenza Traina Maria Cristina Bianchi Marta Graziano Martina Stagi Mery Malaventura Silvia Grassi Vanessa Viti
“ ecause a the rst and the last a the venerated and the despised one a the prostitute and the saint a the bride and the virgin a the other and the daughter (Hymn to Isis, from the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, 2nd century B.C.)
From the beginnings of humanity, the woman was invoked, venerated and adored as a goddess, through countless forms, names and symbols, with the archetype of Magna Mater. The cult of the Great Mother, goes back to the Neolithic or even to the Paleolithic, and refers to a primordial divinity that embodies the fundamental aspects of human life. The mother, mother of all mothers, is the Earth, whose vocation is to generate, whose dark and humid appearance, recalls the womb and, therefore, the womb that generates life. Its power is in water, stones, animals, hills, trees and flowers. The faculty of procreation assigned to it by nature, has endowed the woman with a boundless power. Woman is in fact the one who gives life. Woman is the one who creates. According to this paradigm, the link between women and motherhood appears inseparable, a concept that was rooted six thousand years earlier with the birth of the ancient patriarchal culture. For these reasons, the existential experience was strongly marked by the presence of the mother figure in a broad sense. Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, investigates family relationships and in particular the “Oedipal complex”: the relationship between mother and son, which he himself defines as a necessary need for both sides, almost dependent. A strong umbilical cord, able to keep alive the maternal love, sometimes indestructible. The mother, in her golden aura, embodies the fundamental values of the family, of feeling, strength, courage, sacrifice, hope and perfection. She’s the one who plants and nourishes the first seeds of good within each of us, and teaches us to love the other. She’s the mirror in which we look at ourselves to understand what we were yesterday and what we have become today. But the love story between mother and son is not always easy. It’s often made of contrasts, devastation and dismay. What Freud in psychoanalytic terms calls Oedipus unresolved. It is, undoubtedly, a bond that has inspired artists of all times, who have chosen to give the mother figure a central role in its totality. Penelope, symbol of unshakable fidelity, exemplary wife and mother, emblem of love and hope for the poet Virgil, Medea, example of an assassin mother, uncontrolled and ruthless, for the poet Euripides. It is the “Mater Dulcissima” for Ungaretti, the emptiness at every step for Montale, the mother courage for Manzoni and Brecht, “The Queen of the Night” for Mozart, the intrusive mother for Jane Austen. It is the mother country for Foscolo, the Mother Nature friend for Pascoli, or enemy for Leopardi, the mother tongue for Dante, the Isola Madre for Flaubert. We could lose ourselves in a thousand other examples, mythological, literary, novelistic, but they would not be enough to strip the woman of her complex maternal role to expose all the other multiple meanings that it represents. She is a universal concept, difficult to express in words. She is strength, resilience, creative and destructive nature, she is salvation, she is hope, she is determination. She is the sun and the moon. M.A.D.S., with the project MATER «Reconditis Oedipus», in the wake of this text, intends to draw the attention of all artists, to dig into their memories, to push them to engage with the subject, each one bringing their own sense and their interpretation of motherhood. Whether it’s nature, whether it’s family, whether it’s love, it’s necessary to dig into us, understand who we are, bring back the past. The search is oriented on that vital force, capable at the same time to give life and to destroy it; to love and to be loved, on that intimate, contrasted and difficult relationship. The aim of this project is therefore to push the interlocutor to give shape to love, through the realization of an unpublished work. Who is ready to share this feeling with humanity? Who is ready to take off his ego and open up to the world?
Concept by Federica D’Avanzo, Art Curator, graduated in Art Management
1wh13 “When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a short of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.” (Jackson Pollock)
1wh13 is a Korean artist who has recently started painting. His aesthetic research is aimed at discovering his identity, and motivates his choice to explore the canvas with the same genuineness and spontaneity of a child. The colors of his art are different, yellow, red and blue (the primary colors) that recur with a certain frequency. His brushstrokes are reminiscent of abstract expressionism, where matter’s line overlap and fit together creating a landscape of colours stacked on themselves. His aesthetics doesn’t have the fear of changing shapes and explore the connection between different languages: words and figures. The artist is young in his painting but he is totally immersed in it. For this reason, his works, although they remain “fresh”, retain the maturity of a man who waited 38 years to get “the artist’s eyes”. The artistic references seem to recall Basquiat’s graphics: emotions and thoughts meet on the canvas leaving a mark that does not seek to be decoded but aesthetically experienced. The technical choice allows the artist to explore the creative immensity that resides within him, leaving infinite interpretations to his creations as abstract expressionism usually does.
“I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.” (Jean-Michel Basquiat)
Art Curator Cecilia Brambilla
1wh13
Who are I
Alexandra Köhl
The paintings by Alexandra Köhl express the multiplicity of the artist’s feelings through a skillful use of color, which is spread with large and scratched strokes and becomes the undisputed protagonist of her canvases. At first glance, her artwork Picture number 4 could appear similar to her other abstract paintings, due to a use of color that defines the space and Alexandra’s tendency to mark the composition with a number but not with a title. Nevertheless, this work introduces an unusual detail for the artist: the figurative element. By interpreting the concept chosen for this exhibition, Alexandra introduces the theme of motherhood placing two figures in the middle of the composition and making them the focus of the painting. Tight in an embrace that reminds a dance, they are protected by something like a domed ceiling, whose form reminds a house or, extending metaphorically its meaning, that kind of protection and safety that only motherly love can give. The artist reproduces her inner sensations through a technique full of vibrant and energetic brushstrokes, that reminds the painting movement of Action Painting. Just like the artists of the New York School, Alexandra translates the creative strength expressed by her hand on the canvas into an image. The magical atmosphere typical of her paintings, which pervades even Picture number 4, derives exactly from this unusual and instinctive creative method. When the artist starts painting, she doesn’t know in advance the result of her composition to the point of being astonished once finished. Alexandra’s style reveals her ability to perfectly combine abstractionism, which reveals itself in the choice of tones, that create an elegant visual experience, and action painting, evident in the use of an emotional and instinctive gesture.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Alexandra Kรถhl
Picture number 4
Alison Lee “There is a little boy inside us who not only shivers, as Cebes Theban believed, who first discovered him in himself, but still tears and jubilation of his own.” (Giovanni Pascoli)
Alison Lee tells a story about childhood and its eternal memory. In Melodic Memories five individual pieces figuratively represent some of the delicate parts of the childhood: playful, innocence, a parent’s love and protection. Each colour standing for the uniqueness of youthful personalities. Like musical notes upon a staff, this piece strike a chord with the sights and sounds of melodic memories. In Remembrance she thinks about the pages of our stories that are never erased though their ink may fade. We may lose the ability to recall them over time but they are forever etched onto the papyrus of our mind. In My Little Playground the artist narrates that sometimes her inner child comes out to play. Out to the playground she’d dash away to the place where imagination grows. She brings the magic of the playground inside with this painting which emanates the freeness felt by running unrestricted, as only children can. Everyone must always remember the little kid that continues to live inside themselves while they are growing. Alison Lee does a sort of nostalgic and poetic return to her origins remembering through the simpleness of the materials what is childhood for everyone. A place where the human being can run remembering his/her innocence. The artist through poor materials does what the artists of the Arte Povera did. She “reduces to a minimum, in impoverishing the signs, to reduce them to their archetypes”. In the end, all we have left, are our memories.
Art Curator Erminia Abbuonandi
Alison Lee
Melodic Memories
Alison Lee
My Little Playground
Alison Lee
Remembrance
Amelie Egenolf A mother and a daughter are standing hand in hand in the sea, facing the horizon. In this painting Amelie Egenolf chose the vibrant simplicity of bright and flat colors and Motherhood creeps into every details. The mother and daughter are black, black like the first men to ever walk the Earth, a recall to Africa as the cradle of Life. If we had to imagine a metaphorical first Mother of humankind, she should be black. It should be noted how the artist chose to represent a girl, a daughter, whereas she could have as well draw a boy. Instead the painting talks of motherhood as much as it refers to womanhood, the two concepts are irremediably intertwined. It isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t farfetched to assume, indeed, that the girl too will become a mother one day. Water is another element strongly connected to the concept of life and the idea of mother. Indeed, water is the first element the baby experiences in, within their mother womb. There, they live and breathe in water. No wonders, often ancient vases and amphora resembles in their shapes a pregnant woman, with their tall, thin neck and a rounder centre. Mother and daughter are walking toward an horizon, over which in an illusion of the painting, it splits into both night and day. It is dawning. The sun has already surged from the sea and the yellow of sunrise is tinting the sky, but up above it there is still the dark blue of the night and the full moon is shining bright. The full moon that has been for millennia linked with women and fertility. A menstrual cycle indeed tends to follow the same phases of the moon and even in modern days, with modern medicine, moon changes still influences when and how women give birth. On the other side of the sky we can spot the triskelion, a rotating triple spiral that is rooted in Celtic traditions from as far as the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. Among its multiplex meaning, one diffused and commonly accepted is that each spiral represents an aspect of the Goddess and femininity in general. One is the Virgin, one the Old woman, and one - the Mother; or in some interpretation, the Daughter, the Mother, and the Sister. Finally, a ribbon connects Mother and Daughter, a frail but ever present red string reminiscent of the umbilical chord.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Amelie Egenolf
Mother love
Anca Leahu
Anca Leahu is a Romanian artist - based in Bucharest - with a cosmopolitan upbringing, precious for developing a receptive and curious sensibility towards her surroundings. The practice of painting becomes therefore the means of investigation and valorisation of the people she met, the places she lived in, the experiences she had. The representation of beauty and intimacy is the nerve centre of Anca’s poetic quality, often chromatically conveyed by the choice of using intense colors such as violet, enlightened by blue brushes, as we can notice in her painting “Like a Prayer” portraying a woman in a peaceful and solemn act of praying. Drawing from the painting’s subject and from the semiotics of colours, violet represents that linking element between earth and sky, between reasoning and impulses. In fact it is often associated with prayer and contemplation: violet symbolizes the color of the spirit and purification, it acts on the unconscious giving spiritual strength and inspiration. Even in psychology violet is seen as an element that facilitates meditation and moderates irritability in people. Leonardo da Vinci himself, one of the greatest researchers in the science of colors, argued that our meditative power can be easily increased if meditation takes place under a violet light. The delicate and intimate quality of the painting powerfully conveys to the viewers a sense of serenity and positivity, allowing to immediately empathize with the represented woman, thanks to Anca’s accuracy and ability in combining forms and contents, colours and meanings.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Anca Leahu
Like a prayer
Astrid Hutengs
Association in 2009, looking at this sculpture for example, each of us would say instantly that it depicts the kiss between a mother and her child: this is what the mind does as the first step related to visual interpretation. But â&#x20AC;&#x153;beautyâ&#x20AC;?, as one might call it, is the second step, not easy for everyone and that requires not only a deep personality but also a desire to see the star more distant from our eyes, that is the in-depth interpretation. Then there is a third phase formed by the moral interpretation linked to personal memories that emerge by observing the sculpture. The third phase is considered the most complex, where the viewer associates what he sees with something more complex and then deduces personal memories. The watercolors by Astrid Hutengs have the same effect and draw attention to the five senses. Her is a painting ability with highly delicate hands, through which it is difficult not to feel the same emotion that the artist feels in realizing them. She puts her heart and soul into it. Her technique is elegant and refined, with soft nuances, which conveys love, affection, memory. An art made of details, in which the artist alternates close-ups -intimate and almost personal- to entire figures, where to be valued is the union and evolution of the relationship -just born and lasted over time- of mother and daughter. The various stages of growth become the themes of her art, where everything is a game of connections between those who observe. The lines are delicate and evanescent like the colors with which she chooses to paint her shapes: warm colors mixed with colder and distant tones such as blue and blue. The eyes are accomplices and want to talk to our souls, as an intimate and solitary conversation that is consumed exclusively with an exchange of glances.
Art Curator Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo
Astrid Hutengs
Mother Love
Astrid Hutengs
Motherhood
Astrid Hutengs
Sensibility
Astrid Hutengs
Us
Astrid Hutengs
Whereto
Atsuko Yamamoto “Art is always more abstract than we imagine. Shape and color tell us about shape and color, and it all ends there.” (Oscar Wilde)
The Japanese artist Atsuko Yamamoto is an emerging painter who has exhibited nationwide. Inspired by natural beauty, her artistic mission is to communicate positivity through reflective abstract landscapes decorated with various motifs, fantastic and dreamlike scenes. Her abstract art finds inspiration for her ‘creating’ in color and sign. It is the perception that guides her; that set of shades that wants to impose itself on her gaze with an image that has a meaning different from everything else. Color for Atsuko is therefore, the meeting point with every form of art that in her canvases begins when the brush, soaked in color, is placed on the base to trace spaces of different shades and sizes. Other shapes of color and variable size will follow to give life to unpredictable and unique combinations. The artist mainly combines painting and digital production to create her shiny, bold and futuristic corpus, as in the work “We are all light”. Her compositions manage to project one’s self into a mystical aura in which aesthetic emotion and perception become one, because they are deeply connected to the energy of the whole.
“Abstract art does not exist. You always have to start with something. After you can remove all traces of reality.” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Atsuko Yamamoto
We are all light
Bana Moureiden “In the body and blood of everyone the mother roars.” (Cesare Pavese)
Every human in his life experiences maternal love, first of all as a son, we immediately learn which is our safe place and where we must go when we need true love. The mother not only gives us life, but every day she is there ready to give us lessons, after all she is the person from whom we learn everything. In Bana’s work we see two red elements that make us think of flowers, one large and well-formed, with its well-defined characteristics and the other much smaller but almost identical to the large flower. A mother and a daughter, a small being that has yet to grow and form its identity, but ready to follow in the footsteps of its mother, traces that act as a link between one and the other. If the umbilical cord holds mothers and sons together before birth, there are invisible cords to which each of us is tied and from which we will inexorably draw strength, from it we will nourish ourselves for life. The color chosen by the artist, the red, has great value, it is a symbol of blood and vital energy, it symbolizes passion and great emotions. A color that becomes a simulacrum of motherhood, an icon of timeless and spaceless love. Bana’s work is living matter, it moves in space, it emerges from two-dimensionality creating a real sculptural structure. The artist breaks the absolute boundary between painting and sculpture, Bana’s art finds its roots in informal art and in particular in materic painting, in which gestures, materials and their transformation were exalted, just like what Bana do with her art. Definitely, the young artist’s art represents an explosion of vivid color, vital energy and passion.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Bana Moureiden
Source
Bodil Fossheim-Bugge “If you persist in ignoring your intuition, you may find yourself stuck in a permanent holding pattern instead of taking the risks that lead to creative growth.” (Nita Leland)
Norwegian artist Bodil Fossheim-Bugge relies on her intuition both for creating and impressing her suggestions on canvas and for establishing an intimate and poetic dialogue with her interlocutors. Her artistic language encourages the viewer to explore a more abstract dimension and to get immersed into her captivating chromatic choice, mostly dominated by shades of blue and gold. In her painting “Opening” the artist, through a mixedmedia technique, paints an outbreak of soft colours. Perhaps the opening represented by the “crack” placed at the canvas’s centre symbolises an invitation to the viewers to open up their sensorial dimension, trying to perceive spontaneously what comes out of their encounter with the artwork.
Bodil Fossheim-Bugge
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Landscapeâ&#x20AC;? is even more delicate in its use of colours. The extremely gentle and mild use of colours evokes an almost oneiric dimension. The painting represents a view on a natural landscape, perhaps a Norwegian valley crossed by a river. This represented imaginary recalls how nature is the key catalyst that spurs the artist to be creative and to paint poetic reflection on what her surrounding reality is communicating to her, with the aim of immersing the audience in the same introspective journey.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Bodil Fossheim-Bugge
Opening
Bodil Fossheim-Bugge
Landscape
Bolli Blas “With one eye you are looking at the outside world, while with the other you are looking within yourself.” (Amedeo Modigliani) Bolli Blasi is a Polish artist who lives in UK. She works mainly in large dimensions and, with the oil technique where she tries to convey his abstract ideas her values and beliefs by questioning the ideas of her interlocutors. As we can see, his works are characterized by characters who have large wide eyes that the artist calls “Bollis” with the intention of representing the windows of the soul, reflecting the reflection of modern society. Through the use of colors she tries to create a cheerful and simple representation, triggering emotional reactions to those who observe them. The deformation of her images is the essential need for a taste that contains in itself the antithesis to depth and surface, of construction and decoration. Empty, almost extraterrestrial eyes become the metaphor of a reality that cannot be represented and communicated in an absolutely correct or right form. Her poetry focuses on the themes of social identity, representing her vision of utopia, a place where ethnicity and background do not matter, where we are all equal, equal, where there are no prejudices, hatred or war. She paints people of all colors and sexual orientations because we are all the same in front of the world of art. Man is therefore part of a musical orchestra where matter is the instrument; the orchestral performance represents the vital rhythm and the resulting melody, the union between rationality and vitality. Thus, human beings are like part of the orchestra where each one in his own diversity and incompleteness, manages to create a perfect melody together with the others and through his story and her works Bolli manages to transmit those concepts to us.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Bolli Blas
Berry da Live
Bolli Blas
Last Temptation
Bolli Blas
One Love
Brigitte Emonet
The French artist Brigitte Emonet has been painting for 25 years, using mixed techniques such as acrylic painting, charcoal, ink and pastels. Woman is the undisputed protagonist of her paintings, as well as the emotion she imports. A great example is the work entitled “Miss Flower” in which the beautiful face of a woman is the protagonist. The viewer’s eye is immediately captured by the large colored flower that the woman wears on her hair. This detail inevitably brings to mind the self-portraits of the Mexican artist Fida Khalo, who depicted herself adorned with colorful flowers. Other elements in common are definitely the neutral background and the gaze of the woman who releases melancholy. The woman’s eyes are magnetic. The viewer is attracted by them, that in this way become the fulcrum of the composition. They express a sweet melancholy that inevitably leads the viewer to empathize with the work, feeling almost a sense of piety. The choice of the artist to use different types of technique, allows her to decide which details to bring out and which to leave in the background. The flower, made of acrylic, stands out on everything: purple, orange, fuchsia and yellow blend in perfect harmony, reproducing the effect given by fluid art. The charcoal details, such as the hair and the contours of the face, remain in the background, simple and delicate.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Brigitte Emonet
Miss Flower
Carolina Bradbury
Carolina Bradbury is an Argentine artist based in Buenos Aires. While having a versatile style, she prefers to express herself through sculpture, her great passion. In fact, she says: “I feel constantly challenged by its threedimensionality and the complexity of materials: the lost wax percolated into bronze, epoxy, wire, stone, wood and clay inspire in me joy and strength when I witness the form coming to life from nothingness”. Her artwork is a sculptural group representing a mother and a child tight in a warm and tender embrace. The sculpture expresses an idea of reassuring and protective motherly love, as also pointed out by the title, Ágape, a word of Greek origin used to indicate the concept of pure, eternal and selfless love in the original Christian religion. According to some scholars, as opposed to the concept of Eros, which symbolizes carnal love, Ágape represents both the God’s love for man and brotherhood among men. In fact, over time the meaning was extended to indicate the banquet held by the early Christians to celebrate their convivial bond. In the sculpture by Carolina returns this reference to nourishment, symbolized by mother’s body. In Ágape even the material becomes a precious expressive element: just like in the sculpture Draped Reclining Mother and Baby (1983) by Henry Moore, where the artist exalts the sweetness of the hug between mother and child using the golden light games created by bronze, in the artwork by Carolina the concave volumes and the smoothed surface, shaped through the lost wax process and cast in resin, extol the fusion and the harmony of human forms in this tender embrace. The artist thereby celebrates motherhood in its most beautiful meaning, embodied by a loving mother who cares for her child, reassuring and protecting him.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Carolina Bradbury
Ă gape
Christine Johnsen
Christine Johnsen is Norwegian artist based with her family in Skedsmokorset right outside of Oslo. “Under Fossen” portrays a view on a Norwegian waterfall with an oneiric and abstract connotation. To Christine, nature represents one of her biggest leitmotif of inspiration that gets shaped through her artistic lens and sensibility. “I use my intuitive feelings to create, and I find my inspiration from all the beauty around me. A painting is a poem without words” states the artist. Besides nature, the artist works by drawing insights from her surroundings in the broadest sense, from animals to other people, expressing on canvas the preciousness that emerges from her interaction with them. The inspirational muses become also the beneficiaries of her artworks as Christine cares to paint the amazement of her artistic stimuli, but also to celebrate them. She often donates the sale of her paintings - acknowledging her privilege - highlighting even more how the act of painting represents for her a genuine passion, means of personal investigation and of telling her vision of the world. “The best feeling for me is when paining hits you right in the heart” writes Christine. And this is precisely her artistic mission: to transposed on canvas her artistic interpretation of the real while permeating into the collective perception, and to valorize the surrounding as the most valuable strength for creating.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Christine Johnsen
Under the waterfall on Norwegian called: Under Fossen
Christopher Rozitis
One of the most important artistic currents, linked to molecular genetics is the so-called ‘Transgenic Art’, which gained the limelight of the media when Eduardo Kac, Brazilian bioartist, made known the birth of Alba, the fluorescent rabbit: a normal white rabbit with a jellyfish gene that makes it glowing in the dark, green. Following the precepts of transgenic art, Christopher Rozitiz explores the connections through cells, atoms and molecules, giving rise in his works to a new concept of grotesque with extremely strong and provocative colors. The artist’s imagination can therefore be freed, while maintaining a plausibility for the viewer. For Christopher, psychedelic colors, alternate in the works to symbolize the passage from moments of relative quiet to moments of greater chaos. His works are an interactive space that creates an interconnection between the public and the artist. The thread is a path that gives consistency to the invisible and that is marked by three dimensions: core, soul and essence. By observing these works it is almost possible to perceive in detail something infinitely tiny. Through this investigation, both internal and external, it is possible to observe reality and thus to deepen its genetic aspect. These works are a detailed investigation of the mother-son visceral relationship that goes beyond the act of conception. The artist focuses on the blood relationship that exists, a special spiritual connection between the mother and the child through the use of ‘gold wires’ that connect them forever. In his works are depicted, through shapes and colors, all the information that every human being needs to live and exist. In the history of art there are images that have established themselves in the collective consciousness, outside of the context in which they were born, called super imagery. The double helix of DNA is certainly an example, an image that carries within itself an enormous baggage of associations unrelated, at least directly, to the scientific context that gave birth to it.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Christopher Rozitis
Cellular Division
Christopher Rozitis
Golden Threads
Christopher Rozitis
Molecular Inheritance
Christopher Rozitis
Rebirth - Renew
Christopher Rozitis
Safe Space
Claudia Werth
Claudia Werth for this exhibition with a deep and sensitive theme, chooses to open up in all its intimacy and tell the world about her motherhood. The latter, over time, has captured the inspiration of countless painters through different eras and styles; from sacred to secular depictions, in the representation of ordinary people or rulers and noblewomen, equally united in the uniqueness of an experience common to every woman. The history of art is in fact full of maternal figures, a symbol of love and life, but not only: for many “mater” is a symbol of pride and protection, embodying a well-defined ideal. Artists such as Rembrandt, Chagall and even Andy Warhol have dedicated at least one work to their mothers. Among these stands the passionate portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, made in 1888 and dedicated to Anna Carbentus, a fundamental figure in the life of the young Van Gogh, having transmitted to her son from an early age the passion for drawing and painting. A loving relationship full of sacral respect, which is fully evident in the canvas. But there is an artist who more than anyone has been able to give a careful and sensitive look to the theme. Auguste Renoir, the painter of joie de vivre, has executed more than two thousand portraits in which children occupy a place of honor. Beyond the emerging feeling, the image of a child is, in fact, almost always associated with purity of mind, spontaneity and sincerity. “Joy”, is a photograph that captures the mother/ daughter relationship in its entirety. They are the loving eyes of an artist, and at the same time a mother, who are lost in the gaze of the fruit of her creation, her daughters and sisters, immensely joyful. Claudia, with her work, wanted to immortalize the spontaneity and naturalness of children, making merit to an infinite beauty, which translates into happiness and sometimes disarming truth.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Claudia Werth
Joy
Daniele Zaggia “The mystery of the soul is like that of a closed door. When you open it, you see something which was not there before.” (Oskar Kokoschka)
Daniele’s work is deeply inspired by German expressionist artists and philosophers. Like the great masters of the past, his production focuses on the ransom of individuality against the uniformitarianism of the contemporary society. In doing so, Daniele faces extraordinarily complex themes such as alienation and need of empathy. These concepts are perfectly exalted by his palette, composed mostly by acid colors, and his scratchy graphic sing. The theme of pursuit of uniqueness through emotions is embodied by Daniele’s choice in matter of artistic techniques. Indeed, he prevalently uses oil based pencils that allow him to stress the physical connection with the artwork thought the gesture, creating bonds with his models made of emotions and feelings. The artwork presented for this exhibition “Dono” (Gift) is the visual representation of the maternal gift of life. Daniele choses to portray a fetus embraced by the umbilical cord. The spiral signs that surround the baby, which give the sensation of maternal love and protection, are juxtaposed to the rapid and straight lines used to depict the child, which become symbol of vitality. With this artwork, Daniele stresses the value of a new life by exploring multifaced theme of mother-child relationship glorifying the concept of human empathy.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Daniele Zaggia
Dono
David Jason Mendoza From Gustav Klimt to Pablo Picasso to Berthe Morisot: each with his own sensitivity represented an inseparable union: that between mother and son. It is undeniable and undisputed that in the history of humanity the role of the mother is the most important and difficult one in society. The miracle of the mother-son bond has been taken up by poetic souls, whether they are writers, painters or singers. Pablo Picasso is one of these singers, and with a chromatic subtlety presents in Maternity (1905) the face of a woman in perfect symbiosis with her milk-colored body: attentive, devoted, concentrated and yet lost in the child who drinks breast milk from breasts. In the same year in which Picasso painted Maternity, Gustav Klimt created a work whose title is already emblematic: the three ages of women. With the quirks typical of secessionist art, Klimt outlines blue flowers like the night, sunflowers of the solar yellow and green leaves of eternal paradises, a mother who embraces her own son. Both are immersed in a deep sleep. This masterpiece symbolically represents the passage of a woman from being a daughter, mother, grandmother, in the union of three generations. In art it is clear, that many have been the forms of artistic interpretation of the theme. David Jason Mendoza, an artist with a colorful, deep and sensitive soul, tackles it by realizing an entire cycle of five works. The artist decides to depict motherhood in stages, starting from the act of conception that sees the couple join in an act of love. In “Verlobt”, in fact, passionate and carnal love is synthesized in the sinuosity of the naked bodies that unite and that flows into the work “Schwanger”, where the faceless woman is depicted pregnant. In “Mutterschaft” the act ends, and the mother embraces her child, holding him to her. Somehow David, as well as Klimt himself, wanted to use the canvas to express a life cycle, in this case evident in the emblematic figures of the mother and child. A very original and realistic interpretation, able to provide the complexity of the moment to the observer but at the same time the innate joy. Both will remain united and close, attacked even without awareness, dreamily living.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
David Jason Mendoza
Mutterschaft
David Jason Mendoza
Schwanger
David Jason Mendoza
Singel
David Jason Mendoza
Verliebt
David Jason Mendoza
Verlobt
David Ortiz Fuertes
If you say the word “Mother”, a thousand memories and thoughts come to mind to each of us. It arouses a thousand emotions. The mother is the one who gives us life, who grows us, educates us, scolds us when we disobey, but she makes us understand why we are wrong. Each of us has a memory of our mother that makes us smile. And the smile is the protagonist of the work “Smile” by the artist David Ortiz Fuertes. In fact, at the center of the painting, we see the writing “Smile” from which all the expressive power of the work radiates, through the explosion of bright and intense colors, which gradually fade away from the center. This work is the third in a series in which the works “Love” and “Happy” appear, which express three aspects in the life of each of us. The mother is also, and perhaps above all, a personification given to nature. Nature amazes us every day with its beauty and its magnificence. David’s “Boreal” work represents one of the most magical and fascinating spectacles of nature: the Northern Lights. David was able to represent, with his unique style, the bright and vivid trails, typically red-greenblue, which characterize the phenomenon. The work conveys the sense of magic that this vision arouses in the observer. Also, in the work “Luna de Geminis”, David represents his very personal vision of an element of nature that has inspired artists and poets for centuries: the moon. More precisely, the moon when is in the sign of twins, it symbolically represents the young, intelligent and very open mother. Thanks to the special technique used, David is able to give the representation of the humped terrain of the moon, even the choice of gold and black help to give depth. The technique used is a drying technique, which is carried out by moving the work in different positions, even upside down, for several days, thus creating unique and particular reliefs. Technique that we also see in the work “Tulips Love”, in which it seems to be in front of a field of colorful tulips. The dynamism of the work and the application of color gives the viewer the feeling that the tulips are swaying in the wind. Finally, with the work “Evanescent”, David creates a representation of what the various feelings are, almost evanescent, not concretely perceptible, but they are everywhere, they radiate from us to spread to those around us. The color here creates large waterfalls that slide throughout the work, like a great waterfall of uncontrollable emotions and feelings, which we want to express and show to those we love.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
David Ortiz Fuertes
Boreal
David Ortiz Fuertes
Evanescent
David Ortiz Fuertes
Gemini Moon
David Ortiz Fuertes
Smile
David Ortiz Fuertes
Tulips Love
DB Waterman The Dutch artist Db Waterman offers, through her works, an interesting reuse of old materials, intertwining them with new ones. The goal of her work is in fact to “do something beautiful from ruin”, as she says herself. The appearance of her works recalls the public posters faded by time, in fact her artistic research starts right from here. Waterman wants to recreate this aesthetic through a particular mixed technique she devised. In fact, it creates the works through collage and acrylic painting. From this point of view, the artist refers to the teachings of synthetic Cubist painters, particularly Picasso and Braque, in which they related pieces of the real world to the canvas, introducing the use of collage. Waterman’s greatest inspiration is children, often depicted in carefree moments. As in the works entitled “KID WITH KITE II” and “NEW YORKER II”. In the first work a child is playing with the kite. Most of the work is in black and white, except for a few details and the colorful kite. The choice to use black and white causes the viewer a sense of melancholy, as if the child were in a degraded environment. The same feeling is felt in admiring the second work mentioned above: a little girl swings carefree on a swing looking at gray buildings made with a collage of old newspapers. An interesting detail can be found in the work entitled “AGAINST ALL ODDS” in which the background is made from a mix of acrylic and collage of musical scores. A mother with her children enjoys a day at the beach. The title suggests that, once again, the situation is not easy but the carefree children overshadow all the problems that life puts before us. As she herself says “Children’s ability to transcend any given rotten situation is astounding. Playing tag in the ruins of a bombed Syrian city. Playing football in the most miserable neighborhoods. They are always looking for the light. They will save the future that our generations have really messed up, not even blaming us for it. If we only could keep the kid in ourselves a bit more, we wouldn’t be in such a mess. Art can help us to re-find our childlike innocence”.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
DB Waterman
AGAINST ALL ODDS
DB Waterman
KID WITH KITE II
DB Waterman
NEW YORKER II
Diana Pimienta â&#x20AC;&#x153;Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.â&#x20AC;? (Albert Einstein)
Diana Pimienta is an American artist with Latin origins. All her artistic work develops around the relationship with life and its continuous interconnection with nature and its elements. In this work, she focuses her attention on the importance of the female figure. Through a figurative language, made of warm and intense colors, she shows us a woman with Egyptian features, coming from those areas of the planet where, in the distant past, the foundations of our civilization were laid. In fact, in ancient Mesopotamia, women enjoyed numerous privileges, received an education and could play important roles, even holding high offices. Diana delves into the past, in order to demonstrate how important the female vision is within society. Elegant and full of beauty, in fact, she holds our Earth in her hands. While tongues of fire unfold around her, she envelops our planet as if she were carrying a child, thus becoming the creator of the world. She is herself the origin and, endowed with great sensitivity, it grows us and teaches us which is the best direction to take. The woman, in Dianaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, is also Mother Earth, who inebriates us with her great energy and, at the same time, with a wonderful inner stillness. Guardian of our planet, mother of all and generator of strength and peace.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Diana Pimienta
Mawu
Eeva Forsström “Motherhood is still not another technique to be applied to our body but something that goes beyond us, that mysteriously binds us to the essence of our existence.” (Susanna Tamaro) The Finnish artist Eeva Forsström finds her inspiration from the surrounding environment around her: art is everywhere, in every gesture, signal, symbol, in what we admire every day, from nature to the depths of our soul. Emotions and moods are crucial in art, through which Eeva wants to create pleasant perceptions in the observer, aiming to an evolution with regards to the sensorial side. In fact, in “I’ll keep you safe” the artist conveys all love and affection by representing a mother while she is embracing and protecting her child. In this work, the theme of motherhood enshrines an intimate and familiar scene, characterized by a loving elegance and simplicity out of the ordinary. Just as in Gustave Klimt’s work “The three ages of the woman”, the mother wraps and leans towards her son, to cradle him and keep him safe from the hardships of life. The wise use of gold as in Klimt’s works, represents the material concentration of the divine light. Considered as the most representative and decorative shade, this takes on a role that goes beyond the historical re-enactment: combined with such a profound theme, it awakens, stimulates and spreads a new artistic sensibility. Other colours present are black and white: one opposite to the other but used and mixed together they create a union that emerges from the canvas itself, emphasizing the figures portrayed. Black is also found in the wavy lines depicted on the golden background, creating a harmonious dynamism, a light breeze that caresses the faces of the mother and child, in order to represent the typical maternal warmth. Whereas white represents an emblematic symbol of purity, giving a delicate source of light to the woman, radiating and surrounding the unborn child. The value of procreation is such a priceless gift that embodies the mystery of the life in the universe, by first marking the transformation in time and space of the female body, and lately the birth as a symbol of humanity. As a divine Nativity during the Renaissance era, Eeva’s work is a hymn to tenderness, as well as to the creation and protection of a new and innocent life.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Eeva Forsström
I’ll keep you safe
Eileen Reynolds “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” (Albert Einstein)
Eileen Anastasia Reynolds is an American artist. For some time, her artistic work has developed through the cinematographic language of videomaking and in particular stop-motion. Among the various themes she has touched over the years, part of her stories see motherhood as main subject. Here we see “BIG BIO”, a stopmotion animation video, which introduces the photography “Biotechnological Madonna and Child”, both made during her stay in Singapore. This work is part of a trilogy that touches on several important topics, as well as extremely present and all with clear religious references. From modern motherhood, to bioethics, to the pharmaceutical industry through what, in addition to being an imaginary visual experience, also brings with it a good dose of reality. A newborn picked up on a lawn is introduced into a cage and subjected to experiments, as if it were any animal. Despite the baby’s suffering, the woman, in futuristic clothes, insists with her tests on the baby until it melts, then reassembles it, cuts it, fixes it, and finally takes it back to where she found it. Taken from its natural environment, it is violently introduced into the artificial place par excellence: a scientific research laboratory. Place of disturbing and obscure investigations to most people, yet also a place of life, a space from which the most incredible cures come. How far can science go? Is there a line not to cross?
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Eileen Reynolds
Biotechnological Madonna and Child
Emelly Velasco
A poem dedicated to the ever-present memory of her mother: this is how the young artist Emelly Velasco presents her work entitled “Kamal”. Emelly’s painting speaks in every stroke of the power of female energy, exploring every aspect of it. With this work and this poem, Emelly transports to the canvas what motherhood represents for her, the feeling of a mother’s immense love next to her, even without physically having her with her. Being a mother includes in itself a thousand aspects of being first of all a woman, with her own femininity, passion, love, suffering, pleasure, fertility. To all this, becoming a mother adds the warmth and intensity of a love so deep never felt before. With her work Emelly transforms all these feelings and emotions into shapes and colors. Blue, a symbol of harmony and balance, joins next to him with red, which is instead a symbol of passion, and yellow, which is pure vital energy. These primary colors are then joined by green, which symbolizes balance and harmony. However, Emelly also adds a touch of preciousness to the work with gold leaves, just as precious is the love of a mother in the life of each of us.The colors with bright and intense shades give an amazing energy to the work. Reading the poem written by the artist while looking at the work intensely frees up a myriad of emotions within oneself, because it is possible to understand the state of mind of the artist, what she wants to convey: an immense love for the mother and the emotions that accompanied her life.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Emelly Velasco
Kamal
Ernest Compta Llinàs “We should seek neither to escape suffering nor to suffer less, but to remain untainted by suffering.” (Simone Weil)
Ernest Compta’s painting is mainly based on facial portrait. The faces of the women he paints carry deep secrets, sometimes difficult to understand. He uses colours that belong to the sphere of melancholy, such as blue, brown, blue, reminiscent of Picasso’s Blue Period. Ernest Compta’s mothers look at the spectator with a deep and determined gaze, they are not afraid of judgment. It is noted, observing carefully, that often the cheeks are dug out of grooves: a dimension of suffering and at the same time of awareness. They are women who pretend to be watched, who leave no room for the indifference of the other. The “other” is us, unaware of the inner world of these women, but obliged to look towards them. The gaze, however, is not that of the male man on a female object, as often the history of art teaches us when we observe a woman’s body. In Ernest Compta’s paintings we find women-subjects who – perhaps – want a social ransom, the right to stand in their place and exist as human beings. Suffering is transformed into awareness, and therefore the security of being in the world is highlighted, an almost ancestral resistance. Through the mere pictorial gesture, Ernest Compta manages to show souls with a deep interiority from which one cannot escape. We are obliged to listen, to watch, to reflect on their existence and resistance. No longer defenceless women, but thinking bodies full of dignity and pride.
Art Curator Giulia Calì
Ernest Compta LlinĂ s
Guardami
Ernest Compta Llinàs
Io non ti credo più
Ernest Compta Llinàs
Non me l’aspettavo
Eszter Bognár “What does art mean to me? I think art is a creative force for culture with its mythical shape and symbolic language.” (Eszter Bognár) Eszter Bognár is an artist who manages to bring out, through painting, her artistic skills, exploring some typical elements of the natural world, till reaching a purely abstract vision of her subconscious. She always uncovers new chromatic connections, different techniques and unedited concepts of expression: everything aims at catching the observer’s optical perception, involving him in a wide expanse of color, just as in “Broken Red”. Through this work, Eszter indelibly fixes emotions and moods on the canvas, enlivened by the vision of that vivid red and, as if it was an electric shock, by the presence of sea green that releases a charge of energy and vitality. The free brushstrokes and dense layers of tonality emphasize the creativeness of this artist, where red shades which turn into white represent feelings of a quiet soul, suggesting a new representation of dimensional spaces, in addition to the reality perceived. The gestuality which relies on tracing different traits while spreading the color, totally defines this work, which enshrine a collateral reality by itself, witnessing the making and being of matter and creation, as if the artist was painting with a simple act that energy which pervades her. Recalling the artistic movement of Abstractionism, Eszter Bognár wants to represent a revolutionary artistic language capable of improving even the complicated human condition. In this way an expressive and symbolic function of the color prevails, emphasizing the observer’s feelings and suggesting a close link between the viewer and the artwork. The ability to visualize a reality that is still not real, to activate the imagination through which numerous visions of the sensorial world can materialize, are some of this work’s peculiarities that help the artist to bring her own feelings inside the painting, in the search of completely new forms and images, with the aim express abstract and symbolic concepts.
“The modern artist works to express an inner world: movement, energy and other inner forces.” (Jackson Pollock)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Eszter Bognรกr
Broken red
Fatima Bush
Mexican artist Fatima Bush focuses her artistic production on the topic of breast cancer. Her great dedication and passion aims to sensitize the viewer to this terrible disease that unfortunately affects many women. Fatima decides to participate in the “MATER” exhibition organized by MADS gallery, in honor of the figure of the woman, not only to raise awareness but also to normalize the vision of the practice of mastectomy, which consists in the removal of the breast. The work, entitled “Mastectomy”, is a self-portrait of her own body in which the presence of only one breast is clearly visible, while the other is removed and marked by a horizontal scar. This work is clearly an act of courage that expresses a strong desire to accept one’s own body. Bush uses pink as a background, referring once again to the color of the ribbon that represents the disease. The color of the skin is given by various shades of pink and beige, given to spots like impressionist painters. On the other hand, Bush’s work is reminiscent of that of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele, who made paintings of naked bodies through various color palettes given to patches. Her simple and delicate style fits perfectly to the purpose of the painting: pass a message. The square canvas holds the bust perfectly positioned in the center. Bush does not represent a canonically perfect body but represents what are termed “imperfections”, but which are actually what makes all women beautiful and special. The artist decides to enhance the strength and beauty of the women even in adversity and illness.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Fatima Bush
Mastectomy
Fatma Aysun Özkan “We all have a thirst for wonder. It’s a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I’m saying is, you don’t have to make stories up, you don’t have to exaggerate. There’s wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature’s a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.” (Carl Sagan)
Fatma Aysun Özkan is a Turkish painter whose artistic universe is dominated by intense and vivid explosions of colours. The artist is wisely able to keep throughout her work a precise identifying style, offering to the audience’s perception a personal and intimate language. The painting “Dream Tree” is a vibrant and multi-coloured journey obtained by the use of large brushes, with a dominance of a bluish/greenish chromatic choice. At the same time the blue/green outbreak is framed and contaminated by complementary colours such as beige, red and orange. The accuracy of the artist in composing details and combining shades of colours evokes suggestions able to bring us inside the story and into an aesthetic contemplation. The use of fluid brushes recalls the natural dimension, as propulsive and creative strength, as a “dreamy tree” able to bring oxygen and life to the earth. “Dream tree” is an homage to vitality that symbolizes a benevolent mother of extraordinary beauty and incisive verve, able to leave behind pragmatic messages while bringing a familiar and enchanting sense of reassurance to the audience.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Fatma Aysun Ã&#x2013;zkan
Dream Tree
François Giordani
Giordani François is a self-taught French painter. Raised in between Corsica island and Paris, the artist transposes his personal heritage and life experiences on canvas, offering at the same time to his viewers a more universal space of identification. The act of painting becomes a “locus” for composing an intimate vision of reality, as a way to aestheticize it but also for offering an opportunity to reflect on it. The artist’s subjects and techniques are multiple, referring to the multifaceted aspect of life: “Portraits, landscapes, abstract, figurative, cubism, collage, [...] whatever the material or technique, whatever, just the search for the emotion and the rewards of the extracted feelings”, states Giordani (Gio). For the artist painting is a cathartic form of escapism of a struggling and challenging reality, though maintaining a lucid vision on how precious life is, accepting its double nature of joy and sorrow. To the artist, art is the nourishment able to shape his thoughts and talk about the world. “My creative process often consists of going beyond an intellectual or technical process. It consists of an immersion of emotions and sensations, as if I were a ‘fisherman’ of emotions. I am just the ‘antenna’ that collects things that are not totally mine” says Gio. His painting “La cueillette des fleurs”, literally “Picking flowers” symbolizing an artistic reflection of his vision on the human existence. The painter explains how “The painting portrays a feminine silhouette while collecting flowers, the flowers of destiny, of life. She represents a metaphor for our existential journeys, our struggles and our pleasures”. The colours of the painting are vivid and well contrasted, thanks to a wise use of the two main complementary colours: blue and yellow, two opposing force, as pain and joy. But as the peaceful gaze of the girl suggests, we should all serenely accept that unknown element of existence, made of thousands opportunities to pick and experience.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Franรงois Giordani
La cueillette des fleurs
G.S.N.7.1.9 “When life is born When it changes from intangible to tangible Something invisible miracle power Probably born.” (G.S.N.7.1.9)
The work of G.S.N.7.1.9 is highly inspired by spirituality and the research of a link between the tangible and intangible. Her nom de plume itself comes from the need of connection with the incorporeal sphere. Indeed, it is the abbreviation of the full name of her partner, who she lost in a car accident when he was nineteen years old. She transmutes this tragedy into an artistic research that speaks of vitality and love for life in all its aspects, stimulating the viewers in their own research of connection the impalpable by reminding the importance of the essences that we can’t see, but surrounds us. In her artworks, the material used represent the physical world, while the spiritual side is symbolized by the abstract brush strokes and shapes. Her production can be read as a seek of balance between the opposite sides of existence: moon and sun, heaven and earth, life and death, man and woman. These concepts are also expressed through her choice of main colors, red and blue, respectively a warm and a cold shade. In the painting presented for this exhibition “Birth”, she focuses the themes of motherhood and nativity, passing through the concept of spirituality. With an oval shape, which is connected to the topics of rebirth, fertility, and immortality, G.S.N.7.1.9 captures the instant in which the intangible becomes tangible. The materiality of the brush strokes and the shades of red - symbol of femininity, sacrifice and vital energy - are juxtaposed to the use of gold and white, symbols of sacrality, holiness, candor and hope. Once again, the artist sublimes corporeity and spirit creating a visual connection between what is impalpable and what is perceptible.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
G.S.N.7.1.9
Birth
Gali Naveh-Stern Gali Naveh-Stern is a self-taught artist, based in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Her extemporized art is characterized by some constants such as the use of brilliant colors and strong lines with which she creates her subjects. The artist in fact does not make preparatory drawings but the creative process evolves in dialogue with colors, lines, shapes and her inner voice. This process cannot but recall the thought of the French Fauvist artists of the early years of the ‘900. Their art was based on the simplification of forms, on the abolition of perspective and chiaroscuro, on the use of bright and unnatural colors, on the incisive use of pure color, often squeezed directly from the tube on the canvas and a clear and marked contour line. From Naveh-Stern’s art emerge strong emotions: happiness, mystery, deep feelings... every spectator can find his own interpretation. Her artworks undoubtedly pay close attention to the technique she uses but, at the same time this way of painting highlights the meaning she wants to give to the subject that stands out against the whole work. In some respects, the shapes of the faces recall Picasso’s cubism and the influence of African art is clear. Her art is represented at the MADS gallery by the work entitled “Family”. The horizontal composition places in the center the figure of the man, on the right of the woman and on the left of the children. The choice of placing the man at the center could refer to the patriarchy of our society but, at a second glance, you notice that the figure of the man almost disappears between the black lines, allowing the feminine figure, defined by strong lines and colors, to emerge in the foreground instilling a sense of concord that surrounds the entire work. The children are marginal in the composition, almost to fill the background with colors. They can also be interpreted as the whole of humanity: brotherhood, union, equality. Messages that unconsciously this work gives back to the spectators. On the other hand, the strong composition of colors, in which red prevails in contrast with black, and the face impressions and unnatural body gestures convey a mysterious note; a more dramatic feeling involves the viewer.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Gali Naveh-Stern
Family
Geisys Gรณmez
Passion, energy, talent and a wise use of color are the elements that characterize the works of the artist Geisys Gomez. Through her works you can breathe the energy that feeds her soul and her works of passion througha pictorial journey destined to be free of limits and contaminations, but deeply true in its essence. Signs, brushstrokes, color to represent a deep and attentive inner world. A clear and impulsive dynamism characterized by two important elements instinct and reason or perhaps it is better to speak of the heart. The pictorial gesture is the main element in her works which characterizes the entire pictorial composition and its artistic process. A constant presence within her works that nourishes and makes us dream, accompanying us to reflect on real intentions. The pictorial compositions are free and a certain aesthetic emotion is evident accompanied by the perception of experience, a profound and well-investigated combination of art and life by the artist. Are we talking about simple visions or much more? The color within her works becomes vibrant and intense, creating an expressive language from which a profound knowledge, care and attention emerges. A creative freedom that helps us to externalize tensions and to let our unconscious go. Instants, moments and a great poetic lyricism characterize the works of Geisys Gomez. Passion and strength two recurring elements in her works present here at the Mater exhibition at the Mads Gallery in Milan Observing her works is like living an emotional experience, it makes you feel enveloped by energy of her canvases and protagonist of an experience in direct contact with yourself, with your most intimate emotions in an almost multi-sensory journey. Her works become pure space to be filled for those who observe them and question their real meaning. An intense and fascinating existential poetics in which time is suspended and a choice is made, everything becomes material without space and time. Everything becomes essence. Everything becomes the place where you exist.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
Geisys Gรณmez
Red Diptych
Geisys Gรณmez
ST 1
Geisys Gรณmez
ST 2
George Marcu George Marcu, is a young artist of 24 years of Romanian origin who lives and works in Italy. His design made on black cardboard, indicates the perpetual movement of nature itself and all its intrinsic strength. The work “Mother Nature Crying” is a short account of the effect of man on our earth. In the drawing are represented, two snakes, a scarab and a bird perched with the wings unfolded that arrive to the “paradise”, where is the seat of mother nature. The animals are watching, some reluctantly, some angry, the crystal ball showing them a burning tree, while Mother Nature, from the top of her position, pours rivers of tears that fall into the pyramid. With this work, the artist wants to emphasize the creative and salvific nature of the woman, the strength and resilience that often characterize her and her fundamental role, and at the same time devote space to the animal world. The serpent, which appears twice, is an animal which, due to its characteristics, has struck and stimulated the human imagination, often entering, like a legendary creature, in the folklore and mythology of various peoples. Among the numerous attestations, the biblical account of Adam and Eve stands out, where the serpent is the representation of the tempting devil. The fascination they exert in the first place comes from the environment in which they live, as they can lurk in the rivers as in the deserts, in the forests as in the meadows. The second and perhaps principal element of interest lies in the ability of the serpents to change the moult, associated with the cyclicity of life and immortality. A symphony that unites or, better to say, unites the female body to its primordial element: the earth as the mother that welcomes and gives life. The chiaroscuro tones are altered by the use of the gold color, which in addition to highlighting the stylistic details, also makes evident the contours of individual objects and gives light to the work itself. The use of the other colors has a dual perception with the change of light; the black background, alternating reddish shades, the green from on the blue, and that’s how you have a great scenic effect.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
George Marcu
Mother Nature crying
Gro Heining “I have nature, art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what else can I desire?” (Vincent Van Gogh) Through the works presented at the “Mater: Reconditis Oedipus” exhibition, the artist Gro Heining praises her love for the beauty of nature and the animal kingdom. Dealing with a universal idea of Nature as a generating power, this condition of “motherhood” to the artist results to be alive, intimate and spiritual. Within these paintings there is a great emotional intensity: in fact, in the two versions of “Mother and Child United”, the immense symbolic charge is originated by the vast feeling of maternal love that pervades nature and all living beings. The artist wishes to point out that maternal instinct also exists in animals, giving a secular but profoundly transcendental interpretation of motherhood. These cetaceans infuse a great tenderness and depth of soul, teaching to listen to their inner voice and encouraging them to embrace their emotions. An animal like the whale represents an emotional rebirth and emphasizes the value of the family, of that indissoluble bond between mother and child. In search of comfort and protection, the whale’s cub moves in unison with its mother, as if they were one, whispering harmonic and loving vibrations. All this love is also underlined by certain colors within the two artworks: nuances that change from blue to green are widely used, recalling the marine environment, symbolizing harmony, well-being and instilling a sweet tranquility. In this way, fertility is best represented, a strong correlation between the concept of mother understood both in the natural world and in the animal world: for this reason, green emerges from both canvases and recalls to life. Interesting is the point of view of the protagonists so close together, underlying at best the two monumental figures of a mother and a son, whose emanate a great source of an encompassing light, typical of the maternal warmth. Intimacy, serene rest and affection evoke a Holy Nativity, as in Renaissance paintings. A crucial element linking the two above mentioned works with the third one, “Tree of Fire”, is the constant presence of birds, which fill the inside of the different figures as if they were themselves acrylic colors. Symbols of spirituality, of the soul and mediators between the sky and Mother Earth, their flight was considered divine in various ancient cultures, as well as being the sign of prophetic visions and supernatural powers. The perception of freedom and their majesty probably allude to the rebirth of this imposing tree, like a phoenix reborn from its ashes; all this creates a connection with the energetic and vital presence of the color red: it instills an extraordinary strength, both on mental and sensoria side, stimulating creativity and great passion for art and Nature, the mother of every living being. Here fire becomes the emblem of continuous evolution, keeping the senses alive and activating all positive energies.
“Earth is a beautiful place and which it’s worth fighting for.” (Ernest Hemingway)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Gro Heining
Mother and Child United I
Gro Heining
Mother and Child United II
Gro Heining
Tree of Fire
Guillermo Guzmán G.
Guillermo Guzmán G. is a Chilean artist, based in Santiago. He prefers oil painting and expresses himself through a unique style, drawing lessons from Expressionism and Abstractionism by adding an original component. In fact, it is often possible to recognize human faces in his works, through whose eyes Guzman expresses emotions. This is the case of the work “BIANCA” in which a woman is the protagonist. She is depicted in the center of the composition, represented in profile and kneeling. Purple dominates the background, created by geometric lines that recall the skyscrapers of a metropolis. The woman is made of black and white. The choice of colors creates a visual contrast that allows the viewer’s eye to focus on both the background and the subject in the center. It also allows to visually create a sort of light, as if the woman releases around her an aura of purity. The silhouette of the woman in fact recalls Mary, mother of Jesus. The connection is not explicit, so what woman really represents is spirituality. She is crouched, crushed by the weight of difficulties but who does not give up. She illuminates the dark night around her with her white thoughts. White as her soul and as the name that the artist gives her: Bianca.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Guillermo Guzmรกn G.
BIANCA
Heini Svartengren “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” (Aristotele)
Heini Svartengren is an artist from Helsinki, now based in Sweden. Her art made of fresh colors mixed with golden details, reflects the close connection with the natural world, giving life to canvases that release energy between blues, greens and pinks. Her style, influenced by abstractionism, comes from the sensory experiences given by nature. Mountains, woods, lakes and rivers are the subjects she prefers to tell. Her works are characterized by the use of vertical lines that give the painting an upward momentum, a feeling of breath that accompanies our mind through the memories of a walk in the nature. This work, “At last”, with its dominant blue color, seems to want to tell us about an almost magical place, a clearing in the middle of a forest where, when the sunlight filters in, everything begins to shine. The application of the color, specially imprecise, leaves lumps on the canvas and the trunks of the trees and the flowers seem to vibrate. Everything takes on an ethereal and pleasant aura. Heini takes us, with her art, on a journey into the natural world, away from the noise and crowds. Silent and peaceful is the womb of Mother Nature, source of life and serenity.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Heini Svartengren
At last
Hideo Katsura “We were still attached to the representational image. We cut into the form, the different angles from which it could be seen, the perspective. The object turned in our hands, we turned round it. We were tortured by this mystery of form.” (Albert Glezies) The world is a dynamic place where infinite images and fragments of life are overlapping, mixing each other, creating a fluid mental frame of a life constantly in movement. In a single room, during a routine’s morning, thoughts floating with words, people, real or imaginary situations, that organised by a narrative voice can return an expanding story about a place, a moment, a scene. How translate this concept in painting? Hideo Katsura explore this sliding images with his acrylics, his paintings try to grasp the elusiveness of life in a collection called “vivid places” -defined by himself-. This creation explores an interesting oxymoron between the sense of the words (the semantic) and the pictorial representation (the figuration). In his paintings -that strongly reminded the protocubistic phases of Braque and Picassothoughts, images, details are collide with each other where the “fourth dimension” (the time), and the entire world composed by the rest of the representation, looks to exist like a “integral body”. In the immobility of a second, in the infinite possibilities of assimilating and feeling the same moment from multiple perspectives. Katsura’s paintings connect different rooms, different situations, just like the life of every man who moves from one area to another does. In front of Hideo’s world we find ourselves in a puzzle of emotions temporarily stuck together. In his idea of space, the artist formulates a thought that sounds like: “seeing myself as a form of space and perceiving myself as such”; where we notice how he feels transformed into a “space”. The atmosphere reminded a melancholic and nostalgic places: a casino, populated by viscous and paralysed inhibitions; a coffee immersed in the rain of an urban landscape; a valley illuminated by a crack of light but embraced by the darkness of the night. In a continuous evolution and expansion of space, Hideo hopes to promote a painting capable of defeating environments and immersing the viewer in a vivid memory of the world.
Art Curator Cecilia Brambilla
Hideo Katsura
Casino
Hideo Katsura
In The Café While It’s Raining
Hideo Katsura
Valley Of Buildings
Jane Gottlieb “Colors, like features, follow the changes of emotions.” (Pablo Picasso) The artists who often hide a complex and curious inner world are moved by the desire to arouse sensations and ignite emotions in the spectators of their works. One of the main means used is undoubtedly colour, the mirror of the soul and personality. Jane Gottlieb, an artist gifted with incredible strength and energy, makes colour the undisputed protagonist of her masterpieces. Thanks to the use of Photoshop and the photo saturation technique, she is able to express a new magical reality characterized by lively and surprising colour contrasts. In “Daydream romance” from an open red curtain you can see the silhouette of a couple in love intent on admiring the magical sunset. The blue of the sky and the sea contrasts with the fiery red of the curtains and the bright yellow of the sun creating a surprising chromatic effect. The feeling of peace and serenity conveyed by the work sees to it that the viewer is projected into the scene of the painting allowing him to hear the sound of the waves and enjoy the spectacle of nature in real time. In “ 3 Graces” the protagonists of the work are the three Graces, a subject of which the first representations date from the Greek civilization and of which, among the most famous versions, those of Canova and Botticelli are mentioned. Jane gives us an innovative and original interpretation of Graces: the three goddesses bearers of joy and beauty, daughters of Zeus and the nymph Eurinome, are represented with sinuous bodies and bright colors. They personify in order from the left poetry, beauty and elegance. The orange background contrasts with the colours of the various elements of the painting: the yellow of the bodies and birds, the purple of the Elegance’s dress, the Poetry’s hair and grapes and the blue of vegetation. Finally, in “Carousel in D.C.” Jane paints an urban landscape, a theme she often deals with in various works in which the subject varies from time to time. The famous Washington amusement park is represented with bright and surreal colours that perfectly convey the idea of euphoria and joy that children feel while playing. Innovation has always been the secret weapon of success and Jane, thanks to her creativity, has been able to offer a key to looking at the world with different eyes.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Jane Gottlieb
3 Graces
Jane Gottlieb
Carousel in DC
Jane Gottlieb
Daydream Romance
Joe Bezer
Joe Bezer is an English artist currently living and working in Barcelona. His art is manifested through a purely figurative style, especially dealing with portraits. For “MATER” exhibition, proposed by the MADS gallery, he realizes the work entitled “Lake Bathing” in which the theme of the mother is represented by two elements: the mother par excellence that is mother nature and a woman. These two elements combine perfectly through the representation of a woman immersed in the waters of a lake. The woman keeps her eyes closed, almost as if to be lulled by the waters and thus get in tune with nature. The water that submerges it up to the neck, is rendered in an amazing way by the artist: the reflection of light on water illuminates the composition. The brush strokes given for the rendering of the small ripples of the lake look at the impressionistic technique of Claude Monet, one of the first artists to study pictorially the effects of light on water. The work of Bezer offers an important message to the viewers: the connection with nature and, therefore, the care that derives from it are fundamental for the survival of humans. We must love mother nature, the one who gives us life.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Joe Bezer
Lake bathing
Johann Neumayer
The Austrian artist Johann Neumayer presents at “MATER” exhibition his series titled: “The Space and dream imaging machine” made up by the software Rhino 5 that puts together art and design. The figure of woman, as we have seen in “DRESS ME” and “PHOTO AWARD” exhibition, is a constant in Johann’s works. In this exhibit, with the use of 3D printer, the artist gives rise to feminine figures that live an imagined world in which they seem confident. This sensation is given by the first image in which some girls walk with their head held high in the middle of a golden space that light up their proud and clear personalities. To better underline this explanation Neumayer has focused the attention on women’s heels that we can observe from different angles. The second image, in fact shows an enlargement on the heels to which are tied small male figures. This could be read as an upside down of the role reserved to men and women in society. Here the big heel and the small man, reject the stereotype for which women are subordined to men’s opinions, representing actually the opposite. According to this, the cold colors use in the last two images, that shows details from different points of view, let think about impassive women showing the value of their essence. The typical suitcase and the suit that combine career men, but also the paperworks are here another characteristic of the changement in action that see women on command of the society. This surrealist art refers to René Magritte works whose aim, brought again by Johann in a contemporary way, is to represent throught an enigma, usually at the center of the image, the real life just as we wish it were.
Art Curator Martina Stagi
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 1
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 2
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 3
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 4
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 5
Juliusz Kegel
Juliusz Kegel is a Polish artist who takes his inspiration from his travels and memories, or simply by observing the surrounding environment, in what refers to that perspective defined as daily life. On his point of view, the artist adds different vibrant colors to his artwork, in a way that they are so vivid and present that seem to be in constant movement: in his works this aspect is strongly visible, almost as if he wanted to give new impulse to the famous 20th century artistic movement, the Futurism. For this reason, we can notice a radical change in the perception of the various elements that characterize a painting: in this way, the artist defines movement and its development as a new vision of the world. All this dynamism in his art accelerates sensations and perceptions in the viewer, becoming an active and participating subject and who is taken into the work with an involving and energetic motion. Three crucial examples of this concept are the works selected for this exhibition. Firstly, in “Cave”, the observer’s gaze analyze every single deep inlet, emphasized by the use of black, and he gets into an indefinite but colorful universe. One has the curiosity to get access to that world painted in gold and purple, to look inside it and let oneself be completely enveloped by that dimension so lively and sparkling. The painting turns out to be a project open to perceptions and interpretations, aiming at the subconscious of the user and his real sensations. Secondly, in “Flames”, in a blaze of brightly colored brushstrokes, the artist recalls the great work of Jackson Pollock and Action Painting. There is full a freedom of movement, which is common in the abstract and pictorial works of the Expressionism, emphasizing its way of framing art as an unstoppable force. A decisive gestural charge is evident, as well as the use of a spontaneous sign as a transcription of energy and prolongation of the action itself. In those thinner lines of color there is a representation of the “dripping” technique, through which the color is dripped directly on the canvas, securing to the artist an immediate result and allowing him an instant contact with the work itself. As for Pollock, in Juliusz Kegel there is an absolute concentration and determination on the work he is doing, as if he could perceive when the painting is finished because he feels to have expressed what he wanted to depict. Finally, in “Golden Desert” there are mainly three shades that stand out that immense natural expanse, where black, gold and blue/light blue make a play of shades, lights and shadows. This desert captures and strikes the observer’s view: the immersion in the unknown, at the same time, takes the observer into a fulfilling and boundless calm. As a force of nature, it knows no obstacles, a boundless space where one assumes the dimension of a grain of sand and becomes part of the whole.
“I am not afraid to make changes, nor am I afraid to destroy the image, because I know that the painting has a life of its own and I just try to make it come out.” (Jackson Pollock)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Juliusz Kegel
Cave
Juliusz Kegel
Flames
Juliusz Kegel
Golden Desert
Kamonpoi
Folding, painting, shaping, rolling and unrolling, superimposing and stratifying are just some transformative ways of paper and cardboard that contemporary artists have used to give shape to materials rich in expressive potential. At the beginning of the twentieth century, with the revolutionary action promoted by the artistic avant-garde, traditional materials is added to a series of new mediums that progressively identify a very varied repertoire of natural and artificial elements, which have now become part of an “enlarged artistic field” that now characterizes contemporary art. Among these materials cardboard plays a prominent role and many artists begin to experiment with paper and painting, assembling the different materials. Simple and spontaneous gestures thus give life to an imaginary universe of forms, only apparently traceable to the sphere of reality. Art has always been confronted with the media and we do not count the examples of how current and present have become the object of artistic expression. But what happens when newspapers become the basis or material of an opera? Art becomes more and more truth, and its narration becomes the content and meaning of the work itself. Newspapers or media are generally used as a subject of representation if not explicitly as a material of creative work, as in the work of Kamonpoi, “Pastel Puke (ende)”, rich in paper references, which strikes above all for evocative power, since newspapers may in no case be neutral items or mere paper objects. A huge newspaper headline occupies the center, from which the title “ende” takes its name, appearing as the only legible and clear writing that together with the line of painting aimed at damping the colors of gray and white make the work alive and up-to-date.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Kamonpoi
Pastel puke (ende)
Kari Veastad Kari Veastad is a Norwegian painter. The natural landscape in which she lives represents an element of constant inspiration and, more in general, an opportunity of reflection of what exists and moves around her. The process of create becomes the means to express and deepen the dialogue between her subjectivity and her surroundings. Painting becomes a magnifying glass to both look introspectively and to explore with stupor what is unknown and far from our comfort zone of references. “In life I am inspired by beauty, movement, and interaction between body, soul, and spirit and my images often ends up in different directions between inner and outer landscapes” states Kari. This transformative process of making art subsists thus from the initial idea and stimulus to the final confrontation with the artistic outcome. “My colors and hands take me on a joyous and unfamiliar journey through inner and outer landscapes. I am constantly surprised by what comes on the canvas and learn a lot in the process” writes Kari. “Loved Creation” is a sweet and colourful hymn to the beauty all the existent creatures. The artwork aims at composing a compassionate gaze upon the world, referring to an unconditional and understanding affection the creator feels towards us. The painting is an inclusive poem full of hope and comprehension for what the world is, with strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand the piece “My world” portrays a more individualistic vision of human being: while being painted with reassuring and calming bluish and greenish tones, the painting represents the clash between different “worlds” of desires and urges. While the baby needs to be nourished, his mother is fantasying about a different life, and so on. “My world” points out perhaps the need to establish bridges of communication with our own needs and desires while respecting and understanding the ones of the other. “Curious” completes the triptych with once again a message of colorful hope: the artist invites her interlocutors to be curious and to challenge their own intellect, to go deeper, to dare to raise awareness.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Kari Veastad
Curious
Kari Veastad
Loved creation
Kari Veastad
My world
Kari Wang Kari Wang is a Norwegian painter, who has chosen to dedicate her artistic career to the female subject, very important for her research. She began to deepen her studies on the theme of folklore and in particular on the traditional costumes made by hand of women. About half of Norwegian women own a “bunad” and use it often! A costume is the distinctive style of dressing of an individual or group, which reflects the social class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or era. The design of these dresses is always quite elaborate, with embroidery, scarves, shawls and jewelry. In Norway, the bunad is worn on various holidays, especially during the National Constitution Day celebrations on 17 May. In more recent years, this has extended its use to several other occasions, becoming a formal dress, as well as folklore. It is truly singular how art, from its most remote roots to the most contemporary forms, has been able to shape and incorporate in itself, in a process of acculturation, atavistic rites, popular beliefs and cults. Kari Wang in her canvases, through the use of colored brushes, devotes attention to every detail, from the hairstyle to the accessories. Lace, tiaras, everything is in place. An element that immediately shakes the eye of the spectator is the contrast of the meticulousness of the details on the clothes and the total absence of characteristic elements of the face. This would explain the importance that the artist gives to the female subject, in relation to the theme, understood in her collective and not in her individuality. The only element of which a sign is drawn, even if minimal in its shape, is the mouth. The female silhouettes, moreover, are depicted in a pose anything but static and intend to give the viewer an illusive speed and movement, as if they bowed or danced, or touched their hair. Apparatuses, decorations and ornaments connected to parties or special occasions, are very common elements in the history of art. The festival is one of the most emblematic moments of the Baroque age in particular; a celebratory instrument of political and religious power, considered the highest affirmation of the cultural end of the century: the search for “wonder”.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Kari Wang
Woman from East-Telemark wearing traditional costume
Kari Wang
Woman from Tinn in Telemark wearing traditional costume
Kari Wang
Woman from West-Telemark wearing traditional costume
Katja Wunder
Katja Wunder is a Siberian artist, living in Germany. Her works, mainly made of oil, revolve around the theme of the female figure. The sensuality and beauty of the woman are themes that shine through her works. For “MATER” exhibition , the artist chooses to exhibit one of her paintings belonging to the series “Woman’s eyes”. Abstraction and figurative drawing meet in a single work. The eye, the central element of the painting, is extrapolated from its “habitat”, and is reproduced on the canvas in solitude. This is evidence of Wunder’s technical skill, which faithfully reproduces the human eye. The central figure that the eye covers in her works, undoubtedly brings to mind the Surrealism. It was the main subject of many surrealist artists: in 1927, Man Ray realized “Bole de neige”, a bubble that shows inside the image of a painted eye; in 1944 Salvador Dalì conceived the surrealist object “Metronome” fixing the image of an eye on the pole of a metronome. In particular, in Dalì the eye becomes a real obsession, also using it in sculptures, sets and photographic shots. Undoubtedly, as for surrealist artists, Wunder uses the eye as a means to convey emotions. The gaze is the most powerful means of expressing feelings. The eyes are the only thing that will never change into a body, and for this reason are defined “the mirror of the soul”. The work on display here, entitled “Birth of life”, has a celestial background in which an intense rose acts as a contrast. There are two eyes outlined by two yellow circles and in the center is represented a hand, made from only contour lines. Despite the size and the centrality of the hand, the fulcrum of the composition remains the eyes, which capture the attention of the viewers, almost bewitching them.
“You can change a lot in a woman’s body, but her eyes and looks of eyes remain unchanged.” (Katja Wunder)
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Katja Wunder
Birth of life
Kiyomi Baird
Kiyomi Baird is a Japanese- American artist who creates abstract spaces and forms, exploring the movements of the universe and the spirit of every human being. A crucial experience made by artist in working for a metallurgy department enabled her to find out new different plots and motifs that reflect themselves endlessly. In that environment the artist witnessed to a change in her views, which will become crucial for her artistic career. Her works are based with a multidimensionality, between the earthly and otherworldly worlds, making the observer feeling strength and vitality, who can freely express his emotions and moods. Her move to Tokyo was another turning point, absorbing the Japanese culture and aesthetics. Eastern and Western research merge into a single dynamic interconnection that the artist skillfully brings out from her paintings. In order not to lose sight of this objective, Kiyomi mainly uses three colors, black, yellow/gold and white. In addition, she constantly uses numerous symbols to evoke contrasting feelings in the viewer, such as plots and spheres, which help the viewer to concentrate and relax his mind and body. All this is clearly visible in three works. Firstly, with “Mother and Child” Kiyomi wishes to merge the heart of the work with the soul of the viewer. A new and energetic life branches off from the mother: the two characters merge into a single protective hug, while the woman is gently cradling her baby. Abstractly, the elements are inserted in a game of crossreferences between reality and imagination, until reaching a new way of understanding and feeling art as an opportunity to investigate the complex relationship between humanity and the universe. Such a pure feeling, unconditional love and the strong emotional charge of a mother who generates life. Secondly, in “Spirit Guide 2”, the presence of guardian angels who have the task of protecting every individual in the world is underlined. The artist urges the conscience by putting the observer in direct contact with the desire for infinity and eternity. A median entity that helps to overcome life’s difficult moments, which arouses strength, determination and protection. Finally, with the work “Zazen 2” the doors of meditation are opened, towards a complete liberation from negative energies. As if it was a Moon’s eclipse, the observer is invited to stand side by side and unite with his own soul, by making a path of spiritual elevation that leads to his inner enlightenment. By cultivating a deep quietness in the innermost recesses of the mind, this painting helps to observe and discover the true nature of human existence.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Kiyomi Baird
Mother and Child
Kiyomi Baird
Spirit Guide 2
Kiyomi Baird
Zazen 2
Laila Kvalsund Solhaug Interpreted by many artists as a metaphor of the life that dies, but also as a symbol of the continuous change of the human soul, always able to create new colors, autumn was one of the favorite subjects of painters of the late nineteenth century, an era also perceived as the end and at the same time the beginning of something new. But not only the 19th century played with the warm and sad colors of autumn: even the Renaissance, now at the end of its splendor, used its forms to tell mysterious and fascinating allegories. Autumn dressed in white and crowned with flowers, sad and disturbing trees, or on the contrary bright and reassuring atmospheres. Many of the great artists, from Arcimboldo to Kandinsky, have looked at this season in very particular ways. The most curious and fascinating artist of the sixteenth century is undoubtedly Giuseppe Arcimboldo, also known at the time for his artistic “oddities”. His most famous works are the “Heads Compound”, funny portraits made using the combination of objects, fruits or vegetables. Famous are the tables that recreate the four seasons: allegorical portraits representing the various moments of the year, imagined as if they came to life and gave shape to characters funny and disturbing at the same time. Autumn, now in the Denver Art Museum, is decorated with all the elements that recall this particular period of the year: a barrel held together by branches of willow supports a face with decidedly unkind features, consisting of pears, pumpkins, mushrooms, grape shoots and curious chestnut curls that suggest a brisk and rebellious beard. Although interpreted in a form completely far from this just described, extreme autumn elements and colors we find them in “Colorful autumn” by Laila Kvalsund Solhaug, Norwegian artist who dedicates her artistic attention to nature. Her artistic interpretation is elegant, delicate and refined. The work is characterized by a typical abstract landscape, whose use of colors is appropriate and perfectly in line with the autumn palette, warm and cold, able to synthesize a state of mind of quiet happiness and creative melancholy. The foreground leaves are the only concrete shapes that the observer sees at first glance, along with this spot of pure white color in the center, which probably symbolizes the hope placed in the season that is about to arrive, winter.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Laila Kvalsund Solhaug
Colorful autumn
Leokadia Anna Tominska “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” (Albert Camus)
Originally from Poland, L. Anna Tominska is an intuitive and by heart abstract hobby artist based in Norway since the early Eighties. “Autumn Dream” is an enchanting and intimate poem able to create environments in a broadest sense: the warm palette - mainly red and yellow - penetrates into the viewer’s perception bringing a universal sense of reassurance and evoking precise settings, while being blurry in its contours. Anna brilliantly succeeds in making the undefined dialoguing with a sense of intangible familiarity, in making the absence of pragmatism able to establish new forms of investigation and communication with our inner soul. “I have a lot to tell through the pictures, so sometimes there is also a little poem to them. The ideas come to me on a conveyor belt, sometimes just by colors, tones or moods. I observe the local environment, people and nature to understand the interplay between them. This in turn gives me intuitive, suggestive and emotional expression” states the painter. The artist’s intuition on canvas becomes therefore an intense communicative channel with her audience, offering a collective opportunity of challenging our own sensorial universe and intuition in a transformative and reflective way.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Leokadia Anna Tominska
Autumn dream
Lika Ramati “What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic: there is only the real.” (André Breton)
Lika Ramati’s works appear almost transcendental, mysterious, indicating a feeling of contemplation, veneration or adoration of the scared dimension, or of divinity, implying a direct experience which exists beyond the universal characteristics of visible reality. This condition of intense participation in the divine is illustrated through the representation of women painted as goddesses who, through their body, are aimed at showing their immaterial and transcendent nature. In particular, the artist, in her works, wants to emphasize the deep veneration of nature. In the painting “Mystical Forest”, for instance, a woman is portrayed sitting on a trunk in the middle of a forest, with her eyes half-closed, in a contemplative state of sublimation. The style of the works, thanks to the use of bright colors and golden shades, contributes to creating a mystical atmosphere that takes the viewer into another dimension. In fact, in front of the women portrayed in “Blue Goddess of Nature”, “The Goddess Chariot” and “Another dimension”, the viewer has the feeling of experiencing a real mystical apparition. As if the painted women, through their magnetic gaze, were to convince the viewer to come with them into their world. It is interesting to underline how through human figures the artist manages to paint a reality that appears almost totally oneiric. In this way, Lika Ramati manages to reach a higher reality (surreality), by reconciling the two fundamental moments of human thought: that of waking-state and that of dream. Nevertheless, in the works, the two worlds - the oneiric and the real one - remain essentially distinguishable as two different dimensions.
“The image is a pure creation of the mind. It cannot be born from a comparison but from a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be — the greater its emotional power and poetic reality.” (André Breton)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Lika Ramati
Another Dimension
Lika Ramati
Blue Goddess of Nature
Lika Ramati
Mystical Forest
Lika Ramati
Red Frida
Lika Ramati
The Goddess Chariot
Line Munkoee â&#x20AC;&#x153;As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.â&#x20AC;? (Virginia Woolf)
Line Monkoee is a Danish artist. All her artistic research revolves around the theme of motherhood and the mother-child relationship. Her language is characterized by bright and brilliant colors, which describe the figures through very precise signs distributed in space. Here, color notches and long tapered lines, show us a maternity that breaks with the mold. In front of us, a woman with feline features, shows herself proud carrying a child, whose cord binds to others who are dispersed in space. The background is inhabited by what looks like a universe of stars and planets where she comfortably twirls. She looks us straight in the eye, almost as a sign of challenge. The figure of the woman has been associated since ancient times with that of the cat. In Ancient Egypt, the goddess Bastet was one of the most important and venerated deities, with the role of protector of the house, fertility, women and births. Freya, a deity of Norse mythology, is also goddess of fertility, described in iconography as a woman on a chariot pulled by cats. The female figure who has always been forced to submit to the rules of others, here shows herself full of strength and vigor. In this Lineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, we see an independent, creative and proud woman, bringing into the world new children. A self-confident woman who brings life, who in silence, unnoticed, moves freely, leaving an indelible trace of her passage.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Line Munkoee
Legacy of Generations: the mother animal
Lisa Chimes “Water in all its forms, as sea, lake, river, spring, is one of the most recurrent typologies of the unconscious, as well as it is the lunar femininity which is the most intimate aspect connected with water.” (Carl Gustav Jung) The artist Lisa Chimes expresses beauty in its most natural and essential form, through which the concept of purity can also emerge from the representation of nudity. This concept is evaluated in “Siren”, where femininity radiates a vital and positive energy, like a real force of nature. While in the ancient Greek and Roman traditions the Sirens were endowed with wings, a seductive face and a statuesque body, the woman with sea-like features refers instead to the sensuality typical of an iconography born in the Middle Ages until the early Renaissance. As in “The Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli, Lisa represents this mythological figure as if she was a goddess, emphasizing the simplicity, the nobility of the soul, which reflects an exterior and interior beauty. In fact, her internal physiognomy is clearly visible, transparent as water, in which the observer can contemplate her as best as possible. The long tail tightens firmly around the sculptural body, taking an inevitable charge of irresistible beauty and elegance. In this work, the motherhood’s interpretation is covered by a light veil from which originates many different brushstrokes. The ambivalent charm of this daughter of the sea stands out between enchantment and illusion, as well as a vivid imagination that embodies the desires and fears of humanity. The design is harmonious, the lines are elegant and give an impression of movement throughout the composition, creating a vibrant atmosphere. The sharp colors immerse the figure in the light and transparency of the waves of the sea, enhancing its purity. The blue gives depth to the work, a space without boundaries, taking the observer into a new and mysterious world. Whereas, green refers to a total balance, composed of harmony and love. In all this, water is the symbol of life: because of its constant movement, the sea can be considered a reflection of the course of human existence and of the oscillations of human desires and feelings. Through this work, the user is confronted with both sexuality and vulnerability, blurring the boundaries between “the naked and the nude”.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Lisa Chimes
Siren
Loretta Ribaudo Carter
Loretta Ribaudo Carter is an Australian artist who now lives and works on Lake Como. The artist expresses herself through figurative, abstract, cubist and contemporary art. Her subjects belong mainly to the female world and investigate the expressive power of women in contemporary society. Women in art not only understood as muses and models. The most famous is certainly Artemisia Gentileschi, the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, a well-known Roman painter between 500 and 600, whose work was strongly influenced by Caravaggio. But, unlike the male painters of her contemporaries, Artemisia was always able to go beyond the lessons of the artist. It is, in fact, well known that her personal life and the history of violence by a friend of her father, have made her, through her works, a champion of justice against violence against women. Each of her works is full of anger, resentment and expressive strength. Loretta, in the wake of artists like Artemisia or others, identifies art as a tool to express the greatness and power of the female gender. The woman has always been the object of representations in art, covering different roles with different symbolic meanings. The way of representing it has changed not only because of the advancement of pictorial or sculptural techniques, the change of aesthetic taste and the variation of artistic currents, but also because of the way of conceiving the role of women in society. In ancient iconography, the woman was always associated with fertility and nature, she was a vehicle of the principle of life, a symbol of motherhood and procreation. In Greco-Roman society, women have a marginal role, always linked to motherhood, subject to male control and not free to participate actively in public activity. With the advent of the Renaissance, the themes of the paintings focus on the man who regains the center of artistic and literary interest; the woman is no longer represented only as a “saint”, but renews and evolves in increasingly diversified aspects, being depicted in episodes of daily life or mythological nature that exalt it in the eyes of the users. Sandro Botticelli and Raffaello Sanzio are the example of the female representation of the time: speaking of Botticelli you cannot fail to mention the painting the Birth of Venus painted between 1482-1485; but the Botticellian representation is not the divine exaltation of the woman rather it is the symbolic incarnation of Love, the driving force of human nature seen in its duality: both as a symbol of physical and sensual love, and as a love for philosophy, for intellect and knowledge. Gustav Klimt chooses to represent the women of his paintings as fatal and dangerous women for the man, as seen in the two works that have as their protagonist the biblical figure of Judith, the woman who managed to behead General Holofernes thanks to her sensual charm.”Woman Who am I” is a work of very important symbolic details that a little summarize in a single painting a long-lasting battle, where the woman has tried in all areas to establish herself and become an independent subject and strong in its complete individuality. The reinforcing elements that accentuate the artist’s goal are the pose, the proud and confident look, and clothing. Shapes, figures and colors that tell the subject and contextually also the artist, in search of her identity.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Loretta Ribaudo Carter
Woman Who am I
Lucia Heumann
Lucia Heumann is a young German artist, based in Hamburg. She discovered her passion for photography at the age of 11. She takes photos with an analog and manual camera, and develops her films herself in order to get the most real and haptic experience possible with the photos. The choice to make most of her photos in black and white, makes her photograph seem to come from another time. Heumann prefers shots taken outdoors, in the street, among people. Shots “stolen” from people unaware, while performing their daily routine. An example of this is the photograph entitled “Stairs” in which is portrayed a man who climbs the stairs, perhaps about to go home or perhaps to go to work. This type of photo allows the viewer to create with the imagination stories and characters. “Stairs” is a dynamic photograph, thanks to the blurred effect that the Heumann brilliantly uses. The perceived dynamism can only make us think of the studies of the Futurist Italian artists of the early years of the ‘900. In particular we remember the photodynamism of Anton Giulio Bragaglia, in which the vibration and the essence of the gesture emerge. The same mode can be found in Heumann’s photographs entitled “Train” and “Cups”. In particular, the latter depicts cups in flight in which the movement is the protagonist. The camera is used as a means of tracing the complexity and trajectory of the movement. Heumann’s ability is to reproduce what the human eye is missing. She captures in a photograph the suspension of a movement: the train before it disappears from view, the cups before they fall and shatter on the ground. This invites and allows the viewer to dwell on the moments, on the fleeting life, on what a moment before you can have and a second after there is no more.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Lucia Heumann
Cups
Lucia Heumann
Stairs
Lucia Heumann
Train
Luisa Barba
The Spanish artist Luisa Barba through “Veni, vidi vici” wants to offer a personal point of view about the tragic situation we are living because of COVID-19 emergency. The protagonist of the work is a big red mouth which, biting into the evil virus, wants to fight it and defeat it definitively. Luisa representing a smile wants to communicate the spirit with which we should face not only happy moments but also the obstacles that life often imposes on us: everyone has the strength to react and the right energy to overcome the difficulties that he meets during his life. The bright red lips contrast with the pure white of the teeth and the black background creates an effect where the mouth seems to come out of the canvas to meet us. In “Vision” the mother’s hand joins the newborn son’s hand who is swept away by the vortex of energy that life brings with it.
Luisa Barba
The mom gives love and strength to the child who, small and defenseless, prepares himself to grow up and face what fate keeps in reserve for him. The colorful world is wrapped in a white trail that stops to make room for the hand of the baby and the arm of the mother who united are preparing to overcome the challenges that life presents to them. A perfect chromatic balance is created by the cold and warm colors which, when combined, create a pleasant glance. From the white brush strokes a movement borns and perfectly gives us the sensation of enveloping that overwhelms us at the moment we come into the world. Although apparently distant, the two works have the intention of passing on the same message: do not get yourself disheartened by adversities but defeat them with grit and determination.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Luisa Barba
Veni, vidi, vici
Luisa Barba
Vision
Luz Sanchez “Monet painted over two hundred water lilies looking at the same pond. This is a proof of how beautiful the same thing can be every day if only you look at it differently.” (Stella Nosella)
Monet’s water lilies are like women to Luz Sanchez. The Uruguayan artist is known for her works with a strong evocative power whose female figures painted with delicate watercolor brush strokes, express their naturalness and authenticity. Using bright colors in perfect harmony with each other, Luz brings out different sides of the woman’s personality: the woman as a mother in “Madre de Muchos” and “Mother”, the woman as a symbol of strength and solidarity in “Una somos todas”, the woman as a teacher of seduction and a symbol of power in “Reina universal”. In the first two works cited above, two different phases of the evolution of motherhood are represented: in “Mother” the woman is painted without veils, with her face in profile, putted up hair and sinuous shapes; she’is in a sitting position as if resting to relieve fatigue due to waiting for the baby. In the work “Madre de muchos”, however, we recognize a mother walking hand in hand with her children.
Luz Sanchez
The colored background conveys sensations of joy and vivacity that characterizes the spirit of carefree and naive children. In “Una somos todas” the woman is represented, as in the other paintings, with a face without defined features. Consequently, every woman who observes Luz’s works can let one’s imagination wander and dream that the face of the protagonists corresponds to her own. In this way, the artist manages to interact directly with the spectators establishing a profound dialogue with them. In “Reina universal” the woman, sitting in a sensual position and with a crown on her head, becomes an icon of seduction and a symbol of universal values essential for a change towards a better world. Luz, artist with a fascinating and strong personality, uses the magical art tool to be women spokespersons confering value and importance on the female world.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Luz Sanchez
Madre
Luz Sanchez
Madre de muchos
Luz Sanchez
Reina Universal
Luz Sanchez
Una, somos todas
Maaria Rinta-aho
In an essay written more than sixty years ago “The Art of Loving”, Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst, sociologist and philosopher, wrote of a sophisticated art on which every day we all ask questions: the art of loving. According to Fromm, love is true if it is unconditional and if it is not born of need. Precisely we do not love someone if the latter “serves” us to fill a void that frightens us. We love someone in a mature way only when, strong in our personal development, the other enriches us without becoming an addiction. Love therefore has to do with the gift and not with the dependence that comes from a need. Therefore, this feeling is given by the joy of giving oneself unconditionally. In the eighties, Bert Hellinger, German theologian and psychologist, elaborates the theory of the Systemic Family Constellations, a phenomenological approach applied to the actual relationships of every kind. According to these studies, love is therefore something great, which has nothing to do with the expectation of “receiving” but consists in an active attitude, which as Hermann Hesse writes, “does not want to possess, only wants to love”. Maaria Rinta-aho, through her romantic and out-of-the-box painting, helps us to understand that if love is free, unpretentious and selfish, it brings us an incomparable happiness. Her way of telling the feeling makes you feel emotion, awakens feelings hidden deep in the heart of the viewer. “Unconditional Love” in its abstraction of forms, does not intend to depict or immortalize a physical act, but go further and leave the viewer the opportunity to immerse themselves in their own dimension, intimate and sentimental. The intent of the artist is to make him lose in endless brushstrokes that let him dream and love beyond the limits of reality.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Maaria Rinta-aho
Unconditional Love
Maddy Lane
Maddy Lane is a young artist with a strong pictorial trait. Her painting is abstract and conceptual. Her canvases are a set of geometry and colours in which matter, as a living body, continually tries to get out of the picture. Just Like You tells the idea of birth, the moment in which mother and son separate from the inside, to mirror themselves in the world. The birth is represented by the ochre dot marked at the center of the canvas, which is a clear call to the placenta for the color and veins, and the umbilical cord for the shape. Below the dot is the mother, as soul, who with her experiences and feelings generates other life. The mother is a forest of geometric figures that invade the canvas but that stop to give space to the other. Above the dot is the child, consisting of the same elements of the mother, but less defined, as a newly born soul. Two centripetal forces, therefore, similar and different, that push towards the center with an evident power, but also distant and ready to the change put in place. Maddy Lane proposes an abstract and conceptual painting, which recalls Kandinskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paintings and delves into the mysterious theme of the birth of all things. The birth of a new life seems here represented in fact as the birth of the Universe: the differences seem few, if you think that everything originates from a tiny dot in the world that releases an energy so powerful to push outward. A hymn to life, to the joy of existing, to the need to cling to the world and to want to stay there. Just Like You tells the deep mystery of the origin: the mother as a starting point, the world as a point to cross. In Maddy Laneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s painting, the concept of mother is feed by opposites: closeness and detachment, similarity and diversity, love translated into living matter, into pure energy.
Art Curator Giulia CalĂŹ
Maddy Lane
Just Like You
Manda Noorzad
The artist Manda Noorzard expresses emotions and feelings through an abstract art. Colours are the main means by which the artist releases the feelings and impressions of her most intimate moments. The work presented at the MADS gallery, on the occasion of “MATER” exhibition, is a work that combines abstract art and figurative painting. The work is titled “She is in love. Look at her” and it’s part of a trio collection, composed of three sections (“We came from collapsed era”; “Recovery” and “Tolerance”), in which woman is the protagonist. In “She is in love. Look at her”, a woman’s face emerges from the fluid and green resin distributed on the canvas. She has closed eyes, and two large red lips act as the fulcrum of the composition. The comparison with the “wet drapery” technique, devised by Phidias in the 5th century BC, is immediate. It’s as if a smooth wet cloth adhered to the face of the woman, letting glimpse her traits. In this sense the work is connected to the beautiful sculpture of the Italian artist Antonio Corradini, “Pudicizia” or also known as “Truth veiled”. The title that Noorzard gives to the work “She is in love. Look at her” therefore expresses the feeling of the woman: she is in love and for this she tends to hide herself. As in the sculpture of Corradini, which represents modesty and reserve, so the woman of the Noorzard wants to hide her love. The artist thus brings on display a romantic and sweet trait of the woman: blushing in front of a compliment, hiding emotions out of shyness. Almost to bring us back to those noble and ancient feelings of the “angelic woman” so praised by the fourteenth-century poets of Dolce Stil Novo or “Sweet new style”.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Manda Noorzad
She is in love. Look at her.
Maria Burberry
For the “Mater” exhibition the artist Maria Burberry presents two works with a strong aesthetic, symbolic and chromatic value. On the one hand, it is precisely the color, so lively and decisive, that captures the observer’s attention, creating contrasting feelings; on the other hand, the symbolism is decidedly accentuated and definitely involves the viewer inside the works. In “Number Pi”, which in mathematics expresses an infinite number, it recalls the female beauty. From the Renaissance, passing through the Baroque and up to the Belle Époque, the woman has always been depicted as mother, wife, worker and an inspiring muse, playing a decisive role in the history of art. As in the Mary’s work where form, colors and pose perfectly synthesize a different opening and representation, the relationship between art and the female world is increasingly vivid, placing the woman unequivocally at the center of the artistic universe. The woman is undoubtedly a light, a look, an invitation to happiness, she is harmony and undisputed elegance, with an unmistakable style in her costumes that frames something magical. The painting represents the emblem of sensuality and refinement, through which that idea of femininity and mysterious charm stands out. Whereas, in the second artwork entitled “The Creator”, it is as if the artist was referring to Marc Chagall’s famous painting of “The Creation of Man”.
Maria Burberry
Maria Burberry, through great creativity and dynamic vigor, represents the moment of Creation and the power of the Divine. All this is full of intense sensations, a mixture of love and despair that gets even to the Moon, a symbol of the women’s magic. At the center of the work, the circle of life is visible which has a double value: this representation encourages the priest on the right of the scene, to pray and to thank Heaven for the event; while it stimulates the artist to imagine and express her inner emotions. Both of them belong to the same Creation, even if the purple color of the artist slowly takes over the blue of the priest. Moreover, the other standing characters, which have been just brought to life, seem appearing instantaneously in the fierce creation of God, as if they were dancing in harmony. The power of colors and figures creates a powerful vibration, an echo of mystery in the Creation, recalling and inviting the observer to make a personal journey within his own soul. The work contains an essential component that unites the sacred and the profane, evoking an infinite sacredness.
“It seems to me that the Bible is the main source of poetry of all time. Since that time, I have always sought this reflection in life and art. To me, as for all Western’s painters, it has been the colorful alphabet into which I have dipped my brushes.” (Marc Chagall)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Maria Burberry
Number Pi
Maria Burberry
The Creator
Marie Demiz
Maria Bychkova in art Marie Demiz, a Russian artist living in Sweden, presents her collection entitled “Eden” at MADS gallery during “MATER” exhibition. The first three paintings of this collection are united by the dark tones of the background, in contrast to the pearl white used to illuminate the composition. The paintings of Bychkova, mostly figurative and with the figure of the woman as the main subject, surprise and fascinate for their mysterious character. The artist brings to M.A.D.S. gallery a novelty: a totally abstract work that departs from her usual paintings. The contrast, however, is not entirely evident as the artist often uses sudden and free brushstrokes to outline “her women”. In the case of the work “Abstract Eden”, the choice to use red brushstrokes, almost given with dripping, intrigues the viewer, increasingly intrigued by the mystery that Bychkova wants to tell us. The red contrasts with the blue and purple brushstrokes in the center, which allow a magical appearance to be perceived. The other two works on display here, “Sia” and “Leia”, depict two women. Both have a pale white face, in which the use of blue contrasts, giving them a decisive and dramatic appearance. What characterizes the works of Bychkova is the mystery and melancholy that exudes from them. Her pictorial ability is able to go straight to the soul of the viewer, who empathizes with the work.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Marie Demiz
Abstract Eden
Marie Demiz
Leia
Marie Demiz
Sia
Marina Mongelli
Marina Mongelli, born in Baden, Switzerland and raised in Altdorf in the beautiful Urnerland, began painting at a particular moment in her life and found in painting a means to express her deepest emotions. Enchanted and in love with the beneficial effect of colors, strong and powerful, painting finds peace for her heart and soul. “Colorful mood “ is a work that tells the autumn, a source of great inspiration for artists of all ages: its colors, the particular light, the evocative power that have certain views give artists countless ideas, not only for painters, but also for writers and poets. In art there are many works dedicated to autumn, the most loved are certainly those of Atkinson Grimshaw, who with the accuracy of the Pre-raphaelite and his very personal drafting of the dominant color, it takes us through the streets and the country avenues, so vivid that we can smell the musk, the damp leaves of rain and whisper the sound of footsteps on the golden carpet of leaves. His painting is almost sensory, and it takes us to a lost world. The autumn woods immortalized by Van Gogh and Schiele identify, instead, more a mood than a season. Their trees actually move away from the naturalistic precision to transport us inside the soul of these painters who were first of all complex and tormented men, in which we can almost feel the swarm of leaves. Marina in her canvas perhaps intends to summarize both the importance of the season itself but also depict a state of mind, inspired by the great contemporary artists. She uses an abstract painting to provide the viewer with a landscape frame, not wanting to randomly, leave in the foreground the specifically well-outlined naturalistic elements. Her subject, dominated by pure white, bounces to the eyes of the viewer in sharp contrast of form, being in painting, perhaps the most “scientific” and psychological color ever.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Marina Mongelli
Colorful mood
MarioVaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Sardinian artist Mario <<mr WAVE>> brilliantly shows his eclecticism by merging photography with digital art with a unique style. His creative process consists of taking pictures and subsequently making a digital transformation of them, transposing physical objects of representation on his screen, creating a powerful and personal way of conveying new meanings. In his tryptic Mario shapes an artistic homage to the feminine figure starting from a more classic iconography of the woman’s representation as mother while also looking at the future for a durable celebration of femininity. “Holy Mother” and “Evolution Woman” illustrate the same sculpture of Mother Mary and baby Jesus that the artist’s mother realized. If the first one is more faithful to a classic style of painting, the second one evokes a more futuristic way of representation. The artist’s insight is precisely the importance to keep that sacredness of woman throughout the time, over history and change. “No Woman No Life” mixes up the picture of Mario’s fingerprint with a woman’s face. This technique perhaps aims at leaving a personal and concrete signature on his conceptual work. “Woman gives life, woman is the future. Often society focuses more on masculinity while neglecting femininity” states the artist. Mario uses therefore the artistic means to immortalize a positive message of parity and hope, using a style that exclusively combines materiality with a digital language.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Mario Vaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Holy Mother
Mario Vaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Evolution Woman
Mario Vaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
No Woman No Life
Martin Swoboda “Painting is the experience of one’s own soul.” (Martin Swoboda)
The work of Martin Swoboda can be described as a combination of pop art, abstract expressionism, impressionism and political activism. After recovering from a serious illness that affected him in 2016, he radically changed his art style, focusing on an intuitive approach, based on everyday emotions and feelings, which are the driver of existence itself. Thus, Martin’s production be deemed as a praise for life, an invite to regain self-consciousness by listening to our inner needs. They may be instinctuals or transitories, but they are the foundations of our being. The artist captures those concepts through his art, and thanks to his multipurpose approach, he is able to magisterially give a visual representation of such complex notions. In the work presented for this exhibition “M”, the theme of motherhood is addressed by the artist through visual contrasts. The soft strokes of white, red pink and grey spin chaotically around the black circle, which became the visual center of the canvass and an ideal center of contemplation. Through these juxtapositions and contrapositions Martin engages the viewer to be emotionally confronted to the controversial emotions toward a “mother”: a conceptual figure made of love and warmth, which is given meaning by strength and figure, notions that are also the bases of mother-child or a child-mother relationship. Thus, with the black Center (without having any meaning within itself) the painting becomes as a whole the sublimation of articulated feelings and emotions as well as an archetypal supporting pillar of meanings. Without it (the black Center), the soft colors which gravitates around it would only be a chaotic play, as it would be a child without the guidance of a maternal figure.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Martin Swoboda
M
Martine Bénéjean-Bouix Martine Bénéjean-Bouix is a French artist, based in Vichy. She is a great traveller and for this she draws inspiration from the colors and lights of all her travels. Her art is expressed by abstract canvases and canvases depicting the faces of women, in a style in which color is the dominant component. Contrast is an important component in Bénéjean’s painting as the pale faces of women stand out against a flat and homogeneous background. The line is also important: a marked black line outlines the faces and in particular the eyes, visual focus of her works. The MADS gallery exhibits three works that best exemplify her artistic conception. They represent three women, all different from each other and all with their history, but with one thing in common: being mothers. The work “Jocaste” in particular refers to the Greek myth recounted by Sophocles in the tragedy “Oedipus the King”. Jocaste is the mother of Oedipus who unknowingly marries his son, abandoned at birth due to a prophecy. They had four children and when, after ten years, Oedipus understood the truth about the matter he hanged himself. Giocasta instead survives the revelation. From this myth takes its name the “complex of Jocasta”, the incestuous desire that a mother nourishes towards her son. Bénéjean’s work is enigmatic: the son’s head is connected with a sort of umbilical cord to his mother’s mind and belly, as if to indicate a cycle. A cycle that never ends, a cycle in which the child is trapped in childhood because of the relationship with the mother. As if to indicate that everything returns, that everyone will return to their origins. Just like Oedipus, unaware of the identity of his parents, found after years by the will of fate. The last two works are less enigmatic but not less significant. One is entitled “Louna” and depicts the face of a woman, whose gaze dominates the composition. The woman has the appearance of a Madonna, not so much for her appearance but for her gaze: compassion and sadness exude from her eyes. It expresses a mother’s awareness of seeing her children grow and move away. The awareness of not being able to accompany them throughout the journey of life and the strength of a mother in letting go of her children. The work “Judith” is somehow connected to “Louna”: here the gaze, which is always the most important component in Bénéjean’s paintings, is mischievous, light and playful because she’s looking back to her own lost childhood.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Martine Bénéjean-Bouix
JOCASTE
Martine Bénéjean-Bouix
JUDITH
Martine Bénéjean-Bouix
LOUNA
Mauro Bursi When you come into contact with Mauro Bursiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s painting, something extraordinary, unique and profound happens, a poem is created that reveals a great emotional intensity of the artist of extraordinary strength and suggestion. His art represents a way of life, a way of creating something different and bringing back to life the essence and soul of lived and present moods, everything flows. This is an expressionism, as can be seen in this wonderful work entitled Flower of love characterized by sensitivity, emotion and thought in a soft and delicate atmosphere in which the artist manifests an extraordinary ability in the use of a purpose and tender colorism; Flower of love a tribute linked to motherhood, to the female figure and to a soul that takes shape in the heart of the artist and to which it gives voice, life and courage. Art as a metaphor of life, of hope and of truest and most intimate self. The artist describes his emotions through the words of the unspoken and gives us back through this image the untouchable richness of the heart. A refined delicate chromatism, an invitation to focus our attention on the image at the origin of everything, on our most intimate and profound thought. Our truest and most authentic essence .. The inner world and the surrounding reality find in Mauro Bursi work a meeting point in the delineation of this delicate atmosphere with great visual appeal. A symbolism rich in meaning. An intimate and personal representation created for the Mater exhibition at the Mads Gallery in Milan. A work that becomes a place of light and hope, in which it is possible to reflect on the present and reason about the future. A sign and a message of life that flow from his painting that is in some ways pleasant, but also of pain that each of us carries with us the wounds. A life story that is deeply linked to the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience and takes shape in the pictorial expression of &quot;Flower of love&quot; and his most intimate path. A precious testimony of the remarkable value that all lived experiences have, in order not to lose them, to then take care of them and pass on the memory to all those who love his art. Form and color in which it is evident a completely personal research linked to the events of his life. A process of profound psychological investigation that leads the artist to an active dialogue with the work. A place of the soul, a meeting that took place for a very brief moment, but immortalized forever in the masterpiece of his art, indelible.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
Mauro Bursi
Fiore dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;amore
Mehak Mittal “Each person must live their life as a model for others.” (Rosa Parks)
Mehak Mittal is a self-taught Indian artist who lives and works in London. The use of watercolours as her primary medium is functional to catch the essence of movement and the cosmic mystery of life. The transparency of watercolours allows the pigments to dance and melt on paper so we have the possibility to dive into the abyss of our consciousness, a parallel universe where imagination and reality live together without any border and limitation. Her subjects come from Mother nature. She finds movement beautiful and her pieces usually depict the subject in motion. Her works portray some of the most extraordinary women in this world who have been a maternal figure and an example to many people. They have faced unimaginable adversities with great force. We find the portrait of Maria Theresa, the nun who became a saint and mother in the true sense of the word, dedicating her entire life to the care of the sick and the poor. Rosa Parks, the mother of the freedom movement in the United States, an American activist in the civil rights movement. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg where she dedicated herself to successfully fight against gender description. A photo gallery of stories of intelligence, talent, genius and strength dedicated to these women, to these “Mothers” who have made a meaningful contribution to the world by fighting not only for them but for future generations. Through her light, fast, transparent and bright watercolor Mehak, with just a few touches, she manages to make us touch the soul of these icons rich in nuances that supports the perception of the moment.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Mehak Mittal
Mother Teresa
Mehak Mittal
Rosa Parks
Mehak Mittal
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Michelle Monaghan
The figure of the mother and the role of motherhood in the life of a woman are complicated and debated, articulated in all their facets. Contemporary art has obviously treated the theme over and over again in every aspect. In fact, all the great artists have ventured with the subject, each bringing their own sense and interpretation of maternal love according to the canons of religion with Piero della Francesca, Leonardo, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Ruben. During the following centuries, the theme was completely detached from the sacred sphere and with the end of the 19th century, Chagall and Dalí represented it during the course of the 20th century, with an increasingly human investigation of the figure of the mother. Michelle Monaghan, a woman artist, notoriously transgressive and high supporter of carnal and physical love, shows us motherhood as the fruit of a passionate and deep love. In the work “You Give Me Life”, she deals with the theme of motherhood, transmitting all the joy of a mother, but also of a father. A shared expectation that indicates at the same time an extremely courageous act, that of becoming parents. An intimate and delicate image that transmits peace and love to us. The couple is madly in love and absolutely unaware of their destiny, illuminated by the light of a full moon and happiness, is overwhelmed by an intimate kiss. The two naked bodies, with contrasting complexion, are harmonious and perfectly match, highlighting the dark background of a night landscape, but without stars. In the stillness of the soft colors we can see almost a sense of peace and serenity enclosed in the expectation of procreation itself.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Michelle Monaghan
You Give Me Life
Miranda Uijttewaal
Miranda Uijttewaal is a Dutch self-taught artist living in Belgium. Painting women’s faces is the reason for her art. A work that represents the result of the continuous interaction between what the artist feels inside and what is revealed on the canvas. In a continuous dialogue, which makes an emotion grow and evolve, giving it shape and color. Her continuous artistic research leads her to investigate the different facets of femininity, including sensuality. The female figure is one of the first signs traced by human hands and covers different canons of beauty. It must therefore be recognized that, painted and sculpted, female images have accompanied all the phases of our civilization. For centuries women-artists have been very few, although individually authors of extraordinary testimonies, not surprisingly often engaged in painting female subjects. Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Tamara de Lempicka. The inspiration that revolves around the work created by Miranda, represents a material osmosis with light and color. The intensity with which it approaches the “truth” of the face, the delicacy of the incarnate make the subject, with a penetrating and intense look, almost real, as if it emerged from the canvas to dialogue with the observer. The warm colors used, from brown hair to dark complexion, make the subject almost ethereal. The delicate and slightly pronounced mouth highlights the eyes, with a light and delicate makeup. The use of acrylics so balanced, makes “Mary Magdalene” an elegant and deeply sensitive woman. Every detail in the work is taken care of and nothing is left to chance, even if it is not a painting with Renaissance forms.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Miranda Uijttewaal
Mary Magdalene (you are love)
Mirva Hamdi
Faces and profiles of women who hold roles in the world and in life, who take on the values and characteristics of mothers, daughters, goddesses. A woman, the mother who becomes the emblem of a timeless and spaceless love, the one who gives courage and comfort, always ready to extend her hand. In the work “Motherhood” the marked face of a woman is presented before the observer, eyes still and full of expressiveness, vital force emerges from them, that unique energy that belongs only to mothers. Mirva’s faces break through the work and come out, strongly intense lights and shadows give great expressiveness to the figures. Mirva uses color wisely, in her works it becomes the protagonist and pure matter, brushstrokes and drips become fundamental parts, nothing is there by chance. Mirva’s artistic work is indeed an expression of herself, but also attention and scrupulousness for details. Shades that recall the earth, water, therefore elements that give life, that recall the immense meaning of Mother Earth, from which everything is born, to which everything belongs, the only one capable of creating and destroying. A proverb belonging to Native Americans states: “The earth does not belong to man, it is man who belongs to the earth”, emblem of the power of the earth as creator and nurturer. The figure represented in the work “The Primitive Lady” possesses the same delicacy and shyness that emanate from the eyes of the bride portrayed in the famous fresco “Portrait of Paquio Proculo”. Abstract and contemporary works but with primitive and primordial echoes, Mirva’s works are powerful and seductive, full of expressed emotionality and unspoken memories.
“A split second and an eternity become interchangeable when you feel intense emotions.” (Jonathan Coe)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Mirva Hamdi
Motherhood
Mirva Hamdi
Shake that
Mirva Hamdi
The primitive lady
Nadine Auer
Nadine Auer is an Austrian artist, born and based in Salzburg. She creates paintings, drawings and sculptures in mixed media techniques. The work, created for the exhibition “MATER” at the gallery MADS, is made of acrylic and gold on canvas. The title, “Mother Heart and Golden Age”, perfectly reflects what the work wants to express. A woman is depicted visually occupying the right side of the composition, on a golden background. The figure of the woman is just hinted at by a contour of black lines, thus leaving the focus on her belly. She is pregnant and gathering in her embrace the representation of the Earth, made by a brilliant white pearl and gold. The Earth, as well as the planets painted on her body and the silver aura that shines around the woman, immediately suggest that it is the representation of the Universe, the spiritual entity that created the life and the world in which we live. It is interesting that Auer compares all this to a female figure, when history and the general vision teaches us instead to connect it to the male figure. It is an important reflection that the artist proposes to the spectators, reflecting on how the woman creates life and at the same time reflects on the new generations and on the cycle of life itself. The choice to use gold in fact leads to the second part of the title “Golden age”: are these the golden years? We must give confidence to the new generations that, as the artist herself defines them, are “the diamond of the Earth”.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Nadine Auer
Mother Earth and Golden age
Nam Heon Kim
Nam Heon Kim’s work stems from a deep investigation of the human being catapulted into what Zygmun Bauman would define as “liquid modernity”. According to the intellectual, the liquidity of society engenders behaviors that are unstable by definition. While in the modern age everything was given as a solid construction, nowadays, every aspect of life can be artificially reshaped. Therefore, nothing has clear, defined and fixed outlines. This deeply affect human relationships, which have become precarious because people do not want to feel enclosed in this type of society. In “Emotional Stream” the artist wished to reveal the inner emotions of the people who are trapped within images of momentary expressions of split seconds. The expressions of the two faces communicate the distortion of society. The artist, through the representations of bodies, wanted to represent his inner emotions, giving a sense of illusionary experience of visiting and seeing things. The colors, almost psychedelic, transmit a feeling of alienation and a search for the surreal. The key message of the artworks suggests the viewers to discover a time solely for themselves, disregarding social stereotypes and customs that limit one’s possibilities. In a condition of liquidity, anything is possible, but nothing is certain: this is the main feeling that the work seems to convey to the viewer. The discomfort that is unleashed through the gaze of the depicted faces almost pushes the viewer to want to seek a secure refuge, a safe place: whether in the arms of a mother, next to the beloved ones or within ourselves.
“Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it.” (Zygmunt Bauman)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Nam Heon Kim
Emotional Stream
Natsuko Elgar Natsuko Elgar, is an artist who lets herself be carried away by her most true impressions to paint. Her works are inspired by the legendary “Phoenix”, the Sacred Bird of Fire. The Phoenix is a beautiful mythological bird that really existed, a source of inspiration for many since ever, but no one has ever really seen it. It is the symbol of rebirth and immortality, because being always reborn from its ashes, it appears eternal. The first who spoke of it were the Egyptians, who called it “Bennu” and then in Greek mythology became the Phoenix and, four centuries before Christ, the historian Herodotus describes it in this way: “another sacred bird was the Phoenix. I have never seen it with my own eyes, except in a painting, because it is very rare and visits this country only at intervals of 500 years: accompanied by a flight of turtledoves, he comes from Arabia on the occasion of the death of his father, carrying with him the remains of his father’s body embalmed in an egg of myrrh, to deposit it on the altar of the Sun god and burn them. And for its shape and size it looks more or less like an eagle”. The long life of the Phoenix and its dramatic rebirth from its ashes, made it the symbol of spiritual rebirth and symbol of divine Wisdom, so much so that around the fourth century a.d. it was identified with Christ presumably because of the fact that it returned to manifest three days after death, and as such was adopted as an early Christian symbol of immortality, resurrection and life after death. Natsuko, strongly fascinated by their eternal way of life, which repeats life and death, began to be inspired by that theme. “The moment of life and the Phoenix” is characterized by a strong symbolic value, according to which the artist identifies herself in the flight of the bird in search of a new rebirth and identity. A cyclical step that has an absolute value and condition: to evolve, to be reborn and to discover a new awareness. A work of intense and explosive chromaticity, whose multi-colored brushstrokes are material and do not leave out any details. However, being an abstract work, the subjects are clearly visible, two phoenicians motionless waiting for the moment.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Natsuko Elgar
The Moment of life and the Phoenix
Nicole Cecil Bräunig-Reichel
Nicole Cecil Bräunig-Reichel lives in Berlin and works in the international management of an electronics company. She began to express her experience in a very sensitive and personal way, reflecting on her personal perception of the world, fluctuating between the presence of death and the pure desire to live. “Everything is ok” is a work that in all its positivity, wants to focus the viewer’s gaze on the beauty of the subject. An unknown body, with shoulders, showing in its elegant and not vulgar nudity, slender and sculpted shapes, through which it is possible to glimpse the breasts and buttocks. The profile is not outlined, almost as if the woman wanted to keep her identity unknown. The artist’s intention is perhaps to expose the boundless force of the subject, indestructible and ready for anything. As a primordial archetype and abstract concept, the female figure is one of the first signs traced by human hands. Initially, in classical art, the beauty of the woman was linked to fertility, as evidenced by the statuette of the Venus of Willendorf; a woman with wide shapes, especially those of the womb and breast. At the time the woman was considered merely an artistic object. An idealized, prized, sophisticated and elusive object; sometimes even threatening, exciting, dangerous and demonic. But still, by definition, an object that had to be eradicated from anything that did not belong to the sphere of irrational. In the story we can see how the woman was Goddess and Madonna, mother and queen, lover and object of pleasure, naked or dressed coded by fashion and the decoration of the representation. In each of these manifold aspects it has given body to the canons of beauty, seductive reflections of harmonies, earthly and otherworldly pleasures. Between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, the canons of feminine beauty changed radically. We passed from pale figures, with barely mentioned breasts, to ladies in flesh, with wide hips, generous curves, and faces with lips and vermilion-colored cheeks. Most of the patrons and artists of the time were certainly not immune to the charm of the features of women and exploited the sacred subjects as a pretext to excite sensuality. Nudity, in the Christian sphere, thus became increasingly ambivalent: an emblem of holiness, purity and mortification of one’s own body, but also a symbol of lust. In the eighteenth century, however, women begin to be more aware of their beauty, which is valued and exhibited. In the nineteenth century, then, appears one of the most revolutionary paintings: La Maja desnuda by Goya. For the first time, a naked woman is depicted in an opera without necessarily having to be a goddess or a mythological character. It is evident how that ideal of beauty sought by Nicole with the work “Everything is ok”, pure and eternal, from the lack of imperfections, has therefore distant origins and is not only a symptom of modern restlessness.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Nicole Cecil Bräunig-Reichel
Everything is ok
Padraic South
Los Angeles artist Padraic Southâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work focuses on the intersection of human form, nature and technology. The relationship between man and nature has become a theme of absolute centrality, both in scientific debates and in aesthetic-artistic ones. More and more frequently artists, in line with the widespread common feeling of the present time, base their artistic research on the exploration of the relationship between man and nature. Where a reflection on the human being opens up, art always comes into play, thus trying to deal with the key issues of its time with the means and language it has at its disposal. It can be said that from the beginning there has always been a very close relationship between art and nature. During the Renaissance we see the advent of the landscape and the environment as recurrent elements of pictorial representations. It is in fact between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that the landscape, in its natural configuration, begins to be used in a regular and constant way. It is used as an element of setting, the result of a pictorial approach increasingly aimed at a naturalistic and mimetic rendering. A more complex relationship between man and nature in painting begins here. With the birth of technology the artistic creation determines the transition to different functions of the art also changing the modalities of fruition. It is particularly interesting the role of social media, and on which Padraic investigates, and how this influences the world view of what is beautiful. The relationship between man and environment, told by the artist is idyllic. Man, sometimes lost, must find a connection with the natural elements. The brushstrokes of bright colors synthesize this symbiotic relationship and let the viewer glimpse a balance of forms in space. The subject becomes a symbol of feelings and passions, and nature is told by the American artist as an ethereal, beautiful and untouchable element. His paintings and drawings draw on a life lived around the world, and are organic - leaving the line, the paper, and the paint telling its story in each piece.
Art Curator Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo
Padraic South
In the Lake
Padraic South
Suspended
Padraic South
Wish You Were Here
Paolo Solei
All the details of Paolo Solei’s work “Grande Madre” are deeply symbolic and find their meaning in the artist’s life and in his intense relationship with his mother. The artwork itself is a manifesto of the artist’s serenity which derives from the awareness of the peaceful moments spent in the first years of his existence. “The two dimensions of memory, of reflection, of the inner path: Genesis, in the amniotic fluid that accompanies you throughout your life and the infinite, the absence of everything and everything in the Absolute”: this is how the artist describes his creative process and the hidden meaning of his work.Through an iconographic and iconological analysis of the painting, indeed, it is clear that the artists uses several symbols not only to illustrate his memories but, through cultural and mythological references, also the physical places that characterized his sweet and serene childhood, long distant times and the deep love he felt towards his mother. The representation of the “Grande Madre” is linked to the opera “Carmen” by the French composer George Bizet to symbolize the music that accompanied the times lived with the artist’s mother. The torus depicted, instead, symbolizes the zodiac sign and the strength that Solei’s mother manifested throughout her life. Furthermore, there are several symbols such as cypresses that indicates the physical places (in this case Tuscany) related to the artist’s memories. A regards the stylistic elements of the painting, the artist uses both warm colours (such as red, yellow, orange) to evoke strength, passion, joy and cool colors (such as blue, violet and indigo) to convey sweetness, contemplation, different shades of these frames of mind. This creates a contrast that gives to the viewer a mystic feeling of that specific peacefulness that artist wished to evoke when he created the artwork. To remember past years indeed, especially when it comes to the sweet and carefree childhood, elevates the individual from the miseries and sufferings of life. Recovering and admiring the past in present times allowed the artist to capture the essence, or even better the truth, hidden behind the events he thought he had forgotten forever.
“The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect.” (Marcel Proust)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Paolo Solei
Grande Madre
Patrícia Patylene “There are many ways to express art. Nature itself is the most perfect art that exists.” (Patrícia Patylene) The artist Patrícia Patylene has an interest and she is passionate about an existential research, a path that starts from that unique relationship between the painter and his work, with the aim to discover and emphasize the structure of the material, making it a tangible artwork. By calculating the compositional balance of his paintings, she tries to shine as much as possible of the characteristics of the surface. Her interest does not rely on geometric forms to be represented, but it focuses on the diversification and use of different unusual elements to represent a work, as for instance the coffee powder. Above all Patrícia focuses on the texture and color of the material, while trying to safeguard the overall harmony of the image. Painting without a predetermined form, namely improvising on the wave of emotions with a spontaneity never seen before, allows to colors and materials to become the real characters on canvas. Passions, tensions and sensations emerge in a completely spontaneous way, outside of any pre-established scheme: as if the artist “builds” a work, letting the textures, the chromatic gradations and the consistency of the material express their meaning for themselves. It is an art guided by an expressiveness and spontaneous gesture, going beyond the traditional conception of painting. The works of this artist are interpretations of every facet of nature, from its beauty to its strangeness, reaching its most hidden and mysterious parts. Just as in “Apocalypse”, “Coral Reef II” and “Illusions”, Patrícia elaborates the composition of the elements, as if she wanted to dissect the earth’s surface extracting every single layer of rock, every inlet between colors, lights and shadows. Whereas, in “Rusty Plate” the material and the use of different shades evolve in the twelve panels, in “Snowstorm” the overall structure of the work, which could recall an expanse of ice seen from the space, which clearly prevails over the color. The experimentation of the material is dynamic and turns out to be a powerful means to be applied for developing an abstract and “informal” aesthetics and representing feelings, impressions and expressiveness. Moreover, this process helps the observer to freely interpret the artwork, becoming part of the artist’s creative process. Through this process, Patrícia Patylene probes the energetic and evocative potential of natural material, completely autonomous, making it emerge from its support: it becomes a bearer of communication and meaning, as well as of representative and expressive effectiveness.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
PatrĂcia Patylene
Apocalypse
PatrĂcia Patylene
Coral Reef II
PatrĂcia Patylene
Illusions
PatrĂcia Patylene
Rusty Plate
PatrĂcia Patylene
Snowstorm
Peter Martin
Peter Martin is an Austrian artist whose works remembered pop culture subjects and themes such as people coming from artistic world (actors; artists; musicians…), famous but revisited paintings and emotions too, in order to create something universally recognizable. The aim of the artist such as the aim of Pop Art is to let the viewers compare what they perceive observing the artworks to what is biased among society’s opinion. For example, he portrays Audrey Hepburn, Marylin Monroe, Van Gogh, Elvis Presley each one following Pop Art and especially recalling Andy Warhol’s style. Like Pop artists, Martin wants to reach the masses and not the single individual. Martin’s works are colorful and psychedelic; they immediately strike the eye of those who look at them. They have a strong visual impact thanks to the contrast of bright and fluorescent colors. For “MATER” exhibition at MADS gallery, Peter Martin chooses to exhibit his work entitled “MY LOVE” in which he portrays a beautiful woman with a melancholic gaze. The woman embraces herself, holding her breasts from which a painted heart with the inscription “need love”, emerges. It suggests a lack of affection in her life, because we all need love. The work in fact, represents how often women, especially mothers, give so much love to their children, without aspire to receive it back. Through the strong contrast of colors, in particular the petroleum green with the fuchsia and the bright red visible on the background Martin highlights the face of the woman, who looks up, waiting for love.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Peter Martin
My Love
Rachael Nyssen
Rachael Nyssen is a self-taught artist, born and raised in Oxfordshire, England. Rachael’s artwork “Carole” is a declaration of love on canvas to her mother, Carole. Here the mother becomes the propulsive force to create and paint, the inspirational muse that catalyses the urgency to exteriorise an affective language on canvas. The artist’s fluid way of painting evokes a stream of consciousness, as a liberating explosion of artistic impulses: “I love the fact that, in art, there are no right or wrong answers. This has allowed me to express how I feel on my canvas” states Rachael. The dominant colour on the chromatic sphere is blue - with brushes of light blue - that signifies eternity. This character of permanency explains how blue is the colour of loyalty and sweetness, the colour of bond, perhaps here glorifying the bond between mother and daughter. Moreover blue is often associated with a sense of balance and harmony, as a colour that protects. The chromatic sphere of “Carole” presents also shades of gold, recalling a sacred light and its dimension of shininess, resistance and incorruptibly, still elements of that unique and unconditional love relationship mother and daughter.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Rachael Nyssen
Carole
Rajae Qarrou “We do not have to want to “be” only one thing or the other in our life. At least I reached the conclusion that my complex personality cannot thrill in steadiness but in versatility. “ (Rajae Qarrou) Rajae’s approach to art can be deemed as expressionist: starting from emotions, she develops a language that is able to take different directions depending on the feelings of the moment, creating a mix between figurative and abstract. That produces an “unfinished” look, which gives a visual representation of the concept of stream of consciousness. Thus, Rajae’s artworks are a mixture between simplicity and sophistication, terms that reflect her multifaced personality itself. Indeed, she sublimes her liberal thinking with her more scientific being. In her production, there is a lot of her own inner world, such as the loving reminiscences of her childhood spent with her great grandparents in a small village in the mountains of Morocco, or the complexity of the works of Maupassant, Flaubert, Victor Hugo and Albert Camus that shaped her artistic style. Furthermore, Rajae is a woman in the construction field and, first of all, a woman artist. This very last concept is perfectly embodied by the pieces chosen from this exhibition, in which the subjects of the paintings are, indeed, women. In “Absence”, “Severity” and “Love”, Rajae captures glances of a mother from a child’s perspective. The statuary feminine figures are dissolved through colors and material patterns, which suggest the complexity and, and the same time, instant temporality of feelings and emotions. Thus, throughout this articulated relationship between sophistication and simplicity, the artist calls the viewers to adopt the emotional glance of their own inner children, which scratches the surface of what we can see and it goes in dept on what we can feel.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Rajae Qarrou
Absence
Rajae Qarrou
Love
Rajae Qarrou
Severity
Randi Matushevitz
Randi Matushevitz is a visual artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. Her poetics investigate the emotional fragility caused by the puzzles of experience, by difficult things, by the guttural, private and secret worlds that create traumas big and small. Her works are more realistic than ever, as they give concrete form to the difficult trials of life. Towards the end of the 19th century, many painters began to reject realism to explore more subjective modes of expression. Free from the need to portray the world realistically, progressive artists diverted him in search of a psychological effect and often began to explore darker themes. The now abused iconic adjective can rightly be used to describe Munch’s 1893 painting, “Skrik”, one of the most reproduced paintings in the history of art. “ Skrik” was exhibited for the first time in 1893 on the occasion of a solo exhibition of the artist in Berlin. The work externalizes feelings and personal experiences of the artist. But the figures of an introspective work are not always human figures or objects of the material world, but also symbols of what moves within us. They represent the interaction between hidden inner parts, which are often difficult to access and unsuitable to be described with words. They are aggregates of thoughts, emotions and physical tensions that behave in a given way, strengthen over time, until they become resistant to our control and act with a certain autonomy. Using a painting to strip away our inner reality is an instrument that allows us to deepen our “knowledge” of ourselves. The close connection between art and psyche is a reality consolidated and developed by different creative currents. The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud related for the first time the sculpture and the human psyche, highlighting how both used “extractive” techniques, the first by springing artistic forms from bare stone while the second, through psychoanalytic technique, digging into the human mind and extracting disorders and problems in order to dissolve inner conflicts and harmonize their own experience. “At the wedding” presents a theme quite “readable” as it recalls human emotions and the desire to escape from reality. The subject, with an unhappy expression, expresses an equal psychological depth; recalling the viewer to the deepest reflection on the female spirit, inviting to observe the world of women from a new angle; in the face of different sensations such as passion, anguish, torment, disturbance and restlessness, reinforced by the tonality of the colours, by their pastiness and materiality.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Randi Matushevitz
At the Wedding
ReCreativeArtwork
Acrylic paints react with each other and together they create organic and dynamic motifs, fluid colors that take the form of emotions and that in their composition create works completely abstract. Fluid art teaches us how to let go of a precise result, how to follow the flow and find joy in what comes out of mixing colors. It is a strong metaphor for life and acts as a mirror of our convictions. RecreativeArtwork, in her works, makes freedom of action her philosophy of life. Endowed with a remarkable artistic sensibility, RecreativeArtwork, draws inspiration from the elements of nature then air, earth, water and fire, managing to conceive evocative images rich in colors, essential features of these natural elements. The geometries of the paintings are mostly fluid, made with the method of casting single colors or mixed on the horizontal canvas, in order to give the feeling of movement to symbolize the eternal becoming of the fundamental elements of nature. The images make an intense emotional impact, highlighting the painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love for everything that Mother Nature has given to the human being by surrounding it at every moment of its existence. It is clear that this art is characterized by the combination of two currents, abstractism on the one hand and fluid painting on the other. The final result are works of high visual impact, where the fusion of the two forms of visual arts develops new images more impressive, whose colors and shapes are mixed into a new and unique image. Her paintings are characterized by strong tonal contrasts, shades, colors and images of nature, lights and reflections, evocations of energetic forms and a strong dynamism and forms in evolution and movement. Fluid fluctuating shapes, straight or curved lines, circles with concentric shapes, chiaroscuro with vivid colors, bright or soft colors, which stimulate the viewer many ideas for his imagination and creativity.
Art Curator Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo
ReCreativeArtwork
A seed of hope is planted
ReCreativeArtwork
Golden vulva - the highway to life
ReCreativeArtwork
Life on the inside
ReCreativeArtwork
Trust your instincts, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re the mom
ReCreativeArtwork
Water broke
Renée Stotijn “Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” (Nora Ephron)
Renée Stotijn (1940-2020) was an artist from Amsterdam. Since her youth she embarked on an artistic career, focusing her research above all on portraits. The female figure often returns and, each time, rediscovered and described in a different way. Investigating her subjects, she also delves into herself, making each painting a palette of her most hidden feelings. What transpires from her canvases and sketches is a set of feelings and moods that tell about isolation and loneliness. The women portrayed here seem motionless, as if they were resigned by too much waiting. One of them is sitting on a chair with her elbows resting on her legs, one hand wraps the other and her head is slightly tilted to the right. The colors of the background blend with her body until she almost disappears. The bluish and brown colors convey an apparent calm, while the young woman’s face speaks of resignation, loneliness and emptiness. A style that has its roots in Nordic expressionism, where the brushstroke did not analyze the details but, together with the choice of color, was a vehicle of feeling. Renée’s women rarely meet our gaze, their eyes stare into space, their mind is elsewhere. They are women who are tired and empty of life. Real estate in a world that does not recognize them as they would like. From these works of art, leak out tales of a soul that suffered, but at the same time speak about a woman who knew how to react and fight. The brush strokes are decisive, they do not hint at any insecurity, on the contrary, they delicately draw the strength of a great woman. A woman who left a mark with her art.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
RenĂŠe Stotijn
Expecting
RenĂŠe Stotijn
Motherfigure
RenĂŠe Stotijn
Naked woman
RenĂŠe Stotijn
Thinking lady
RenĂŠe Stotijn
Two women seated on a bench
Riikka Korpela
Riika Korpela is an artist who lives and works in Berlin. She loves to use photography, digital art and collage techniques in her works. “The Day of Independence” is a photograph of very high sentimental depth, through which the artist metabolizes the detachment from the childhood family and implements the search for complete independence. A very complicated and courageous process that all children have to carry out at some point. Go in search of luck and hope so that you can really find the right way. The photo was taken in the attic of a church in the Czech Republic, where the artist had moved from Finland at that time. She lived here and there for a while before she found her place in the world. Art, the psyche and in particular the concept of «detachment» in its many variations and the continuous process of separation-individuation, often lead man to having to face fears, fantasies, inadequate relationships, losses that prevent the full realization of the truest self and the overcoming of this can result in liberation from psychological and affective loads. The representations of the many stages that the individual is faced with in the span of his life and that require detachment from parents, as in this case, or from sick love, are some of the psychological passages that allow the same to understand and reach one’s own subjectivity. The melancholy and dramatic tones are accentuated by the strong chiaroscuro play given by the contrast of red and black. In their optical, expressive and structural effect, it is precisely in the contrasts that emerge the essential stylistic qualities of color. Black represents the darkness and therefore the negation of the moment, red is the color of the blood that pulsates, of the vital frenzy and passion. The artist’s inspiration is expressed, therefore, with strong and irreverent combinations, whose colors become ethereal. They tell us a story showing all their ability to provoke emotions.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Riikka Korpela
The Day of Independence
Riitta Hellén-Vuoti
Riitta Hellén-Vuoti is a Finnish artist. Born in Oulu in 1959, she now works in Kuopio. Her artistic focus is contemporary art and poetry. She mainly uses mixed media. For “MATER” exhibition, proposed by the MADS gallery, the artist chooses to exhibit a painting made years ago, in 1999. At the dawn of her career, the artist created the work “When the Colours Ran Out, I Read the Book Matisse and Picasso” with charcoal and oil colors on paper. Riitta Hellén-Vuoti, with this work, carries out an analysis of the figure of the woman, in particular reflecting on the nature of mother, something common to all women. The work is in fact a young female figure, seemingly calm. What is immediately evident is the lack of eyes: they are inside the woman, who is making an introspective journey, a self-examination. The focal point of the composition is the round breast, represented by a red circle. The form, as well as the colour, lead back to love, to life. Love is what keeps man alive, and first of all the breast is what gives nourishment to the newborn child, is a symbol of life. The mysterious aspect of the work emerges from the serpentine module that the artist decides to use to cover the other breast and to paint the hair. The snake represents sexuality, among other things, another fundamental element in women. It is still taboo in some cultures and, even today, in Western culture it is not entirely accepted. The woman doesn’t have to be a mother, but in any case she is passion and desire. This darkness, this note of mystery, is even more accentuated by the choice to use grey as the dominant color and by another element: the woman has no arm. This missing element, however, is represented by a circle that reminds the mannequins. The artist, with this element, perhaps wants to remind us how often the woman is compared to an object without soul. Used only to bring children into the world and not considered in its entirety: strength, love, intelligence and sexuality.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Riitta HellĂŠn-Vuoti
When the Colours Ran Out, I Read the Book Matisse and Picasso
Rika Manabe “Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” (Barbara Kingsolver)
Rika Manabe is an American photographer who lives and works in Seattle. Her projects develop especially around social issues. The work presented here, “Apryl’s Fight”, closely recounts the life of a woman who was diagnosed with a very rare type of breast cancer during pregnancy. Rika shows us one of the possible realities, yet another obstacle that can arise during life and, in this case, in what should be a moment of happiness and calm. We are in a hospital room, Apryl has recently given birth to her daughter and is watching her intently as she envelops her with the hands. She smiles. Everything appears normal and the disease seems to have vanished. Instead, it is the energy of a new mother that spreads all around and that Rika was able to grasp and transmit to us. A strong woman, who, while is washing herself in the shower, looks us straight in the eye. Hers, is a determined look. Everything shows except discomfort, while the water slips on her bofy, purifying and taking away all the evil. The face of a difficult pregnancy, a mother in her weakness which however releases strength. The desire to fight and the joy of being able to give birth to a child despite the difficulties. The desire to fight, to want to accompany her on the life journey. This work tells us about how a woman’s energy can be amplified by becoming a mother. Thanks to the deep bond that is established with her baby, she transcends everything.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Rika Manabe
Fight to Live and New Life
Rika Manabe
Sentenced to Live
Rika Manabe
Fighterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Scar
Rob King
Rob King is an American digital artist, based in Madison, Wisconsin. He is specialized in dynamic digital portraits drawn in a style of loose contemporary realism. Through digital, Rob manages to recreate the effects of oil painting in an amazing way. His great sensitivity to details allows him to convey emotions: in particular, the eyes of his portraits convey a strong expressiveness. The work exhibited at MADS gallery is entitled “Phoenix” and represents a beautiful red-haired woman. The light-dark and the contrast of the colors chosen by the artist, focus the viewer’s gaze on the face, in particular on the eyes that seem almost to penetrate the soul of the viewer. The title of the work, “Phoenix”, undoubtedly refers to the mythological bird, always associated with rebirth. In this sense the work represents the spirit of all women. In the words of the artist: “Her hair and the feathers are flames symbolic of the hardships and growth a mother faces throughout the day, just to face a rebirth the next morning, ready to burn brightly as an example for her young.” In the various cultures the phoenix has always been represented as a symbol of rebirth, so much so that the phrase “rise from the ashes” has become of common use, indicating a change. It is interesting to note that the artist chooses to impersonate the phoenix in the body of a woman, enhancing the strength and the ability to be born again every day, at the expense of difficulties. Rob King exalts the woman, likens her to a burning flame. A flame can stop burning but can be reborn from its own ashes. All this emotional charge is expressed by the woman’s gaze, which instills courage and hope in the viewer.
“As the legend goes, when the phoenix resurrects from the flames, she is even more beautiful than before.” (Danielle LaPorte)
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Rob King
Phoenix
Saana Vähä-Kouvola
Saana Vähä-Kouvola, a Finnish artist, makes her land her second home, whose colors of nature that surrounds her are fundamental to finding artistic inspiration. In her works she is inspired by her subconscious reality, which flows gently and musically on the canvas through warm and enveloping colors. Her style is purely abstract but has a very wide chromatic variety. The artist associates every colour of her palette with a precise state of mind. For example, the warm colors such as yellow, red and orange, evident in the work “Moments of pure”, stimulate joy and vitality. Saana, through her art, intends to grasp the wonders that nature has always given us, which is constantly able to provoke amazement. In contemplating the immensity of her beauty, through her painting, she comes to us as a charge of energy, accompanied by a sense of quiet and serenity. To realize what effects nature has on man, it is enough to take a look at the world of past art and the many paintings in which it is tangible how the artist drew deep inspiration from the natural landscape around her. The emotional impact, often dramatic, has exerted on the artist profound and personal inner changes. And here, thinking of Munch’s Skrik is almost a must, giving the painting the meaning of “nature’s scream”. There is therefore no artist who has not found in this great creative and destructive force at the same time, the appropriate language to communicate their emotional state, their joys but also anguish. Nature is therefore the first inspiring muse of art. Although, in reality, it is nature itself that is a majestic and indisputable work of art.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Saana Vähä-Kouvola
Moments of pure joy
Sarah Rashidi
Sarah Rashidi is an Iranian artist who studies and experiments different forms of art. Her intention is to investigate the multiple facets of human creativity. The theme she addressed in the opera â&#x20AC;&#x153;The separation from the Moonâ&#x20AC;? is apparently dictated by the contrast between life and death. Life and death are words that have always filled the mind of every human being starting from prehistory, ending in our day. The representation of death has always aroused in art a nodal point of research, because unresolved, always mysterious and never really captured. When the viewer compares with the theme of death, he sees a representation of immobility, a deafening note of darkness. The artist is the only one who somehow manages to ward off the omen of the end, of death, and darkness becomes light, the canvas ripples the dry matter of thoughts and the body survives that drive of dark abandonment that withers the soul.An eternal question of shadow is dissipated by the brush, by the color. Art allows the acceptance of death by imagining it, providing us with a face. A process of understanding then occurs. Through all this the artistic function implements the process of sublimation. Death sits down to leave the place. One of the finest paintings of the 19th century that best represents the theme of death, is the painting of Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais, a member of the Pre-raphaelite Brotherhood. Millais imposes with its creation a new way of understanding art and opens the doors to an inspiration illuminated by a new aesthetic spirit. Ophelia in fact incorporates the precepts of an innovative and original art, that aims to draw an ideal of eternal and immutable beauty in the ephemeral fleeting of everyday life and so a young saleswoman becomes the elected representative of one of the greatest heroines of literature. Looking at the artwork made by Sarah you perceive many elements in common with Ophelia. The female subject is made with slightly cleft hands, motionless almost to welcome the fateful moment. An eternal rest, a poetic abandonment on the infinite boundary that separates life and death. Thanks to the use of dark colors that give the work the tragedy of the moment, accentuated by the bright look of the woman, enveloping, the viewer cannot escape.
Art Curator Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo
Sarah Rashidi
Separation from The Moon
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven “Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions.” (Wassily Kandinsky)
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven is a british artist specialising in mixed-media artwork. Sarah studied Philosophy at Southampton University and graduated in 2002. Influenced by nostalgia, nature and people she meets, Sarah demonstrates her passion for art with her expressive and organic style.Her artworks reflect her respect for human life. She loves to include hidden details such as faces, flowers, buildings.Sarah believes original art should be accessible and affordable for all and she is delighted to share her artwork via virtual and social media platforms. The use of bright and at the same time deep colors, further strengthen these figures making Sarah’s works amazing and dreamy, able to capture the observer’s attention by transmitting sensations and emotions creating a poetic imagery.The artist creates faces hidden from the soul, in the midst of these suggestive atmospheres.The use of different tools express her most intense feelings and as a mother builds the most important and beautiful work that can exist, Sarah is also engaged in the mechanism of give birth to her creatures.Creative processes are always the basis of every change and are real moving engines for the evolution of the species.The face is a painting of our inner world. Paying attention to it allows us to better understand people, to predict their actions, to come into contact with authentic empathy. The face speaks. Spoken language is unable to summarize a person’s identity as the face can.With Sarah’s faces we are able to immerse ourselves in one mood after another, by getting us seduced by those gazes with the purpose to read us.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven
Concrete Borders
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven
Ghostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ghosts
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven
Life Force
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven
Remembering You (in purple)
Sarah Rawlinson Beaven
Skin
Satu Heikkilä
Satu Heikkilä is an alcoholic ink artist who lives and works in Elimäki, Finland. Nature is an important and close part of her life, in which she finds her inspiration from beauty. For Satu, art has always been a way to express itself fully in all its depth. “All for Love” is a work with a very strong emotional meaning. The use of bright red makes clear the meaning of love for the artist. She is a woman in love with life and nature, immense and deep in all its majesty. The subject is a flower, a very important subject in the art world. In Italy, the painting of flowers or natural subjects appears in mature form in the Renaissance, while in Europe the first to create a real work of art of this kind was the Flemish Hans Memling who in 1490 painted a vase of flowers; but the consecration of the genre itself is with Caravaggio and his basket of fruit. In the early 1960s, Andy Warhol, inspired by the photographic works of Patricia Caufield, created a series of works enclosed under the title of “Flower series”. The flower becomes, albeit in its simplicity of shape and size, a symbol of return to life and rebirth, just like the colors full and pure with which they are made the flowers themselves. A subject, therefore, considered a bearer of joy, whose name encloses its characteristics; it moves following the natural course of the sun, source of life. In this perspective, it thus becomes a symbol of absolute fidelity, of adoration. It is clear in this work all the artist’s dedication to nature that becomes her main source of inspiration, that does not need either the human presence or a vase, but dominates uncontested, the absolute protagonist of the painting.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Satu Heikkilä
All for Love
Seiichi Matsumura “No one is every only one thing. Inside one person there are so many different people, and quite often they’re at war with each other, and sometimes one of them is winning, and sometimes another. We’re all so hard to understand, aren’t we?” (Louis de Bernières) The work of Seiichi Matsumura is a bridge between East and West, tradition and contemporary. Starting from the heritage of Japanese masters of prints, Matsumura integrates the western lithograph methods creating mutable forms that recall M.C. Escher’s imaginary. With his production, Matsumura gives to the viewer the reflection of a chaotic and mysterious environment, which is the product of our contemporary society. The artist creates endless levels of reality composed by turbulent agglomerates of forms, structures, and empty spaces. The lithograph process stresses the harsh cuts of the forms, exalted by magisterially conducted perspective games, which makes them seem emerging form the paper englobing the viewer. Starting from a drawing, Matsumura divides the images into forms and colors, transporting them over an aluminum board covered by print ink, which is successively pressed over the paper through a process that involves five printing blocks. In “Apple x Apple”, the fruits, symbols of Eve, the first woman mother of the humankind, are unstructured and recomposed into an endless spiral. The two apples borrow into a form that turns and twists, becoming the representation of humans’ relationship in contemporary society. Matsumura gives to the apples a solid, fabric-like feeling, which symbolizes the concreteness of the modern world. Thus, Matsumura’s fruits are the conceptual - and yet physical - representation of the ambiguous and kaleidoscopic person-to-person kind of relationship in contemporary society, whose complexity is masterfully sublimed in the shapes designed by the artist.
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Seiichi Matsumura
Apple x Apple
Shusuke Funahashi “I start by drawing lines, and without deciding what to draw, I draw lines to some extent so that they resemble animals or people. Once completed, I will decide on a title. Then paint in the color with an oil-based pen”.
This is how Shusuke Funahashi, a Japanese self-taught artist, defines his art: in his works he mainly uses fragments of reality, real objects, elements that seem to be represented by the use of a painted ‘collage’. The artist manages to synthesize the reality that surrounds him by distorting the forms and enhancing them with a strong but well-balanced use of color; the true formal concept of what is represented remains only in the artist’s head, which concretizes them in the pictorial image.Geometric shapes and bright colors are combined, finding a link, generating a synergistic dialogue in the production of the Japanese artist’s works. A dialogue open to the subjective interpretation of the observer, in which the artist combines the irrationality of sentiment and emotionality with the rigor of precise and well-defined forms, as we can see in the work entitled “A woman in a colorful hat”, created with great skill especially for the balance of the use of colors. Reason almost seems to be married with fantasy. The technique that the artist favors is the oil on canvas: his brushstrokes so defined and well outlined seem to be made with computers. A young artist but with a big potential for becoming a great contemporary artist.
“Color is a means of exerting a direct influence on the soul. The color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is a piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or the other, to cause vibrations in the soul.” (Vassily Kandinsky)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Shusuke Funahashi
A woman in a colorful hat
Sindhuja Galipalli One of the first iconic testimonies related to the maternal cult are some votive statuettes found in the locality of Abu Mena, south of Alexandria in Egypt, dating back to the 4th or 5th century AD, representing the woman with prominent breasts and swollen belly, become protectors of childbirth and fertility. In this sense, the cult fits perfectly into that panorama of female deities, linked to the sphere of reproduction and fertility, whose origins are lost in the depths of time. The intimacy of the domestic and family sphere becomes a privileged subject of painting since the seventeenth century and also the theme of motherhood, a religious theme, acquires increasingly secular characters, it is linked to the representation of the moral and social values of a rising class, the bourgeoisie. And so painters like Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Nicolaes Maes, Gerrit Dou specialize in interior paintings, almost always inhabited by women intent on their daily activities. One of these is the care of children, who are becoming increasingly important within the social context. The relationship between mother and son is defined as an exclusive relationship, which does not leave much space, at least within the scenes represented, to the father figure, rarely associated with the function of education of children. The nineteenth century is the century in which this theme is widely spread. The maternal relationship is definitively removed from the religious theme and is outlined as a human relationship of tenderness and love for the child by a mother who is more carnal than spiritual. Sindhuja Galipalli, through her works expresses three concepts that synthesize in some way, what has been said so far. For the artist, mother is the woman who carries the child as evidenced by “Motherhood”, mother is the nature that generates and destroys as in “Mothernature”, mother is Yashoda, emblematic figure of Hindu culture. Through these three reinterpretations Sindhuja investigates her concept of motherhood. For the artist the mother is the one who gives you life and receives unconditional love in return, it is the warmth of all living creatures that protects and watches over. The immeasurable love told here by the artist is clearly highlighted by the warm and bright colors, such as the red that warms the heart of the observer, or yellow, or orange that make his eyes and soul vibrate.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Sindhuja Galipalli
Motherhood
Sindhuja Galipalli
MotherNature
Sindhuja Galipalli
Yashoda Krishna
Snježana Boyd - Žana “In painting, I find my life purpose. In the twinkle of the observer’s eye, I find my personal fulfillment.” (Snježana Boyd - Žana) In the works of the artist Snježana Boyd - Žana positive vibrations are being transmitted, bringing out her thoughts and observations, as well as focusing on human behavior and the observer’s perception. A key element is the spiritual aspect, capable of originating an unbreakable bond between human beings and the Universe. Who is the person from whom this bound comes from and what does it stand for? The artist invites the viewer to observe her work and find the answer to this question. It is the woman who has become a mother, an endless source of energy and light, who illuminates our path, who gives us love and helps each individual to overcome any difficulty in life. As in the painting “Unbreakable”, there is a transcendental and indestructible connection between a mother and a child. This work is divided, in equal sections, emphasizing three main moments in the life of every human being: the birth of the child, recalling a Nativity typical of the sixteenth century; the growth, where the mother is stronger than ever and supports her child with all the love and joy of life; finally the separation, the moment when the child, who has now become a man, feels the need to create his own independence, starting again the cycle of life. The woman’s face is shaped by her tears because, whether they are of sadness or happiness, they give pure and vivid feelings that remain in our heart and soul. The different parts of this close bond expand themselves like a harmonious symphony and branch out into different leaves: these are the origin of the spiritual and physical evolution of both mother and son. For this reason, the woman, like a strong and powerful oak tree, offers her lifeblood to the child, conveying love and protecting him with hugs or holding his hand. In addition, the choice of certain shades to be used in her work are crucial for Žana: among them, the most important is the use of gold, which has always represented light, strength, warmth and richness, all that a mother can give with her life. Another predominant color is red, which represents vital energy and creativity, essential elements for the growth of a child; finally, black, which has the task of bringing together that maternal connection through a strong but flexible network on which life evolves and goes on. With this artwork, the artist wishes to dedicate to every woman the happiness of becoming a mother, giving strength and affection, hoping to that unconditional and infinite love with regards to a child of her.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Snježana Boyd - Žana
Unbreakable
Snježana Ćirković
The artworks by Snježana Ćirković are characterized by an attention to the resonances of colors, which are able to create a language of universal sensations of the soul, as affirmed by Wassily Kandinsky in his text Concerning The Spiritual In Art. In fact, in her paintings each fragment of the canvas owns its aesthetic value, entrusted precisely to the color power to elicit an inner sensation in the viewer. The main theme of the three paintings shown on the occasion of this exhibition is womanhood, with a particular attention to motherhood as the titles suggest. While maintaining their own distinct identity, the artworks present themselves as a tryptic. Each canvas recalls the others in a frame of references, which demonstrate the ability of the artist to develop the same theme investigating its different facets. New Experience focuses on the adventure of becoming a mother and also alludes, with its pun, to the experience gained by a new mother. Colors are bright and express the joy and the strength of a new life. Don’t touch my child, with its impactful title, expresses the desire of a mother to protect her child from any potential danger caused by the wickedness of people. It’s mostly dedicated to all mothers whose children were sexually abused. Here the colors are strong, the brushstrokes energetic and almost violent; the dark tones of red and black are predominant. Power of a woman can be considered the link between the other two paintings. The positivity of the message is visible in the choice of brilliant colors that define the space and give a sense of esthetic harmony to the artwork. The color scheme seems to be created to encourage the invincible feminine strength and tenacity. With her painting Snježana motivates all women to keep fighting to assert themselves, their identity, their dreams.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Snježana Ćirković
Don’t Touch My Child
Snježana Ćirković
New Experience
Snježana Ćirković
The Power of a Woman
Stephan Janssens
Stephan is the artist capable of surprising, he is always able to create a work that goes to impact with the soul of the one who observes it. The protagonist of the work is a large yellow / gold stain, from this precise point pure energy is released, all the forces are irradiated and cover the entire work. Stephan’s work is a real explosion, we can even hear its noise, a roar that spreads and invades space and time. Energy that finds perfect representation in the right shades: from blue to green, passing through white, brushstrokes of color form infinite rays which in a continuous motion take energy from the yellow fulcrum and radiate it towards the outside of the work itself. In Stephan’s work we could see what experts call the “primordial explosion”, from which everything had life, an explosion that is therefore the mother of everything and everyone. At the same time, if we want to refer to the more typically Christian iconography, that central area that recalls a source of light could be, in fact, divine light that is creative and floods the spirits of men. In fact, Stephan’s artistic work perfectly embodies the abstract ideals of the famous Kandinsky, he spoke of the dematerialization of the object, a concept that must be framed in relation to the scientific techniques of the time, such as: matter as a condensation of energy , the propagation of light, the space-time. If technically Stephan is a high-level abstractionist, he certainly is also from a theoreticalconceptual point of view. Ultimately, Stephan’s art always has the function of an intermediary, a means to lead the viewer on an inner journey to discover sensations and intimate or not yet explored places.
“When there is no energy there is no color, there is no shape, there is no life.” (Caravaggio)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Stephan Janssens
Reconditis Oedipus
Stephan Willems
Stephan Willems is a German artist, based in Schweich. His art oscillates between Abstractionism and Expressionism. It is an immediate art, in which the gestures of the brushstroke prevail over the shape. Emotions fill the canvas through the force and action of the gesture, reminding us the teachings of Master Jackson Pollock. What Willems’ art does not reveal instantly is the great reflection that the artist makes before painting, that can be seen in the work “MARIA - Salvation of humanity vs. desperation of a mother”. This work, made of acrylic, contains a strong message of interpretation of the figure of Mary, mother of Jesus. Willems, during the exhibition “MATER” proposed by the MADS gallery in Milan, chooses to analyze the figure of the mother par excellence: Maria. It embodies what many women in history, and today, have been forced to undergo: seeing their personality reduced to the sole function of “container”, to the sole function of giving birth and bringing children to light. The artist in fact interprets the story of the birth of Jesus, through Mary, with these words: “My painting takes up the question: Would Mary have chosen the immaculate conception, if God had previously told her about the imminent martyrdom of her his Son in order to redeem humanity? In my eyes, God betrayed Mary of her son by depriving her of the truth!” The suffering of Mary following the loss of her son and the awareness of having been “used” is manifested in Willems’s work with the bloody tears that flow from her eyes closed in pain. The shape of Mary is just hinted at by orange lines, emphasizing even more how her personality is not as important as her function of “containing” Jesus. Its silhouette is created by gold spatula that blend with the background. The latter, the focal point of the composition, consists of black, white and red spatulates. They blend together, reminding us that there is no absolute good or evil, but humanity is only a shade of gray that oscillates between the desire to do good and evil, which belongs to everyone. The whole is surrounded by a golden frame that symbolizes the divine aura that surrounds each of us. Whatever kind of faith belongs to us, man is subject to the divine, to a higher will, which does not always act for our good.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Stephan Willems
MARIA - Salvation of humanity vs. desperation of a mother
Thea Louise Bostrup “A free spirit takes liberties even with liberty itself.” (Francis Picabia)
TheaLou is an artist from Copenhagen. Closely connected to the art world, she focuses her attention on issues concerning the woman’s body in society. Her works are characterized by a language which finds a constant point of reference in abstractionism. Through colored backgrounds with irregular and unpredictable shapes, she draws us into a world, where space is entirely dedicated to women. A woman who exhibits her strength and energy through transgression and the breaking of taboos to which she is socially subjected, regaining the space she needs. TheaLou’s paintings scream and they are shouts of joy that rise from the depths, after being suffocated for so long. “Woman in Labor”, painted in bright colors, such as pink, green and red, represents a vulva in the moment of enjoyment. The most intimate place for women, is shown here as a space dedicated to personal pleasure, taking on a new value and a new power. The color almost willing to form concentric circles, together with the white points, tells us about that otherworldly dimension that reaches a woman at the moment of orgasm. The canvas for TheaLou becomes a space dedicated to freedom. Once again, art, not only becomes a means of personal expression, but also a tool to awaken sleeping souls.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Thea Louise Bostrup
Woman in labor
Thea Louise Bostrup
Peeing in the woods
Thea Louise Bostrup
Bloody Mary
Thomas Bienert
Art always had the task of telling, at times it has been the narrator of mythological tales, other times of true stories, still others of important historical facts that have changed the world and the lives of many people. Thomas, through his works, tells in a decidedly unique way some true and important stories that have left a mark on the conscience of all of us. Thomas’s work pays homage to some women who have courage, strength and determination in common. Lady Diana is and always will be the woman with a good soul that the whole world is in love with, no one will ever forget her eyes and her face, despite the fact that fate has taken her away so soon. What Thomas does is not retrace the moment of a tragic event, such as the car accident or the shooting of Minister Indira, but rather give value to life, the previous day. The series of works is entitled “The Day Before”, abstract photographs in which the concept is narrated through images to be deciphered, whose main aspect is the energy they emanate. Colors so vivid that they seem like a radiance, the view is dazzled by a vision of strong intensity, the observer is pervaded by a strong emotion, which refers to the strength of the women of which the artist speaks, from the unique power of maternal love that protects the little girl Edith in the concentration camps, or that of Lady Di for her two children, or the strength of the common destiny of Indira and her son. If Thomas’s art can be traced back to abstract art, in particular to abstract photography, there is also much of that romantic feeling, of the sublime, in front of which one feels dismay. The observer becomes like the “Wanderer on the sea of fog”, he finds himself contemplating the Infinite, understood in this case as eternal love, which leaves speechless and astonished. Thomas manages to strike deeply, his works become a door to hidden feelings.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Thomas Bienert
Edith Devries riding the train (1942)
Thomas Bienert
Indira Gandhi speaking to her indian landmen (1984)
Thomas Bienert
Lady Di swimming near Sardinia (1997)
Tickle Cosmos “For me, colors are living beings, individuals who integrate with us and with the whole world. Colors are the true inhabitants of space.” (Yves Klein)
A white and luminous background from which signs and shapes emerge, it almost seems that they come to life and move in space. Bright colors come together to create a huge puzzle, many small pieces joined to form an intertwining of abstract figures. Colors in movement, balanced and harmonious motions give life to a joyful work. The artist traces simple lines, now thin, now thicker, figure with sinuous contours, simple elements that Tickle he recovers from his childhood, therefore extremely pure forms that are free from external conditioning. Her art is certainly abstract but with pop and surrealist resonances, Joan Mirò himself merged, in his works, elements that belong to the world of the abstract with shapes coming from children’s scribbles. In fact, Tickle’s work seems to be a sort of “stream of consciousness”, where one thought runs after another, an inner monologue through which emotions and feelings emerge. The surrealist component is flanked by the pop one, in fact Tickle’s artistic work brings to mind the wonderful works of Keith Haring. Haring’s was an immediate and joyful style, the vivid and captivating colors and the simplicity of the shapes made his art iconic. The work of the young artist Tickle runs the same way, she paints everywhere: walls, canvases, everyday objects, also for this reason she embodies Haring’s idea of Popular Art. Definitely, Tickle’s artwork is a mellow harmony, a moment of joy and life, a gust of enthusiasm, all we need in this particular historical moment.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Tickle Cosmos
Craqรปre
Tjeerd Doosje
That of Tjeerd Doosjeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works is a story about revenge against the sufferings of life, against injustices, a hymn to maternal love. The photos portray a little girl depicted with a serene expression who is shyly and with extreme tenderness turning her gaze directly to the viewer. The representation of the child is an eternal reminder of the innocence of childhood, a reference to that phase of life that adulthood can only remember with nostalgia. For the artist, being a mother means giving shape to a love that previously was never believed to exist. When a woman takes her child in her arms, she seals a pact with him. Quietly, almost whispering, she promises that she will do everything she can to make him a happy person, to protect him from suffering and support him in all life choices, every day of his existence.
Tjeerd Doosje
At the same time, however, the son, only by existing, becomes the primary source of happiness for the mother. The artist himself told the story of the photos: “I was thinking of a girl being mother’s special child, because she’s the only girl she got. She’s also got an older son but he is physically handicapped”. So, in this case, through the representation of an instant, the artist wanted to represent the sacrifices of a painful life, the suffering, but also the revenge, the happiness, the love of a mother for a daughter which is all hidden in the eyes of that little girl represented in the photos.
“Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.” (William Macneile Dixon)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Tjeerd Doosje
Merlin (0101)
Tjeerd Doosje
Merlin (0105)
Torsten Wolber “In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.” (Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn)
Torsten is a polyhedric artist, who is able to combine different styles and techniques creating an imaginary of high visual impact. His production spaces from landscapes to portraits and it captures moments of real life that are celebrated by a sapient use of the color palette. Through his painting, he celebrates the beauty of the ordinary that becomes extraordinary. In his portraits, Torsten gives the viewer the concrete essence of the subjects represented in a game made of gestures and glances, which is stressed by the raw brushstrokes used by the artist that result in vivid and scratchy overall look. These elements can be found in the painting presented for the exhibition, titled “Expectation”. Torsten focuses over a particular moment of maternity: it is the delicate and, at the same time, joyful period of pregnancy, in which the future mother feels a new life in her womb dreaming about what their new shared path is going to be. The oneiric atmosphere is exalted by the choice of colors, from which the female figure materializes. With her flowing gown and her crown of flowers, the young lady reminds of an angelic presence. Indeed, the daisies themselves are symbols of innocence and purity. On the other hand, the circular shapes on the background are connected to the idea of femininity and fertility, representing the cyclicality of life, a being that offers her existence to another being. The result is an image of a strong emotional charge that magisterially transmits to the viewer the feeling of a sweet expectation
Art Curator Mery Malaventura
Torsten Wolber
Expectation
Tracy White
The conception, gestation and birth of a child are natural and central events in the history of the individual, the couple and the family, able to mobilize the deepest fantasies and the most powerful psychic mechanisms. With Freud (1914), psychoanalysis has since its origins questioned the meaning of a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desire and how the fantasies of parents can be transmitted from childhood. The act of creating a new life is realized in the mystery of the encounter between two individuals, defined in technical terms conception. Art has always represented the concept by putting on canvas the different and free interpretations of the theme. There are those who have accumulated the act of conception merely in the sexual sphere. There are also those who wanted to descend into the deepest depths, depicting what happens in the body of a woman. The work created by Tracy White, an American artist, in fact intends motherhood as a physical form that goes beyond the act itself. What the artist wants to depict is the most intense and intimate moment that takes place in the female body, synthesizing through forms and colors the primordial act of conception, that of fertilization. In this abstract work, Tracy tells something that not everyone sees or understands. In the center a circle that could symbolically allude to a fertilized egg. The movement of all the elements of the work with a joyful character and colour, become fundamental systems that underlie visible reality. A very strong image and the symbolic female meaning very exemplifying to explain to the observer her motherhood.
Art Curator Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo
Tracy White
Woman
Trude L. Birkelund
Trude expresses her life, emotions, and her art in different but equally suggestive ways. Her works show a strong desire to communicate with the viewer, to convey the same feelings that the artist herself felt throughout the creative process. This happens both through stylistic choices, such as the use of colors and different techniques of painting, and through the figures represented that, through their expressions, hide the meaning of the work itself. In the painting “Mastery”, the artist, by representing her grandchild, suggests one of the most beautiful fortunes of her life: that of being a grandmother. Grandmothers, in fact, express the highest level of motherhood with all the responsibilities that this fundamental role entails. The grandchild’s face suggests all the tenderness and innocence that are characteristic of the first years of life. In the grandson’s smile, in the bent head and wide open eyes, the artist has expressed those emotions of purity that cannot be hidden and that, in their naturalness, they speak, communicate and make us reflect. The choice of lilac color appears rather significant: it, being the union of red and blue, expresses the conjunction of body and mind, the awakening of the soul and infuses extreme serenity. The work suggests that, in the face of life’s adversities, an unexpected salvation could be found in the people we love the most which do not serve as refuges but as authentic representations of the essence of life, able to reconstruct past events and make sense of one’s existence. As already mentioned, Trude has a strong artistic versality as a painter. In the painting “Awareness knows no blindness” the artist has reproduced the figure of the Tuareg Woman. Here, unlike the painting depicting her grandchild, the atmosphere seems to be gloomy. This is suggested both by the woman’s expression and by the choice to use only black and its nuances as colors. In the painting “Growing”, instead, the artist gives voice to her thoughts and emotions through the representation of abstract and colorful forms that leave a free interpretation to anyone who observes them. This is precisely the sense that Trude wants to give to her art: to transmit her inner self, to represent life and emotions, in an elegant way, through colors, gestures, and shapes.
“It is as grandmothers that our mothers come into the fullness of their grace.” (Christopher Morley)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Trude L. Birkelund
Awareness knows no blindness
Trude L. Birkelund
Crescendo
Trude L. Birkelund
Mastery
Varda Levy
Women have always been protagonists of the art world, they have been used as sources of passion and inspiration by many artists. Varda Levy’s paintings are a hymn to femininity, to delicate sensuality. The women represented in the artist’s paintings, only through their features become muses for those who observe them so that the feminine automatically becomes sublimation of beauty, connection between charm and soul. Both the works “Gemma” and “Maria” depict the portraits of two women. In the first above mentioned painting, the woman is portrayed in profile and, almost shyly, hinting at a smile, she turns her gaze to someone/something that is not visible to the viewer’s eyes. In this way, the artist manages to convey that curiosity, that instinct to go further, which automatically arouses the desire to know more about the portrayed-woman.
Varda Levy
In the painting “Maria”, instead, the woman is depicted with a gaze full of energy and sensuality directly addressed to the viewer. The red of her semi-open lips, that recalls the color of the roses used as a hair clips, symbolizes some of the characteristic elements of women: passion, love, rebirth. The red rose in fact is the symbol of love that wins over everything, of devotion, admiration, beauty and perfection. It also symbolizes the secret of life which is revealed with delicacy. Varda Levy, through her works, through details, colors, the posture of women’s bodies, some elements such as the rose, has managed, with extreme delicacy, to valorize femininity.
“There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.” (Steve Meraboli)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Varda Levy
Gemma
Varda Levy
Maria
Véronique Lavigne
Véronique Lavigne is a Canadian artist, based in St-Bruno-de-Montarville. She works with different types of materials, such as acrylic paint, oil pastels, plastic, textile fibers, sand and other textured elements. She mainly paints colorful chicks, chickens and ducks. This because she draws inspiration by families, couples and friends around her. Lavigne’s art conveys positive energy and joy. Her choice to maintain a simple and linear style allows her to strike a large audience, not only adult. The contrast of color that often uses in her works, make them suitable to illuminate and color any type of environment. The work that best exemplifies her art is entitled « LA. Création » and it represents two ducks in profile, facing each other. The choice of the title is related to the name of the business of Veronique and her husband, Ian Labarre. The work is in fact inspired by the logo of their activity and is made with acrylic, sand, glue, plastic and molding paste. The two ducks visually occupy the whole composition. The white of their bodies stands out against the dark background and even more from the green that surrounds them. The use of glue, sand and other materials, create material effects that come out of the surface, just like the artists of the 1950s. This creates a feeling of closeness to the work, even more accentuated by the sweetness of the subject. Love is the protagonist. It emerges the importance of the family, in which the woman (protagonist of this exhibition), is symbolically protected by the “beak” of the man. The importance of mutual respect, which is the basis of a solid family, emerges.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Véronique Lavigne
LA.Création
Yahara Toshimitsu
Toshimitsu Yahara, a member of the French Arts Association ‘Le Salon’ and of the Millet Friendship Association, is a japanese artist who comes from Mie, near Kyoto, the west part of the country. His art is closed to the culture of this side of Japan in fact he portrays the figure of Maiko, a girl who studies to become a Geisha, whose origins widespread in the city since XVII century. His works call to mind the first bijinga portraits made by famous artists such as Utamaro; Suzuki Harunobu; Toyohara Chikanobu and Torii Kiyonaga, the main masters and innovators of the ukiyo-e genre. Toshimitsu, in order to spread the knowledge of this ancient art all over the world, follows Maikos in thier activities beginning from a walk around the city as the work titled “Dusk” presents, reaching the moment in which the girls are intent on practise their activities.“Dance” depicts two young girls in their habits during an exhibition in a tea room interior, the same scene can be seen also in “Maiko” piece, where the group composed by three women accompanies their movements with traditional songs, usually made by an instrument called: shamisen. Each work underline the traditional habits of a Maiko girl: the tipycal hairdo called ‘nihongami’; the colored kimono tied by a ‘hikuzuri’ (belt) let fallen like a swallow tail and the ‘okobo’ clog. The artist uses acrilyc (‘Maiko’ and ‘Dusk’ works) and oil-painting (‘Dance’; ‘Yukata in Summer’ and ‘Maiko’s back’) techniques which better define the important elements of the subjects. Each painting is notable for its soft and definited colors. The ability of Toshimitsu is to transmit the beauty of the girls through their gazings and their gesture that is what brings them to be considered as art. As ‘Yukata in summer’ and ‘Maiko’s back’ demonstrate, the face of these girls itself, can be considered as a piece of art where the make-up lends them a sophisticated and sensaul air, stand out by the two lines on the back of the neck.
Art Curator Martina Stagi
Yahara Toshimitsu
Dance
Yahara Toshimitsu
Dusk
Yahara Toshimitsu
Maiko
Yahara Toshimitsu
Maikoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back
Yahara Toshimitsu
Yukata in summer
Zlatan Woszerow “My technique is simple: all my works are based on few of my drawings, photography or acrylic paintings from the “real world”, which I transform digitally using a digital finger painting techniques and mixing.”
So Zlatan Woszerow, Polish self-taught artist, describes his artist technique and his way of performing his work. The iPad screen becomes his virtual canvas on which he draws with his fingers, tracking geometries and shapes that break and recall the abstract cubism, the oniric images of Miro and Kandinsky “scribbling”. What the artist expresses is represented on the iPad without inhibitions and preordained purposes. His creations are often the result of an initial scribble from which the strangest and most unexpected designs take shape instinctively: abstract forms, soft, sweet, reassuring or darting lines, compulsive obsessive traits or romantic and relaxing designs, bright or dark colors, that express passions, feelings, moods of that moment. Often the artist starts from a memory, from a photo of a landscape dear to him and in this way, through a mental journey, he is able to extrapolate and synthesize what will subsequently take shape with his fingers on the electronic device and then will be printed on a canvas giving life to a real work of art. The digital elaborations of Zlatan Woszerow are placed in an abstract research field in which the relationship of lines and colors creates an energy of strong vitality. They are compositions where the visual symbol induces a free and pure expressiveness, in a harmony of evident lyrical sensitivity.
“I always do what I don’t know how to do, in order to learn how to do it.” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Zlatan Woszerow
Eternal longing
Zlatan Woszerow
Hidden desires
Zlatan Woszerow
Oracle sounds
Zlatan Woszerow
Shy jealousy
Zlatan Woszerow
Who is she?
Curated by Art Directors Carlo Greco and Alessandra Magni Critical texts by Art Curators Alessia Di Martino Alessia Perone Camilla Gilardi Cecilia Terenzoni Erika Gravante Federica Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avanzo Francesca Brunello Giorgia Massari Giulia CalĂŹ Giulia Zanesi Guendalina Cilli Lisa Galletti Lorenza Traina Maria Cristina Bianchi Marta Graziano Martina Stagi Martina Viesti Silvia Grassi Vanessa Viti Ylenia De Giosa
“The Nothing is the void that surrounds us, it is the despair that destroys the world. The Nothing spreads because people have given up their hope. But there is a world, Fantàsia, the realm of human fantasy, where every element of it, every creature of it emerges from the dreams and hopes of humanity; therefore, Fantàsia cannot be it and will never have borders!” (Michael Ende, The NeverEnding Story) The fables are tales of pure fantasy, full of mystery and enchantment, which are found in every country’s culture; in them nature comes alive with magical presences that do not hesitate to reveal themselves. In addition to interpreting enchanted and dreamlike places, which attract the eye of the observer and invite him to free himself in an idyllic environment, it is fundamental to take a critical perspective: one finds there the pleasure of narrating the existential condition of the human beings, often representing their inner voice and experiences, trying to pass down wisdom or moral truth, embodying the intention of the human beings to change and improve themselves. Who has not ever shed tears at the end of a wonderful story, leaving those characters with whom extraordinary adventures had been lived? Who has ever imagined to be one of the protagonists of the narrative? There is a tendency to confine the fable to childhood and pre-adolescence: in reality, it is the imagination that derives from certain stories that gives shape to sensations and emotions which do not appear clear and defined at first. The relationship between written text and the creation of images was firstly found in Aristotle, who approached the term phantasía (fantasy) which comes from phàos (light): and this is how “imagination” was given a meaning, namely as a “faculty that allows everyone to think and process ideas through images”, exactly what we need to make the fable. By realizing the unimaginable and the unthinkable, the power of the fable has expanded considerably, and it is capable of taking a shape through the arts. For instance, artists such as Giotto or Van Gogh represented several times in their works great starry skies, whose as in the stories, symbolize the universe, the place of the divine and a metaphor for the spirit. A kind of imagery based on a real and mystical equilibrium, deriving from feelings and sensations: on these emotions, a personal aesthetic vision of the fable is made up in our unconscious. A painter like Marc Chagall was at the peak of his success when his paintings were sought and later appreciated by art critics, to the extent that he was able to illustrate the stories of the writer Jean de La Fontaine: literature and art thus found themselves going alongside on the same track by producing results with a great innovative scope. Today as then, artists of all contemporary movements celebrate the extraordinary optimism of the fairy tale through a variety of works, from paintings to sculptures, illustrations to photographs, and much more; moreover, they have revolutionized the way of seeing and interpreting fairy tales and, through art, they have transformed them into an extremely powerful message capable of changing the surrounding reality. Going further the literary genre, they have conceived the fairy-tale as a medicine made to heal their wounds, inflicted by the future’s uncertainty, with the aim to escape from a life that does not give any kind of positive emotions. Imagination can be the only means that empower us to face the problems in the real world: we must have the courage to dive into it and let ourselves be carried away. Only in this way we could awake our creative thoughts and build a new fable, a new universe of values. Albert Einstein once claimed that “knowledge is limited, imagination encloses the world”, a statement which turns out to be increasingly true nowadays. The fable can teach us to read again with an open mind and to find a way back to the time when every day was a new discovery. Imagination is at the heart of everything. Every artist goes beyond the mere appearance and keeps his enthusiasm alive, transforming art as a means between reality and fantasy. The world of imagination is open to anyone who wants to fantasize about their dreams, to create perceptive and sensory images, a compelling and intriguing story that gives vent to one’s desires, trying to dream when you were a child, by getting into that dreamlike world with fantastic stories . We need to live like in a fairy tale, to let ourselves go, putting aside the known world and entering into a new one full of love and hope.
Imagination helps to grow! So, close your eyes, fantasize and express yourself freely! Concept edited by Alessia Perone, Art Curator, graduated in Sciences of Cultural Heritage and in History and Criticism of Art
Abha Rani Singh
Abha is a contemporary Indian artist who has been living in Vietnam for more than a decade. In addition to painting, she loves to write and travel. She presents herself as a self-taught artist, ready to paint with all the means at her disposal. “Soliloquy” is a collage on canvas, through which the artist expresses herself and her idea of art. Collage, as such, was popular among artists belonging to movements such as Surrealism, Dada and Nouveau Réalisme - in fact, legends such as Jean Dubuffet, Kurt Schwitters and Man Ray are among those who with their influential works of art have helped to form the very definition of the medium - and let’s not forget the contributions of a certain Henri Matisse, whose collages are still very popular on the market. The extensive use of collage also inspired the birth of Cubomania, a surrealist method in which an image is cut into squares, which are then reassembled automatically or at random. In addition to Cubomania, the technique has also evolved into other categories, including decoupage, which includes decorative paper clippings, collage in painting and on wood, photocopying and, more recently, digital collage. Contemporary and very modern, therefore, Abha blends these ideas and creates her works of art by putting together illustrated cutouts, breaking the concept of traditional gender roles. Her creativity is always alive and keeps, to the eye of the spectator, a perfect chromatic linearity. Modern Indian architecture, from an expressive power to her work, interspersed with entrance doors and bearded faces. Each element keeps its own identity eternal while blending well with all the other elements of the work.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Abha Rani Singh
Soliloquy
AK Delaunay â&#x20AC;&#x153;I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.â&#x20AC;? (V. Van Gogh)
Aicha Kavy lives in Saint Nazaire in France, she loves working on colors because for her they are the reflection of her personality and her dynamism. Her works are unique and original and are inspired by her feelings, the current situation of things and events that can shake his life. She is an intuitive artist with a different attitude to painting and inn general has a different approach to art. The artist does not follow a plan or an idea but dives every time in a creative adventure as charming and stimulating as mysterious, in this way the aesthetic of her works, ceases to be the purpose of painting and what is really concerning is the creative process. Play and exploration take survival on technique and representation and they are led by a free and spontaneous pictorial gesture. Aicha relies to the intuition that guides her through the painting and the creating process, where it comes directly from the heart avoiding going through the head. Painting in this way gives us the possibility to elude the self-sabotaging traps of thought and bypassing conditioning and mental structures to leave our most authentic and deep part intact. Through shapes and colors the artist tells what words are not able to be expressed, we give voice to those parts of us to which we rarely allow to manifest. Her works are a creative adventure, an exciting journey, a deep experience that allows us to hear the voice of her soul.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
AK Delaunay
Bonbon fleurs
AK Delaunay
Etoile du Berger
AK Delaunay
OVNI
Àlex Mañé Montané
About two thousand years after the invention of paper in China, collage artists and collage art itself found their true form in the early stages of modernism - through Pablo Picasso, it’s a popular opinion, and his 1912 Still Life with Chair Caning - a work on which a piece of oil canvas was attached. Coming from the French verb “coller”, meaning “clue”, the term was coined by the Spanish artist along with Georges Braque, describing a technique born as a response to the First World War, a powerful tool to make even more powerful claims. A little less three-dimensional than assembly, the art of collage allowed artists to deal with existing materials, to whom they assigned new contexts to create an original work of art. From newspapers and magazines to maps, tickets, propaganda, photographs, tapes, stamps, paintings, texts and found objects, the elements of the Collage participate in a practical creative process of putting together the works of art and even to break them down, in an artistic exploration into the unknown. Recycling and transforming are at the basis of the artistic philosophy of Àlex Mañé Montané, the whose main objective is to awaken human awareness on important and sensitive topics. Sexual freedom, human rights, gender equality, opportunities for change, interaction, communication, social networks, power control. Àlex works through a variety of media, inspired by surrealist movements, composes images from magazines, newspapers, books, postcards, posters, comics and uses this powerful artistic tool to express ideas, opinions showing constant interest in contemporary social and cultural events. In doing so, the artist provokes contrasting reactions, demonstrating that this form of art is very alive and well, but also rather controversial.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Àlex Mañé Montané
FRAGILE
Àlex Mañé Montané
NEW WORLD ORDER-EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION
Àlex Mañé Montané
RIDING FREE LGBTI. STOP HOMOPHOBIA
Alison Aplin
Alison Aplin is an Australian painter and designer, she prefers abstract painting, through which she expresses her most intimate feelings. The exhibition “Fable” inaugurated by MADS gallery, inspired the artist in the creation of five paintings that carry inside them magic and Christmas air. In particular, the paintings entitled “Christmas baubles” and “Christmas wrapping” have the circle as the dominant element, it symbolically indicates a cycle, the cycle of life to which we are all subjected. The Christmas period indicates the beginning of a cycle, it is the celebration of birth. These two paintings are the prelude to the next three paintings: visually more joyful, colorful and charged with positive energy. In particular, in the painting “The joy of Christmas” Aplin chooses a palette of cold and warm colors that skillfully juxtaposed and create a magical effect. The rose stands out amongst all, accompanying the viewer’s gaze among other spots of color. Aplin’s way to spread the color is a reminder of the painter Henri Matisse and the Fauves artists who used bright colors to convey messages of positivity. At the end, the painting “A joyous impact” depicts, in an abstract way, an “explosion”. It seems almost a flower, now blossomed and come into the world. An “impact”, as the artist herself defines it, on the world. Every new birth involves a change to the world, every new creature will bring its own contribution to our world. Alison Aplin, with her sensitivity, once again gives MADS a journey into her own works. An abstract journey that the viewer takes in admiring her deep works.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Alison Aplin
A joyous impact
Alison Aplin
Christmas baubles
Alison Aplin
Christmas Cheer
Alison Aplin
Christmas Wrapping
Alison Aplin
The joy of Christmas
An Selen “Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, all is changing.’’ (PANTA REI Eraclito, 500 b.C.) It is the principle of Buddhist philosophies by which change is accepted for what it is, not refused, but caught and translated into knowledge and beauty. These are the dynamic thoughts that overrun the An Selen canvases, artist born in Belgium, who explores her art’s passion from 1999, when she realized her first painting. On the occasion of this exhibition, the artist offers us three works which, while appearing perceptually all different from each other, are linked by an innate spiritual force. Observing her works, one is always surprised by the multisensory materiality belonging to them, which always provokes new emotions in the viewer. Vibration is the first word that comes to my mind when I look at this first work. Hidden explosion represents a careful chromatic study, result of the use of acrylic colors of various saturation, which are vibrated by archaic signs, light’s traces, symbols of a long time past. The beauty of this painting lies both in the use of warm shades and in the adoption of a purely abstract stylistic construction that, through the use of simple lines, allows us to taste a parallel universe made by memories imbued in the matter and exalted by the final use of the epoxy resin. The question of the exaltation of memory is a broadly addressed issue in the history of art. But what results in this case is the simplicity of signs used by the artist to make the matter alive. This choice reminds me the Olivestone, a work realized by Joseph Beuys who revives the memory of an old stone, used to produce oil in ancient times. The common principle of the two aesthetics brings to the surface what are the traces, thoughts and testimonies of ancient, soaked signs of disarming beauty. The purpose of this ‘’ sign resurrection ‘’ is to revive the material in order to make us participate in a process of exchange between the matter itself and the viewer who, in this time walk, becomes the witness of a new life. Like in a fable the cracks move between them, stretching and moving away, opening a passage ready to welcome our impressions, our thoughts, our souls that imprint their spirit on the matter, giving way to the infinite story. In the work Purple change we find a metamorphosis in progress that, changing its colours and shape, makes the composition’s arrangement in continuous change. The artist works in different stages, in order to respect the time of the work, indulging the evolution of the creative material process and surprising herself with the results. The artist works partly, because she leaves the compositional stage to the matter and to the time, being the main character of the creative process. The pictorial two-dimensionality is extended to the three- dimensionality surrounding environment that, according to the dynamic atmospheric changes on which the canvas stands, will produce brand-new compositional results. In this case the change is suggested by the sentence , that is written in the lower light corner of the picture: ‘’Change when it comes cracks everything open’’. Moreover, the choice of colors is really relevant; purple is the color of transformation, the color of witches’ potions, the color of religion, the color of mystery and the color of the discovery of new universes where the artist would like to lead us, passing the cracks of a surprising journey. The disarming essentiality that triggers the vision of this painting, hides a reading among the signs of time of An Selen’s spiritual thinking. The artist, born in Belgium, explores her art’s passion from 1999, when she realized her first painting. Stating that she does not consider herself categorized in any specific style, her pure and simple aesthetics remembers the poetics of Poor Art. Considering the work introduced here, we are in front of a white mantle, usually contemplated as the color of the purity of the soul, the color of chastity by the art criticism; the same purity studied by the spiritual path of the artist that focuses on the Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi. The delicacy of thought is very in contrast with the materiality of the cracks, that are steeped in history and in ancient memory; the same memory through which the artist tries to create a bridge that carries us to the charming past, to what the artist defines the beauty of simple time. Sailing the white mantle, there is a small red stain that stands out to the eye and that highlights that crack, regarded as an imprint of historical beauty that got lost by during the new age of consumerism. This detail reminds me the artist Giuseppe Penone, who, in Skin of Gold on Acacia Thorns, realizes the imprints of his lips exalted by a little gold fragment placed between them, which leads us (as in the work of An Selen) to the historic time where the beauty was found in the simplicity of little things. It is the Art’s role to overcome the reality’s limits and bring the spectator into the world of imagination.
Art Curator Alessia di Martino
An Selen
Hidden explosion
An Selen
The purple change
An Selen
The secret of imperfection
Anastasia Kolosnitsyna “The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of god.” (Euclid)
Anastasia Kolosnitsyna is a young artist from Krasnodar. Her multidisciplinary artistic training, allows her to express herself through very different painting styles, with influences ranging from Cubism to Hyperrealism. In the last period, her research is undergoing a change, with a language more oriented towards Surrealism. In fact, as in this work entitled “Golden language”, we see that the analysis of the subjects takes on a symbolic value. The link with nature remains fundamental, which is shown here with an aura of mysticism. The gold color, so important within the painting, spreads radially around the subject, catapulting us into a divine world. In the center, a huge snail embraces its golden shell, observing us through a third eye suspended over its head. The snail is a recurring element in Anastasia’s paintings, a symbol of nature’s perfection, also known as the “golden spiral”. In the mathematical world it is often connected to the Fibonacci sequence and in photography it is used as a compositional method. The perfect example of the connection between Science and Nature, where the latter shows itself in the perfection of its forms. The power of the omnipresent divine, which manifests itself through the magic of Nature, observes us and protects its home as if it were our Earth.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Anastasia Kolosnitsyna
Golden language
Anita Aardalsbakke
In her pieces, Anita Aardalsbakke chooses to not represent anything specific, to not limit herself with the figurative, but to tap into a more universal language. Just as colours can be an universal language, so fairytales are common to all cultures across the Planet. The details may change but the tropes and the structure remain the same. Thus the abstraction of the paintings helps in conveying greater, more general themes. There is the constant, undeniable and ever-present battle between Light and Dark, Good and Evil. In Fables the distinction between them is cut clear. Fables are the place where a perfectly good hero can shine only when opposed to an equally evil villain. Fables are not the place for a middle ground or modern grey characters. It is the reign of Absolute and the Evil will always be defeated.The dichotomy does not stop at good vs evil. In the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s words Love againstHhate is too great of an importance. In fables Love wins, it wins over everything. Often it is romantic love - the true love kiss, that breaks the curse - but it can also be familial love, the bond between brothers, or even the love of God. From their titles, these three pieces could almost be put one after the other and represent the three main activities of a fairytale. First, there is the darkness, the rupture, the storm. Many fairytales begin in a place of suffering; the princess cursed by the witch, the poor family who cannot support themselves, the girl reduced to a servant. Then the central piece is always the battle, the confrontation between the Good and the Evil, with the consequent victory of light. Finally, the happy ending and the happily ever after. It is evening and all is set, the hero can rest.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Anita Aardalsbakke
The power of light
Anita Aardalsbakke
Evening hug
Anita Aardalsbakke
Autumn storm
Anna Sophia Rydgren ARYART
Anna Sophia Rydgren’s work presented at the exhibition “Fable” has all the enthusiasm and love for the subject represented: in “Blue Peacock” an intense artist emotion stands out, with the representation of this animal so magical and mysterious. Being a memory of her childhood, Anna Sophia is inextricably close to the depiction of the peacock: the shape and colors of the bird fill the soul with joy and its symbolic meaning gives harmony to the various elements of the universe. Since ancient times, the peacock has symbolized longevity, spring and rebirth. Its wide, glittering tail, defined as the “hundred eyes”, is the emblem of the sunlight emerging from the darkness like a fan. According to legend, its thick plumage covered by iridescent colors was able to expand itself to the extent to transform the venom of a snake into solar substance, while its eyes were considered a symbol of God’s omniscience. In fact, in this painting the artist is inspired by the peacock’s eye, emphasizing both the desire to imprint a precious gift of nature and the love for art. The essence of the material emerges from the canvas, an immense expanse that follows the shades and the swaying of the sea. From the ripples one can glimpse precious shades, such as bronze and gold, suitable for such a royal animal. Moreover, an immense blue expanse blends perfectly with the glacial white, creating an ocean like a parallel universe, where the peacock is its king. Every tonality is so vivid and penetrating that it involves anyone who observes the work. And as in the constellations, this three-dimensional space is made up of numerous details, a multitude of hidden cracks that emphasize those brilliant shades. Eternal beauty resides in one’s soul and the peacock, symbol of positive change, helps the viewer to illuminate his path, surrounded by shadows, and to radiate the surrounding atmosphere. This bird merges with the pictorial material, by creating an interweaving between art and the evolutionary power of the forces of nature, which finds representation in this chromatic expanse. The observer needs to immerse himself completely in Anna Sophia’s work and let himself go, so that he can begin a journey into his own introspection and deepest emotions.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Anna Sophia Rydgren ARYART
Blue Peacock
Anne Grete Kjøsterud Tolo
Rooted for years in figurative art, Norwegian artist Anne Grete Kjøsterud Tolo delights herself in abstract art as well, where the act of creating spontaneously becomes the key to shape her artistic sensibility and artistic language of expression. “To me painting abstract images became object of great interest and joy” states the artist. The title Forhekset (Enchanted), brings us into the artist’s creation whose aim is to challenge and provoke the audience’s fantasy in imaging an exciting story behind it. The artwork’s subject recalls the typical semblance of the women of the classical age and ancient tales, or some feminine figures related to myths and legends. In fact, the represented woman has the appearance of an idyllic creature, like an immortal nymph, born and transformed into a natural creature. Anne Grete makes her woman emerging from the canvas by using different techniques and materials, including Powertex, with which is able to create an extra surface similar to rocks or cave stones or even a tree bark. Just like a mythological figure, the painting’s subject is almost blurry, depicted with an barely hinted body able to evoke a strong visual power and to leave space to imagination. Therefore, the woman could be anything: a mermaid, a fairy, a goddess, a witch or just a woman. The artist, while finding a way to freely express, recognize and reveal herself, offers to the audience an opportunity to challenge their intuition and personal suggestions.
Art Curator Ylenia De Giosa
Anne Grete Kjøsterud Tolo
Forhekset
Anne-Sophie Brilland “Art does not render what is visible, but renders visible.” (Paul Klee) Anne Sophie Brilland is a plastic arts teacher and graduated from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Angers in France where she now lives and works in Bruz.Her art is a fusion of multisensory scenes that takes place through the study of the aurora portraits, of the abstract and figurative landscape, connecting with a bond that connects to an interior landscape by interlinking with natural elements.Anne’s investigation can be defined in a general way as a “manifestation of the spiritual connection between human beings and the environment”. Through the research of the female body, she explores its anatomy going from the inside out, revealing the interdependence between each cell.From muse, angelic presence or temptress, to mysterious entity that wonders about its own identity, to the new figure born from the protest of the sixties, the woman is constantly represented in the balance between her being at the same time a gentle nymph and a cruel seductress , savior or incarnate damnation, eternal source of a chthonic or celestial force, of which art has always been a vivid witness.It is a pure description of beauty.Over the centuries the woman’s body has been a symbol of beauty and desire, now an emblem of sin, but its mysterious creative force has continued to represent a fulcrum of interest in society and in the culture of all times which, sometimes, it has been recognized and admired for its incredible generating energy, at other times its power has been seen as a source of disturbance.Through her works we can see a vortex of movement, it’s the dance of life, showing in a disenchanted way the most external aspects and underlining that even dance can simulate a stage of life where men show masks that they’re forced to wear in a false and hypocritical society.The communion between movement and the use of colors generates wonderful figures as if they were a physical shell of an idea.The narrative aspect of his series is very strong and it is possible to get lost in imagining endless stories and then find yourself floating in the artist’s mind.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Anne-Sophie Brilland
SĂŠrie passage 1
Anne-Sophie Brilland
SĂŠrie passage 2
Anne-Sophie Brilland
SĂŠrie passage 3
Anne-Sophie Brilland
SĂŠrie passage 4
Anne-Sophie Brilland
SeĚ rie passage 5
Aránzazu Ulrich
Aránzazu Ulrich, is a self-taught artist, who became alone, with the clear intention of communicating and expressing to the rest of the world the values and experiences of life through any artistic means, already existing, pictorial or literary. Her hand painting, with bird imitations, is very significant. These animals have always been envied for their ability to fly, whose image has in the past been a source of study or inspiration for artists from around the world. Through their representation, ideal or not, one can transmit a feeling, an emotion. The artist, in fact, through the representation of her hands symbolizes wings, whose image is psychically linked to a feeling of freedom and immense space; through which you feel immersed in the intimacy of life. The artist in her works makes a journey within herself to understand the meaning of her existence. She goes from the simple observation of everything that surrounds her to get to understand her deepest nature as a living being. She flies free like a dreamer to find a balance between what she is experiencing and the need for lightness, she walks on earth but rises in the sky. Motherhood and the nest are two fundamental elements for Aránzazu, since ideally the house is certainly the greatest dream of any living being. A significant, sometimes spectacular space that means family. As well as man, whose imagination we know well, even animals, especially birds, are able to build wonderful nests, dwellings that seem almost castles, for harmony, grace and fantasy. This similarity, therefore, between the arguments of his art is not a coincidence but well symbolizes an indestructible rouge file, that of the life in which you are born, you grow and you take flight and then always return to our dearest affections. His painting is stylistically charged by bright colors and well-defined contours as if to emphasize the very meaning of his subjects, able to convey the very strong meaning that binds them together.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Arรกnzazu Ulrich
Prisoner of your destiny
Arรกnzazu Ulrich
The home
Arรกnzazu Ulrich
The maternity
Asuka Ripple
The year 1923 was running and Marc Chagall was at the peak of his success: his paintings, with a fairy-tale and unique style, were sought after and appreciated by critics. Vollard, a forward-looking publisher with a very fine taste, commissioned him to illustrate the printed text of Gogol’s stories. Animated by the enthusiasm that characterized his personality, Chagall threw himself headlong into the enterprise and, just completed the work, received a new commission: illustrate the fairy tales of La Fontaine. Thus, the black and white of Dorè’s lithographs were combined with the colorful and dreamlike achievements of Chagall, the only artist who, according to Vollard, was able to synthesize the work of La Fontaine and give a less literal interpretation. The fairy tales of La Fontaine are the result of the great engraving technique with which Chagall wanted to represent those “always green” fairy tales written in the seventeenth century. Fairy tales can be told, read by many books but also observed. The characters of fairy tales have always fascinated young and old. Everyone loves them and thinking of them, they go back in time to feel like children. Apparently not even artists are immune to the charm of fairy tales and fairy tales, inspired by the magical world of fantasy. Asuka Ripple, a Japanese artist with a romantic soul, is carried away by the whisper of the stars, from which her work takes its name. A work of enchanted magic takes shape from the innermost part of the artist’s soul, when she was a child. In this work Asuka wanted to nicely embody the fairy tale, as imagined and cultivated since childhood. For her, painting and experimenting with the spray art technique is always a challenge and her works contain many metaphors; the fairy tale is her starting point. A game made of reality and fantasy, two worlds that intersect and try to live together.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Asuka Ripple
The Whispers of the Stars
Audrey Y. Kao
In a Murakami novel, unicorns were the keepers of dreams and memories, Audrey’s work somehow keeps the freedom to dream, to love and to express oneself guarded. The unicorn in medieval symbolism has very important meanings, sometimes it was a representation of the Virgin, other times of the Word of God, in courtly literature it was a hunter who could only be charmed by the love of a girl. In common culture, it is easy to associate the unicorn with the fairy-tale world, the surreal and the magical. In Audrey’s work, the animal is there, it appears as if waiting, it seems that it asks the viewer to follow it, to let themselves be guided on a fantastic journey. To separate the animal from the figures in the foreground there is a tree, half tree and half rose, the latter is a symbol of admiration, devotion and love that wins over everything. The work, leaving room for the imagination, however, manages to fix very specific pivotal points, which the artist translates into symbols, nothing is left to chance, each element has a precise value and meaning, only attentive and curious eyes can see its truth. If in the foreground there is a clear reference and a true homage to Botticelli and his famous work “The Birth of Venus”, what appears evident in this case too is the meaning that this figure possesses, namely purity, beauty and simplicity. Encountering Audrey’s work means getting lost, letting oneself be carried away by imagination and emotions, following instincts and rediscovering memories, not only that, her work becomes a new type of communication, a fairytale symbolism through which we can learn and in some way, to dream. The work refers to the works of the great masters of surrealism, it seems to be in a dream, like the surrealist artists, she forces us to go beyond what the eye sees, she pushes us to look at a different reality, which it exists in a universe that cannot be touched. Audrey gives us the great gift of imagination and freedom, she leaves us free to imagine a different world, a reality that lies beyond that door at the back of the work, that’s where the unicorn comes from. Each of us, in some way, and at different doses, needs fantasy and magic.
“Reason is nothing without imagination.” (Descartes)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Audrey Y. Kao
Origin
Aurore Chesseret “The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and generously gives the products of its life and activity; it offers protection to all beings.” (Buddha)
Aurore Chesseret is an artist with a great passion for the beauty of the surrounding environment, which attracts and transports her in the creation of compositions with a naturalistic theme, through which life and energy emerge from the work itself. Even if her artistic conception is based on the scanning of space, landscapes and perspectives, the artist manages to implement these aspects with her own emotions, sensations, gestures and her great creative impulse. In fact, as in the work presented at the exhibition “Fable”, in “Enchanted Forest” both the constructive element of the painting and the typically sensitive one stand out. Forests have always been places of enchantment, magic and mystery, where extraordinary events and encounters with any imaginary species occur: every object or living being comes to life. The evolution of nature plays a fundamental role because according to its vision, as it embodies that primordial aspect in the appearance in the world of humanity. Through this painting, Aurore opens the doors to a fantastic world, where the forest can be a place of leisure, adventure or the seat of the supernatural. The abstract and surreal style is emphasized by the use of such brilliant shades that give brightness to the whole natural foliage, penetrating the two-dimensional space and helping the user to have a magical and unique experience. Aurore simulates long, full-bodied and swirling brushstrokes, especially in the central part and, by overlapping one above other, giving a very solid and dynamic look, by providing an architectural structure that defines the canvas. Their movement are made from the bottom-up or vice versa, as if they wanted to create a link between the earth and the celestial, the physical and the spiritual, the darkness and the light, until they reach the universe. The artist invites the observer to free himself from the worries of the mind, hoping for a flourishing and prosperous life where imagination is the so-called “keystone”, that essential element that unleashes dreams making them infinite.
“Ancestral feelings and personal moods awaken before nature. We see something of ourselves and in this sense, even this world is a representation of ourselves.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Aurore Chesseret
Enchanted Forest
Ayane Kurai “To display life, and to develop a Big heart are the most important techniques and goals for me. I believe that my paintings follow me and grow with me… just because painting is the voice of my soul.” (Ayane Kurai)
Colour as full, manifest, pervasive matter. Bold pigments, intense witnesses layer after layer, of the tangible proof of the elements and things that populate the world. Coating upon coating, memory upon memory, sensation upon sensation. A painting that has the faculty to summarize in itself and in its genesis the body and soul of Ayane Kurai and the reality that surrounds it. Stains of colours that can be traced back to the aroma of a steaming cup of coffee, abstract forms that sing a multi-instrumental melody, rarefied and light backgrounds like the invisible. Ayane’s creative process originates in pure experience, understood as the succession of moments, emotions and situations that constantly animate the experience. The elements of reality and the sensations of the soul, subjected to a vigorous decanting process, are reduced to their purest essence, losing any form that can be traced back to everyday life. A catharsis process is then applied to the tangible element. This purifies itself from the inessential, disintegrates its tangible physiognomy and regenerates itself with new morphology in the condensed and inseparable reality of abstract painting.
Ayane Kurai
The stain of colour becomes pure unity, it is the essence of sensorial perceptions, of emotions, of daily life. On the canvas the oil colour, the medium and driving force of this process of reduction, is then applied scraped, lifted and still stretched in a sequence of actions to dirty the white, immaculate canvas. The candid and uncorrupted space of the support, compromised by the exuberant force of the colour, becomes stained and forcibly enters into a relationship with the world of the tangible and of experience. The canvas loses its initial virgin purity and, in a relationship of interdependence, acquires the original scents, tastes, thoughts and sensations of the real dimension, of the world known to us. Fables tell stories of animals, plants and objects marked by a peculiar development of the characters. The latter behave like human beings, they are characterized by our merits and defects. These short stories have the ability to enclose within themselves the archetypal behaviours, languages and modes of thought of humanity. Ayane Kuraiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, with its process of distillation and catharsis operated on the visible, therefore behaves like a fairytale: his patches of colour scraped, spatulate and layered on the canvas tell a reality reduced to a minimum, distilled and extolled to bring to the surface the purest and most indivisible essence of vital experience.
Art Curator Lisa Galletti
Ayane Kurai
Landscape in a Dream
Ayane Kurai
To Live
Ayse Doler
Ayse Doler, a Turkish artist, started painting at young age while she attended her Medical PhD. Despite the work she continues to paint. In 2005 she decided to quit her job to devote herself completely to her career as an artist. The miniature course, that she attends during the University, leaves a great imprint on her: her works are in fact rich in small details carefully cared for. What is striking is the care for details and bright colors. Doler’s works are a modern interpretation of the Ottoman miniature. With the same technique, the artist creates subjects from her dreams using bright colors reminiscent of the psychedelic artists of the ‘60s. She presents at MADS Milano art gallery the work intitled “Sorrow of angel”, where the amount of detail is amazing. The work is formed by a large number of different types of colored flowers in which above all stand out the figures of two angels, positioned in the center of the composition. The title clearly illustrates the pain of the angels, expressed by their position: both of them cover their faces that are probably in tears. The attention to detail is surprising: angels’ wings, pink and blue respectively, are made feather for feather despite their reduced size. The element that is visually separated from the rest is the tree on the right, in the foreground, which stands out for its size and for the colors less bright than the rest. It’s a dead tree, with no branches and no leaves, and it’s probably the cause of the pain of the two angels. The message behind this apparently distant work from reality is probably to be interpreted as a cry for help from nature and from the creatures that inhabit it: the world, nature and the animals that inhabit it are suffering because of human actions. Pollution and indifference to this issue are leading the world to drift. The time has come to act and to preserve what we have left.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Ayse Doler
Sorrow of angel
Bec Joannou “Some journeys take you far from home, when you close your eyes in stillness… and Daydream.” (Bec Joannou) Storybooks are small magical caskets which, once opened, shine with a thousand colors and ignite the imagination of children. While their mother sits next to them on the bed, reading about distant worlds, their mind leaves reality, accompanied in dreams by a fairy trail. Looking at Bec’s art, we can’t do anything else, except let ourselves be captured, even us adults, by her world. The sweetness that comes from her images, brings our mind back to the past, awakening that child side, made of love and infinite fantasizing. Each of her works is a book to read. The careful attention to every detail allows our eyes to get lost in the stories of this distant world, which Bec calls Swevenia. A world inhabited by extravagant animals, who live in situations of a peaceful everyday life, where a sense of mutual protection and care hovers. In “Nightfall”, Queen Raven sits asleep with a candle in her hand, while Freyja, the fox friend, controls the little ones, who sleep safely, under the Little Prince’s book, which is open to form a hut. The connection with the natural world is important. In fact, for the protagonists, Bec is inspired by existing animals such as the crow, the fox, the cat, the armadillo, the magpie goose and many others. The same is for the places where her stories are set, in the woods, in caves or inside tiny houses, where wood is a fundamental element, both for furnishings and for heating the home. A world that each of us can explore at any time by simply closing our eyes. This is what Bec does. Every time she wants to embark on a new journey, she abandons herself to the imagination. She returns with her mind to Swevenia, letting herself be lulled by the fantasy of this fairy world, where peace and serenity reign, intimating us to do the same. She pushes us to travel with the mind, reminding us of the beauty of childhood, creativity and the liberating power of the imagination.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Bec Joannou
Baking Day at Jeremyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Bec Joannou
Contemplation at Breakfast Time
Bec Joannou
Corbinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Christmas Wish
Bec Joannou
Hush Baby
Bec Joannou
Nightfall
Belle Roth ‘We are the enigma that no one can decipher. We are the story enclosed in its own image. We are what keeps moving forward without ever getting to understand’’ (Jostein Gaarder) Artist born in the Philippine Islands, Bella Roth presents Singapore AM 1.3, a multisensory work that transports us to another universe, parallel to the one in which we find ourselves. The strong and bright colors, typical of abstract expressionism, are the bearers of a clear and decisive message that wants to attract the viewer’s attention. With a strong abstract influence, the artist interacts with the material in a functional way, creating a chromatic map with a free pattern, which reflects the values of her thought with simplicity and determination, linked for example to the defense of social equality and respect. The essential taste and the material presence of her works refer in part to the works of Jackson Pollock, father of abstract expressionism and of action painting. The sense of freedom and expressiveness present in Pollock’s works undergo a change in this case. The interpretation that the artist makes of it is a socially enganged reading, impregnated with those nuances and social beliefs that still characterize many international countries in today’s reality. By carefully observing the work, we understand how the painting consists of a triple scheme of chromatic coverage, in which we see on the first surface some bright spots of color with an expressionist taste. On the second surface a more rigid constructive scheme, created by the red pictorial material which is juxtaposed in an absolutely rational way, as if it respected an urban architecture. So far it is clear the artist’s intention of wanting to express a condition of restriction, compression, social regulation given by the red color that, impetuous, imprisons the chromatic vastness of the foreground. Finally, the composition converges in the artist’s signature, a blue spot which, as in the most beautiful fairy tales, is the brave protagonist outside the box.
Art Curator Alessia di Martino
Belle Roth
SINGAPORE AM 1.3
Carolina Chang “Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.” (William Wordsworth)
What is Nature? The word “nature” has its origins in both Latin and Greek languages. Either way, its meaning refers to life in its becoming: being born, growing and dying. This word encompasses the concept of a reality that is not static but constantly changing. There is no beginning or end, everything is connected in a continuous flow. In “Symbiosis” by Carolina Chang, this union between Man and Nature is expressed in an overbearing way. A bright red dominates the background, enhancing the acid greens used to describe the flowers. A figure from behind seems to be enchanted by the sight of so much beauty, allowing herself to be absorbed by a huge plant, which almost swallows her. The whole is narrated by the artist, in a psychedelic language, made up of fields of color, which contrast with thin black lines. Carolina alters reality, triggering in the observer contrasting sensations, where restlessness and wonder meet. Suddenly we find ourselves at the mercy of distressing but fascinating shapes that move unpredictably. The energy of Nature, is expressed here in all its strength and beauty. In a cycle of constant change, it gives us life, grows us, and then, finally, takes us away with her.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Carolina Chang
Simbiosis
Catherine Paridans “I shut my eyes in order to see.” (Paul Gauguin)
The Belgian artist Catherine Paridans to create her works full of imagination and colors, as the famous French painter says, closes her eyes and lets her imagination wander. Looking at her paintings it seems to immerse yourself in a fairy tale in which the landscapes are wrapped in a magical atmosphere and the characters seem to want to tell us their story. In “Femme et flamant rose” the protagonists are, as the title itself says, a young woman in profile while touching her sleek hair and to her left, the flamingo. The animal, in all its splendor, turns its body towards her, lowering his gaze to the ground. The light and dark colors create a perfect chromatic balance: various shades of pink, purple and blue blend in harmony with each other. In the work “Homme-Lion” the only subject is the protagonist placed in the center who occupies the entire canvas. The blue magnetic eyes that stare at us and his folded arms make us feel that the man is watching us with a spirit of observation and that perhaps he is waiting for our opinion. Maybe a consideration about the end of the story of which he is the protagonist? The voluminous mane in warm colors is created through thick curved brushstrokes and envelops the man who is wearing a rainbow-colored shirt. In “Le Printemps”, the season from which the work takes its title is perfectly described: large trees that begin to fill with beautiful flowers that color nature. The atmosphere is precisely the classic of fairy tales in which the forest is one of the miraculous environments in which magic happens. The Belgian artist with her works wants to communicate the strong emotions she herself feels when the fantasy leads her to create what can be defined as true masterpieces. Catherine teaches us that nothing like imagination can save us from the reality that often torments us: dreaming, fantasizing, this is the key to happiness.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Catherine Paridans
Le Printemps
Catherine Paridans
Homme-Lion
Catherine Paridans
Femme et flamant rose
Christine Roeloffzen “Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.” (Albert Einstein)
Christine’s language leads our minds back to a distant world, where Man and Nature once lived in symbiosis. A journey towards our origins, in the memory of a past that is now so distant and almost forgotten. Pastel-colored brushstrokes move sinuously on the canvas, filling it with flowers and female figures, dancing serenely twirling. They look like fairies, legendary creatures, that in the common imagination populate the woods. They are the spirits of Nature and, directly connected to it, feed on its energy. One of them surrenders completely to a kiss from a large plant, which approaches her by brushing her lips. From above, a flow of sap feeds them, while they let themselves be carried away, savoring with closed eyes the sweetness of nature that cradles them. Sensations of perfume and freshness spread in the air, giving our mood an inner peace. Art is an outlet for the imagination, but also a tool for investigating the human soul and awakening its memory. Christine’s art rediscovers the important connection with Nature, from which man has distanced himself over time. Not forgetting means remembering who we are, but above all it means finding the main source of our vital energy.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Christine Roeloffzen
Unity in connectedness
Christopher Rozitis
Fairy tales are fantasy tales full of mystery and enchantment, rich in the most extraordinary adventures, in which primitive beliefs linked to magic survive; in them nature comes alive with magical presences that do not hesitate to reveal themselves to men: fairies, gnomes, goblins that populate the forests, or witches and orcs who live in solitary homes, often on the edge of a forest, or in imposing castles that inspire fear. If there is one genre that has managed to capture the imagination of people of all social backgrounds, this is the fairy tale, and yet folklore scholars continue to encounter great difficulties when they try to explain its historical origins, the evolution, the diffusion and the reason why we are attracted by its charm, whatever form it takes. From the 19th century until the 1970s, visual artists generally celebrated the extraordinary optimism of fairy tales through various works: paintings, sculptures, illustrations, photographs, cartoons and films. Christopher Rozitis, for the realization of his two works, was inspired by two fairy tales that enchanted children all over the world: “The little mermaid” by Hans Christian Anderson and “Little Red Riding Hood” by the Brothers Grimm. In the common imagination, both fairy tales conceal extremely dark meanings and morals for both children and adults.
Christopher Rozitis
His vision in “Bad Wolf” and “Mermaids fairies” does not merely interpret or portray the fairy tale texts as enchanted places, of dreams, which attract the eye and invite it to bask in an idyllic environment or which distract the observer from the negativity of the everyday world, on the contrary it approaches the usual topics of the fairy tale assuming a critical perspective, Intent on upsetting the beholder and reminding him that the world is “out of hinges” and that fairy tales offer no alternative to the gloomy reality. Paradoxically, in order to save the core of hope inherent in the fairy tale, Christopher has chosen to strip the latter of beautiful princesses and heroes, as well as reassuring scenes that deceive the viewer, endowing it with different meanings through despotic figurations, grotesque, macabre or comic. This aspect appears accentuated by the use of quotations from the fairy tale itself that the artist used to show the hidden connections and encourage the viewer to move away from the story for children and to explore the dark themes for adults told by the original novel.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Christopher Rozitis
Bad Wolf
Christopher Rozitis
Mermaids fate
Cicilie Svanem
Cicilie Svanem is self-taught artist born and based in Trondheim, Norway. She mainly uses acrylic and oil to paint her abstract and figurative paintings. She takes inspirations from nature, music and people that she meets in her daily life. On the occasion of the exhibition “Fable” organized by MADS Milano art gallery, Svanem presents her painting entitled “Butterfly Woman”. Her pictorial abilities meet in this painting, in which emerges her propensity for Abstract and for figurative. In fact, the painting represents a woman from behind, whose naked body is colored blue, color that transmits calm and self-confidence. This feeling is more accentuated by her wings, ready to open to face a change. The wings, as well as the background, are rendered in an abstract way, created mostly by spots of color, recalling the style of the Informal artists of the 50’s. To create this effect, the artist creates many layers of acrylic paint through the use of a brush and a knife. After a second careful look at the canvas, you can see that the woman is walking on a walkway surrounded by people who look at her. The heads of the people mingle between the spots of the wings, remaining therefore marginal, almost imperceptible. This detail sends a message to the viewer: do what you love, show others your strength and beauty without caring about their judgment. On the other hand, the painting conceals within itself a message of emancipation, the rebirth of a woman who opens her wings and is not afraid to show herself for what is in the world, naked and beautiful.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Cicilie Svanem
Butterfly Woman
Claudia Werth
The introduction of the deities within the paintings of an allegorical contemplative was very popular in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, between Baroque, Rococo and Flemish Classicism, as evidenced by an oil on canvas by Rubens located in the Louvre, composed between 1622 and 1625, on commission of Maria de Medici, Queen of France. The presence of classical deities is thus configured not only as a recurrent motif of the artistic production of the time, but also as a subject usually employed in various fields. A story that sees its preambles in the mythological roots that of the goddess who becomes the protagonist of art works. A prominent position is definitely covered by iconographic motifs related to the figure of Venus. The goddess of beauty and love, central figure of famous masterpieces, such as the work of Sandro Botticelli. The same Venus that Apuleius calls Psyche in his “Metamorphosis” from which the fabula with the God Love is born. “The Goddess” by Claudia Werth synthesizes in its forms all the beauty and elegance of Venus, whose depth is rendered by the use of colors such as blue hair and gold to highlight the fleshy mouth and facial features. The look is chilling and seems to look straight into the eyes of the observer, almost bewitching him with his ethereal beauty.The main reason that made gold precious in the eyes of man is undoubtedly its color: glorious, shining and yellow as the sun. Since prehistoric times the star was a symbol of the main deities and to it were given cults of great importance recognizing in this the first source of life. Whenever one wanted to recall, through art, the divinity, often gold was used in figuration. Gustav Klimt made sure to make the latter protagonist, as a matter capable of transfiguring and making eternal the real.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Claudia Werth
The Goddess
Colleen Gianatiempo “Color is a means of exercising a direct influence on the soul. The color is a button, the eye the hammer that strikes it, the soul and instrument with a thousand strings.” (Vasilij Kandinskij)
Colleen Gianatiempo is an artist with a great passion for nature. Through her abstract language, composed of vivid shades and numerous textures, she interprets everything that the natural environment can offer her. She wants to highlight the complexity of the material, all the layers that are mixed to create a unique and unprecedented work of art. Her works express new concepts through the recombination of shapes, colors and lines, evoking sensations and emotions, leaving to the imagination an ample space to represent reality at its best. The expression of a strong and bursting feeling is internalized by the artist, reworking it with gestures that mark the entire work. The emotion of the moment is expressed with movement and color. Almost a primordial communication that seeks a way out in new and contemporary language. Just as in “Ebb Tide”, the artist proposes a different look through a symbolic style, capable of opening the mind to every imaginable horizon. An artistic conception which enables to undermine common believes to express universal elements, in a way to bring together different worlds and parallel universes. From the painting emerges a rational perfection and harmony that completely mark the observer’s works understanding. The work appears dynamic and every aspect comes to life from a visual and perceptive sides. The viewer is involved entirely within the canvas, in a visual, emotional, tactile and physical experience. A representation of inner and irrational energies that burst into the spectator’s soul arise. From this sensory perception begins the process that leads to the symbolic elaboration of the meaning of the work.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Colleen Gianatiempo
Ebb Tide
Cosima Becker
“Look into the colors and feel the power that pulls you up again from the depths of grief. Go astray and feel the power of things that take you into the world of fantasy”. With this phrase the German artist Cosima Becker interprets her work entitled “Unknown World”. The artist wants to push viewers out of the path, out of the box to find their fantasy. Without a doubt, Becker uses this fantasy and builds onto canvas a colorful and magical world. The vertical composition allows observers to follow a visual path that starts from the bottom to go up the entire canvas. In this sense, the artist approaches the teachings of the artist Paul Klee, who uses multiple colors to force the observers to continuously move their gaze on the canvas. Becker therefore visually builds a network of roads, enabling viewers to freely choose the visual path to follow. Viewers have the freedom to lose themselves between the colors and textures that make up the work, arriving at a personal conclusion. In “Unknown world” yellow is the background to a variety of colors: blue, orange, green and red, all rendered in bright tones, thus giving vivacity and dynamism to the canvas. On the other hand, however, the artist inserts black lines that darken the composition, letting you glimpse how in every fairy tale evil is present.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Cosima Becker
Unknown world
Damien Dombre “Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony and beauty may reign supreme.” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)
French artist Damien Dombre is a truly novice in the painting’s realm: he started to delight himself with the artistic language last summer, sharing the passion with his daughters. His creative baptism succeeds to be very powerful and suggestive. “Fable of the land and the sea” is a captivating journey through two delicate waves of complementary vibrations: cold and warm. The fluid technique adopted by the artist pours on the canvas evoking a dialogue made of colourful contrast able at the same time to gently harmonize the two opposing chromatic forces. The artwork seems to be a proper abstract representation of the two vital elements of earth: the blue and immense sea and the yellowish and solid land. And it is exactly this complementary encounter - that does not contaminate the two parts - that has the strength and the magic to evoke a narration, a fable, a sense of magnificence. Land and sea are here represented by Damien as two propulsive and multifaceted energies, that reveal and offer multiple layers of fruition for the viewers.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Damien Dombre
Fable of the land and the sea
Elena Chatokhina
Elena Chatokhina is a Russian artist, currently lives in Canada in the city of Montreal. Her main artistic purpose is to bring back to life, through modernity, the traditional Russian art called “Khokhloma”. This is the name of a Russian wood painting handicraft style and national ornament, known for its curved and vivid mostly flower, berry and leaf patterns. The artist represents on canvas the motifs and colours of this painting, using a mixed technique: golden leaf, ink, acrylics, crackling paste, sand and oil. Chatokhina presents at the MADS Milano art gallery one of her paintings belonging to the series “From Traditional to Modern”, a series created during the most tragic period of her life. Elena’s children are in fact kidnapped and the pain and despair finds refuge only within the art, which becomes for her a means of venting her negative emotions. Within the work entitled “Rusted Khokhloma” emerge symbols of hope, a feeling that never leaves the artist: a small blue butterfly stands out on the black background and an ornament of gold flower gives shine to the canvas, triggering feelings of resistance and persistence. Despair and pain emerge from the black background, rendered in a material way following the teachings of Informal Italian artists, in particular Alberto Burri’s. Chatokhina makes rough backgrounds in relief, that transmit the pain and hatred that affects society. But all this is filled with a message of hope and light. Elena Chatokhina through her art brings to light a past tradition of her country, making it personal and modern. As it is done for the fables handed down orally over the centuries, Chatokhina contributed to not let the folk traditions die, giving new life to what many people considered outdated and ancient.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Elena Chatokhina
Rusted Khokhloma
Étienne Rousseau “Revolution is the harmony of form and color and everything exists, and moves, under only one law: Life.” (Frida Khalo) Canadian artist Étienne Rousseau creates abstract canvases in which color and line represent the mirror of his deep inner world. “Don’t Leave Home”, a 2020 work made with the technique acrylic & mixed media on canvas, fascinates with its brightness and its strong evocative power. Although the composition is characterized by the presence of curved and soft lines, it is a work with great expressiveness and character. What we see is the result of a performative process of the artist’s body through which he manages to make the movement and speed of creation visible. The work, built without a pre-established plan, is made up of random and undefined forms. The pink, brighter in certain points than the others, contrasts with the black of the lines, at times faded, creating an impacting, but at the same time harmonious chromatic effect. For Étienne, therefore, lines and color are not only the means he uses to give birth to his creations, but they represent real metaphors of his sensations. Thin and thicker lines, light and dark tonalities, defined colors, and shades: “Don’t Leave Home” is a work characterized by contrasts that trigger multiple reactions in us, what Étienne defines as “special tensions”. During the making of the canvas, the artist selects a different song each time that reflects his mood of that moment and listens to it in a loop throughout the creation process. In this case, the involving and exciting soundtrack chosen was the inspiration for the title of the work: Don’t Leave Home, by singer Dido. The fascinating works of the young artist transport us into a magical world full of energy in which each of us, through an inner journey, can review a part of himself and of his own experience.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Étienne Rousseau
Don’t Leave Home
Eva Kjøl Slind
Eva Kjøl Slin is a Norwegian painter whose passion for art has always been with her since a young age. The painting ‘Mystery Forest’ is able to directly put in contact the viewer with the very intimate artistic dimension of the artist. In fact to Eva ‘[..] painting is a place where she forgets time and place. She loves nature, peace and love, and hopes that her paintings will give people a peace of mind’. The artwork represents a view on a natural landscape, perhaps a Norwegian forest, perhaps dear to the artist’s sensibility. A view that may recall a precious sense of belonging with her land, with her roots. At the same time the artist, almost tenderly jealous to let the viewer identifying the represented place, paints ‘Mystery forest’ with a mystifying and enigmatic aura. The artificial yellowish/greenish sky colour evokes a sunrise that irradiates the dark and dense forest. A lake reflects and embraces once again the dark tones of the forest’s trees offering to the viewers a pure sublime vision of natural harmony. An honest natural representation, full of ecstatic and bright colours but also full of mysterious and cryptic elements. The piece created by the intimate artist’s gaze gives back to the audience a pure calming and almost nostalgic experience, as if we had all witnessed to the same spectacle and we would all wish to come back there.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Eva Kjøl Slind
Mystery forest
Fatima Bush
Mexican artist Fatima Bush presents at MADS Milano art gallery two works which are closed connected with the theme of the exhibition “Fable”. The artist’s technique recalls the world of fairy tales, managing through simple figures to reach child’s soul within us. Behind these apparently simple and colourful works, lie important messages that the artist chooses to represent through animals. The connection with the satirical works of the Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi is inevitable. Like Kuniyoshi, Bush uses animals as a vehicle to report human behavior. The first work analyzed here is entitled “Objecto de burla”, which means “target of mockery”. The work represents a stork, the one who brings life into the fairy-tale imagination, who captures a fox in a jar. The fox represents the evil, the lightness with which people make fun of others, regardless of the effects that this may have on life. The stork therefore embodies the good, the desire to stop these acts of derision that often cause strong repercussions to those who suffer them.
Fatima Bush
The choice to create a dark background leads the observer to focus on the subjects and thus imagine a story. The second work, entitled “Pastor de mentiras”, refers to a deeper concept, alluding to today’s society. The work represents a man’s body with a wolf’s face. The wolf is always the villain in every story, just think of the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” or the “Three Little Pigs”, so this anthropomorphic figure embodies the evil that is rooted in every society. Inside the stomach of this figure are trapped colored sheep and on the left is the shepherd, desperate to have lost his flock. The sheep symbolize society, which sometimes finds itself subject to the dictates of a corrupt government, but often chooses and accepts all this without doing anything. Bush sends strong messages through simple and linear representations that, as in admiring Surrealist paintings, leave you speechless.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Fatima Bush
Pastor de mentiras
Fatima Bush
Objeto de burla
Fransie Malherbe Frandsen “We don’t so much get to choose our subjects as our obsessions choose us.” (John Irving) Fransie Malherbe Frandsen was born in South Africa. After studying art and graphic design in Denmark and the United Kingdom, she completed a post-graduate in Art Pshycotherapy, a sector in which she operated for several years. She currently lives and paints from her studio in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, Fransie writes and illustrates children’s books. Fransie’s work is strongly influenced, not only by the memories of her childhood in politically challenged South Africa, but also by her experience, as Art Psychotherapist, in working with troubled and marginalised individuals. The recurring theme is the analysis of power in its different forms, especially in terms of abuse, in our society. Starting from Karl Marx’s statement “ religion is the opium of people”, Fransie introduces a philosophical reflection on the humans’ need, since the very beginning, to look for an answer on the origin of life in the concepts of a God. Religion can in fact take an obsessive connotation, sometimes even dangerous, when the idea of faith is distorted and used as a tool to justify other types on interests, like conflicts or the violation of fundamental human rights. The strict respect for dogmas can, as a matter of fact, lead to a one-sided approach which can become fanaticism and negation of the individual personality and will. These artworks reflect the artist’s profound sense of empathy for the neglected, especially children, with the aim of giving voice to their pain and their desperate need to be heard. The obsessive attention to violated rights and the representation of shattered lives finds its expression in the frequent use of elements such as birds, dragonflies and butterflies that become symbols of the desire for rebirth and redemption. Fransie uses mixed media and digitally altered images, which are then manually transferred onto the board. Layers of acrylic paint and glazes allow Fransie to create compositions where the depicted objects and people seem to have the chance of living a new life; in this way the artist is willing to offer her characters a second chance.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Fransie Malherbe Frandsen
Helen
Fransie Malherbe Frandsen
Kindness Contagion
Fransie Malherbe Frandsen
Mind Full
Fransie Malherbe Frandsen
Stargazer
Fransie Malherbe Frandsen
Worn
Gabo Gussen “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.” (Ansel Adams)
In order to create “Gaivota Do Titicaca”, the Brazilian artist Gabo Gussen followed the process he usually uses to give life to his works: taking inspiration from a photograph, in this case taken in 2015 in Copacabana, Bolivia, precisely from the shores of Lake Titicaca, has created a romantic landscape painting of which the seagull in the center is the absolute protagonist. Leaning on a white boat of which only one end can be seen, the animal, portrayed realistically in every detail, turns its proud gaze straight in front of him. Observing the work you can breathe an atmosphere of peace and serenity, with a relaxing background: the waters of the lake are calm and from the blue sky without a cloud it is clear that, at the time of taking the photo, there was a pleasant and sunny day. The colors used are characterized by bright tonalities, but perfectly matched to each other. The work, in fact, presents an excellent chromatic balance: the white of the boat and the seagull contrast with the blue of the lake and the light blue of the sky. A touch of green and beige was used to represent the natural landscape in the background. Using a particular technique that mixes photography with digital painting, Gabo, through his works, takes us on a magical imaginary journey that catapults us directly into the reality he creates. The viewer, observing the seagull, dreams of being seated on the shores of Lake Titicaca surrounded by nature and warmed by the sun. The seagull, symbol of freedom, could be the protagonist of a fairytale with a moral in which, during his travels, he tells the strange adventures he lives by drawing wise teachings from them.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Gabo Gussen
Gaivota do Titicaca
Gabriele Gracine “Everyone else have seen what is already there and have asked themselves why. I saw what it could be, and I wondered myself why not.” (Pablo Picasso) The artist Gabriele Gracine develops new frontiers to immerse herself in different dimensional spheres. Using a wide range of techniques to creatively express herself, Gabriele modifies and emphasizes the process of conceiving images and their fruition. Through the works presented at the exhibition “Fable”, the artist wishes to set an interactive and spectacular universe, through which the observer is capable of taking out the most from of his perceptive and sensorial qualities, reaching a completely personalized satisfaction. These “freeform digital paintings” are so dynamic and instantaneous, with the aim of emphasizing the transfer of data and sensations in real time. What fascinates the viewer is the set of innovative contents which Gabriele made up, where the three dimensions merge with a fourth one, the infinite and mysterious one, that time-space continuum which is represented in a completely concrete way. By going beyond the boundaries between subjectivity and objectivity, material and immaterial, art and information, till completing her work, Gabriele projects the concepts and images she wants to express in a well-defined space, leaving aside the superstructures she feels extraneous to her own thought. For example, as if it were inside a museum, but completely interactive, in “Exhibit A” a transformation of the digital universe takes place, understood as a creative, subjective and original activity that favors the establishment of new communicative and cultural processes. Or in “Promises”, “Extrovert” and “Prosper” the color and that light movement are the main characters, giving a new symbolism and arousing different emotions and moods in the observer. Finally, in “Summer Dress” it emerges a strong dynamism that emphasizes every chromatic choice of the artist and, through the use of such warm and delicate shades, the reference to summer carefreeness is evident. By going forward traditional artistic gestures, Gabriele Gracine’s imagination aims at a surreal dimension, without following certain patterns and rules, giving free rein to his creativity through multimedia.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Gabriele Gracine
Exhibit A
Gabriele Gracine
Extrovert
Gabriele Gracine
Promises
Gabriele Gracine
Prosper
Gabriele Gracine
Summer Dress
Gala Zabruskova
Gala Zabruskova is an art photographer based in Russia. ‘For years in photography, I have noticed that my attraction is a story. I always look for plot development stories and I like emotional and dynamic shots with unusual and expressive characters. […] It is not just a fancy image I want to depict, but also a complicated picture where every single detail has its meaning. That is why fairytales and legends are my favorite sources of inspiration’. Gala’s ability to tell stories through staged and highly curated still image finds here an almost dichotomous though fascinating duet: ‘Syrin’ and ‘Tiny Ballerina’, symbols the artist’s eclectic approach to storytelling. ‘Syrin’ representes a more dark yet very elegant fabulous character while ‘Tiny Ballerina’ makes the viewers immersing into a more oneiric and idyllic dimension, bright and soft. “In Slavic mythology Syrin is the bird of sorrow. Her magic voice could make people forget about everything and follow her to get lost forever”. The picture represents a woman dressed up with dark clothes covered in dark feathers and with a black sharp diadem. The bird bringing sorrow is here symbolized by Gala as a woman, who evokes both an ecstatic beauty the viewer capturing from, and a maleficent aura, premonitory of something more obscure.
Gala Zabruskova
To cede to sorrow and a sense of perdition can be more easy than we think, as every danger per se has always had an attractive and morbid element to people. Instead, on a complete different vibration, but perhaps complementary to Gala’s poetics, ‘The tiny Ballerina’ is a way more positive and reassuring picture. ‘[…]It is the result of the collaboration with the Kremlin ballet dancer Arina Tomilina (@arina.t.t) and a talented Moscow scenery designer Mila (@likmua)’. The dancer dressed up in pink poses while being embraced by a flower placed in a lake. A magical aura dances around the ballerina, bringing the viewer’s experience on a proper journey into a fairytale. The delicacy of the chromatic choices and the grace of the girl capture the audience’s eyes into something not real, but still familiar. The photographer, thanks to her unique identifying style, made of a ‘preexistent screenplay’, is able to perfectly tells stories by merely using one detailed and reflective picture. Nevertheless, the fictional setting of the picture functions primarily as the means to tell stories of an authentic subjectivity - Gala’s one - made of real emotions, intuitions, anguishes, fantasies, hopes.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Gala Zabruskova
Sirin
Gala Zabruskova
Thumbelina
Harry T. Burleigh The artist Harry T. Burleigh represents women as a supreme beauty and full of grace, which plays a vital role in his artistic conception. The way she is portrayed and the symbolic role she plays have changed over the centuries, as artistic techniques and styles have evolved, as aesthetic tastes have changed and as the role of women in society has changed. The artist imagines a non-realistic but idealized figure of the woman, creating a perfect marriage with mythology, by depicting her as if she was the goddess Venere/Aphrodite: the great naturalness and sensuality typical of Greek sculptures are emphasized, bringing out a slight dynamism of her body. The feelings of faith and passionate love are mixed, as if the woman was completely abandoned to the ecstasy of the emotions experienced between spiritual and mythological dimensions. As for example in “Arrival of Mithras”, Harry T. Burleigh dedicates his work to the god Mithras: as far as this divinity is concerned, there is a not always homogeneous but certainly conspicuous transmission, both of rites, myths and spiritual values. The artist seems to portray Mithras as a woman, uniting the divine and the human aspects in a close bond. The silhouette of the young woman is illuminated as if it was struck by beam of light coming from the sky, symbolizing the strength of the Sun, that star that gives life and fertility in nature, filled with infinite energy. While in “Dionysus”, this divinity had a particular relevance both in classical and Hellenistic times and from the Renaissance period onwards, being expressed in many shapes, including sculpture, painting and abstract-philosophical thought through the music and theatre. The very nature of this god is deeply feminine, a symbol of “diversity”, madness and pleasure without limits: for these reasons she is one of the most fascinating and contradictory deities of the Greek mythology. In fact, drawing inspiration from all this, the artist represents the bursting vitality of nature from the moment of its awakening, through an unparalleled devotion and dedication. He emphasizes the divine and sensual aspects, suspended between sensitive and over-sensitive, in which the observer can admire the deep ecstasy caused by all that atmosphere slightly blurred by a convivial pleasure. Finally, in “Falicitus Bourrée”, the wavy and supple lines recall the sensuality of feeling and to her body. From being an inspiring muse, angelic or a tempting presence, up to a mysterious entity, Harry represents this female figure upside down, almost poised between appearing gentle and bewitching nymph, being an eternal heavenly source, a clear manifestation of that vivid and joyful art.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Harry T. Burleigh
Falicitus BourreĚ e
Harry T. Burleigh
Arrival of Mithras
Harry T. Burleigh
Dionysus
Hashem Khair “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” (Oscar Wilde) The Jordanian artist Hashem Khair perfectly embodies in his works the concept expressed in the famous quote by the Irish writer: he loves the world of art because it is free, because it transcends all limits of the imagination and communicates sensations without the need for any words. Hashem creates works of which the bright but well-balanced tonalities reflect his lively, cheerful, but at the same time profound personality. In “Chunkie”, a large fish emerges from the white background which, with its curved shapes, occupies the entire sheet. The animal, of which blue and red are the main colors, opens its eyes wide and opens its hungry mouth to eat something. In “Noisy”, a nice smiling face looks at the viewer as if to enjoy being provocative with him and, as the title says, make noise and create confusion. The canary yellow and sky blue that define the features contrast with the brown of the face, creating a curious chromatic effect. “Proposals” is different from the two previously described works, both for the colored background and for the subjects, two in this case, of which a moment of sharing is represented. Although the facial features are not defined, the position of the bodies suggests that a dialogue is taking place between the two. On the left, the man, drawn with stylized lines, goes towards the woman represented with a large yellow and red dress. The cold blue of the background makes the colors used for the two protagonists stand out, symbolizing the playful and happy atmosphere created during their meeting. Hashem is a young artist with an incredible imagination and great talent who, through his works, communicates to the spectators his intense and pure inner world of which the metaphor are the original protagonists he conceived.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Hashem Khair
Proposals
Hashem Khair
Noisy
Hashem Khair
Chunkie
Hege Rasmussen Silderen
Hege Rasmussen Silderen is a Norwegian artist based in Trondheim. To the painter, art is an intimate means to express and give shape to her inner dimension and inspirations. ‘Angeldance’ represents an angel on a colourful background. In art the angelic figure has multiple meanings: not only the connection between the earth and the heaven but also a powerful figure that proves the existence of another world/dimension. In this case, ‘Angeldance’ appears as a celestial vision with a magical spirit that emanates all his power and encourages the audience to transcend the realm of the real. Like the Albion of William Blake that shines with its own light and dazzles the viewer, the angel takes up the entire scene. But while Blake represents with strong and vivid colours a naked man stands on a rock, Hege adopts instead a mix of delicate shades that evokes the Northern light, an incredible phenomenon that has fascinated people for centuries, visible only in certain areas of the world, including the one where the artist comes from. Hege developed her own technique to depict and show to the spectator her relationship with art and her creations. ‘Angeldance’ spurs the audience to dream and believe in something better as it would happens in fairy tales: where the power of art and magic are synergically combined.
Art Curator Ylenia De Giosa
Hege Rasmussen Silderen
Angeldance
Hennariikka Kittelä
Hennariikka Kittelä is a Finnish artist whose creative sensibility is mainly conveyed by the creation of collages. An eclectic artistic language that focuses on a wide and handcrafted approach to art: blending colours, modelling shapes and, in the artist’s case, giving also new life and form to analog materials. In this sense, making collage is an act of conservation and fragmentation of culture, that is able to produce new personal and intimate strategies of artistic narrative. Hennariikka, with a former background in clothing design, transposed her skill in playing with the chromatic sphere and in shaping contents on the white canvas. ‘My main focus in my collages is to make people smile. I´ve lived in Finland all my life and I wanted to bring color and happiness in the long, dark, cold winters. Even though my works might sometimes be little provocative and bold, there can still be a little humor and beauty in them’. The artwork Rusalka represents a black and white naked feminine body whose head is almost completely covered by colourful marine creatures. ‘In Slavic mythology, a rusalka is something akin to the Celtic mermaids or the Greek sirens. In short, rusalki are beautiful young women who dwell in bodies of water and enjoy enticing men. The concept of rusalki originated from a Slavic pagan tradition where the young women were symbols of fertility’. Rusalka aims at exalting the ancient beauty and a sense of eternity and prosperity through the re-contextualisation of the mythological figure, through the use of chromatic contrasts and elements of ‘old and new’ language combined together. Collage art becomes a cathartic means to express feelings on canvas and to also produce new meanings from amorphous materials and to imagine new fables from old symbols. And it is through this process that the artist’s subjectivity is strongly able to emerge.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Hennariikka Kittelä
Rusalka
Hugo Auler, Jr
The artist Hugo Auler Jr. explores all types of colors and textures, drawing inspiration from life situations, people and the natural environment: in this way, through his artistic conception he manages to connect himself with the universe. Hugo Auler is looking for new ways to paint and to bring exciting ideas to his works. Exposing the principles of his aesthetic vision, he finds his perfect place and application in the field of painting and in the various aspects of everyday life. In fact, to escape from the daily routine, his art is conceived to be a therapy: the canvas, the colors and all his creativity emerge from his works and catch the observer’s attention, both visually and emotionally. A focal point of his artistic process turns out to be the imagination, which represents such a decisive and strong factor, a fantastic and unexpected moment. Abstraction that emerges from his paintings, provides a more faithful image of reality than illusionistic representations of objects from the visible and material world. As can be seen in “Geometry”, a progression of the pictorial language is showed: recalling Piet Mondrian with “Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow”, Hugo presents a geometric abstraction, based on the theory of artistic but also spiritual evolution, forming a total environment that affects modern life. The squares and rectangles are defined by vertical and horizontal lines, largely contributing to the visual and abstract communication. The different brushstrokes define several geometric figures, defining the totality of the work. The essentiality of this painting is illustrated, transcending detail to express the universal: this one must be something that goes beyond the surface of nature. The representation of an inner reality is emphasized through the interaction of contrasting pictorial elements, giving impulse to a chromatic harmony and a balance of dynamic forces. It is interesting to note this emphasis on lines, colors and geometric shapes. While in “Rainforest cry for help”, the artist brings humanity in front of a truly striking fact: recalling the fire that occurred in the Amazon rainforest, Hugo Auler defends that green lung of the planet, source of oxygen and priceless heritage of animal and plant biodiversity. The message is crystal-clear: the orange line immersed in the green shows that the climate change is real, so the observer is involved and pushed to make an examination his actions, in order to start a process of preservation not only about the forests, but also for of all the natural environment that helps us to grow and live. Going beyond the artistic movement of Cubism, the fragmentation of tree shapes becomes increasingly abstract, starting from dark green to their complete dissolution in white. Finally, in “Where Earth meet...” the artist gives harmony and balance, relaxing the mind and body of the observer, by unveiling his emotional side. The blue color has no end, where the sky merges with the deep sea, continuing to mirror each other forever. All confirms this tonality as the main symbol of infinity, in order to reach that sense of protection and welcome capable of making a rebirth possible. But after all, what does the Earth encounter? Hugo Auler invites the observer to let himself go in this dynamic flow, in his moods, in the energy around him and in the desire to see what comes next.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Hugo Auler, Jr
Geometry
Hugo Auler, Jr
Rainforest cry for help
Hugo Auler, Jr
Where Earth meetsâ&#x20AC;¦
Irene Pietrobono
Irene Pietrobono is an Italian architect based in Milan. ‘In 2012, her growing passion for art led her to create, together with Alessandro Di Bono, partner in life, the artistic project ArteMonium and the choice to sign the works with the initials IP by Artemonium. Since then art has taken on an increasingly important role, painting becomes part of a process of personal growth and expression.’ The Japanese term yūgen points out not only the charm of the scarcely illuminated things whose limits and details cannot be fully understood, but it is also referred to what, in being obscure, is mysterious and inscrutable as beyond human understanding. The cathartic feeling of being able, through our receptive sensibility, to capture a signifying element of an artwork, is perhaps what the artist shows on canvas, in having that same introspective approach with her creations. ‘Yugen’ by Irene represents an imaginary locus amoenus through multiple chromatic tones. ‘Yugen’ symbolises a cavern, a cave that recalls a refuge or a special place, magical not only for those who create and conceive it but also for those who get to contemplate and experience it. Artists and philosophers debated on the relationship between symbolic ‘places’ and the human being: from the Lascaux’s caves to the myth of Plato’s cave, metaphor of our limits, to mysterious scenarios in which it is easy to get lost but also to start fantasizing about. ‘Yugen’ places its viewer in front of a variegated chromatic field, rather dark and intense, effective in stimulating a sensation of restlessness and curiosity, amazement and wonder. And it is when the individual becomes aware of the ‘mystery’ of the world surrounding him that he does not longer perceive it as a threat but, on the contrary, he accomplishes a reassuring feeling.
Art Curator Ylenia De Giosa
Irene Pietrobono
YUGEN
Isis Adriana Alvarado Diaz, a.k.a. fourtoeight “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
The woman-nature combination is very old. The fundamental role of procreatress and the resulting instincts, make the female figure, a being closely connected to the natural world in a visceral and profound way. In art, there are many examples on the subject. Man has always had the need to tell about this bond and each time with a different language. “The Birth of Venus” by Botticelli, “Dance” by Matisse, “L’Origine du monde” by Courbet, are just a few examples. Isis Adriana Alvarado Diaz, a.k.a. fourtoeight, continues this research, making art an instrument of liberation from reality. The female figures represented here are immersed in nature and take on idyllic connotations. Through bold brushstrokes with intense colors, she constructs her imaginations, telling us about an ethereal world, accessible only with the imagination. A young mermaid lets herself be touched by the fish surrounding her, a fairy sits alone with a fruit in her hands. Her paintings hide a melancholy vein, but the ability in the contrast of colors gives strength and energy. A wonderful combination of sensations and feelings emerges. Nature thus becomes the key to open the door to the impetuous wind of imagination and a refuge where you can get away from reality.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Isis Adriana Alvarado Diaz, a.k.a. fourtoeight
Divided
Isis Adriana Alvarado Diaz, a.k.a. fourtoeight
Fairy with papaya
Isis Adriana Alvarado Diaz, a.k.a. fourtoeight
If I had a tail
Jane Gottlieb
Observing the works of artist Jane Gottlieb is a unique and inimitable experience: it really seems to enter another world. Jane’s works offer the vision of the real world but as if it were something extraordinary, fairytale. The world of fairy tales is in fact unique for its ability to build other worlds and take us far away with the imagination. And it is precisely the imagination that Jane’s works stimulate, as well as the desire to reach these magical places. Jane has the ability to transform an absolutely everyday place into something magical and surreal. As in the work entitled “Storybook cottage”, an English cottage is transformed into the ideal setting for a fairy tale, which makes us dream of being in a pleasant place surrounded by nature. Or by entering the work “Eletric Egypt” we are ready to start new and fantastic adventures to discover a magical place like the desert. But Jane’s works are also populated with fantastic and unusual characters, who in the real world could only be the fruit of our imagination, but who here are the protagonists and inhabitants of these places. The big pink elephant, the protagonist of the homonymous work, seems to invite us to enter this enchanted forest: he will be the one to lead us into this magical world. Instead, in the work “Escape” a real magic happens: the static and immobile horses of a carousel come to life, run away and begin to gallop free on the meadow. In the work “Butterfly Sky”, the world we know is completely upset, because small and beautiful butterflies become immense creatures that dominate the skies. It seems like hearing the opening words of all fairy tales: once upon a time, in a fantastic place with sparkling colors and a magical atmosphere...
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Jane Gottlieb
Electric Egypt
Jane Gottlieb
Pink elephant
Jane Gottlieb
Storybook cottage
Jane Gottlieb
Escape
Jane Gottlieb
Butterfliy Sky
Jeff Curran “Nature is a temple where living pillars murmur at times indistinct words; man passes through forests of symbols that observe him with familiar glances.” (Charles Baudelaire) The artist Jeff Curran pursues a defined artistic vision, producing images that reflect his journey and passion for exploration. Photography helps him to document the world around him, preserving memories and highlighting the complexities of the everyday environment. This confirms that for the artist nature takes the role of a visual event, just like in the works of impressionist painters. The images have a strong communicative value and invite the observer to admire them, thus triggering an emotional response. His aim is to visually catch and narrate a story that evokes feelings and draws the viewer into the scene. In fact, in “The Enchanted Forest” the artist creates a stable and well-structured composition through the contrast between the vertical lines of the trees and the horizontal lines of the ground, dedicating himself completely to the landscape. As in Gustav Klimt’s work “Beech Forest I”, Jeff Curran immortalizes the different trunks, where each trunk is different from the other in thickness, size and trend. One can get the impression that there are no points of reference, although the horizon is in stark contrast with the rest of the photography. A hidden geometry of the image is created by recalling one of the protagonists of geometric abstractionism as Piet Mondrian. All these trees reach the sky like columns in a cathedral created by the environment. Moreover, the artist manages to dwell on the mysterious and dark nature of the forest, creating a sparkling effect of light, far from reality. Jeff Curran’s style is a fusion of naturalistic elements of extreme decorative elegance that reaches the limit of an entirely fantastic dimension. This forest catches the observer by making him part of the work, beyond time and space.
“The straight lines in opposition to each other constantly intersect, so that their rhythm continues throughout the work.” (Piet Mondrian)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Jeff Curran
The Enchanted Forest
JoAnne Ruggeri
International artist with extraordinary communication skills through her collages tells us and explores profound concepts such as that of “real” and “unreal”, deepening cognitive aspects that revolve around the dimension of dreams, memory and fantasy, wrapping us in the deepest sphere given by our subconscious. Having the good fortune to meet and be able to admire a live work of this extraordinary artist is a unique opportunity to make a wonderful journey in search of ourselves, within our deepest and most authentic self. It is like having a chance to get in touch with our subconscious to access our personal internal narratives, imaginary, precious resources and be able to group them in our mind and from which we usually access only when we dream. This is exactly what happens in front of a work by this artist, all those elements that are part of our deepest interiority re-emerge. A real path that allows us to give voice to our most authentic and true self. How much of everything we experience is real or unreal? Thus in this extraordinary work the artist creates a collage of several elements that enter into dialogue with each other precisely to deepen and explore these aspects, involving us in a unique experience of extreme charm. Works that stimulate the observer’s attentive gaze and her mind, a pleasant invitation to explore and explore more and more and more deeply as a real introspective journey within oneself. Art and psychology in the works of JoAnne Ruggeri real personal narratives in which to reflect and recognize oneself. So even in the choice of its technique, collage, reflects exactly these concepts, indeed it strengthens them a lot as a concrete expression of a conscious and concrete self that becomes a narrative tool and spokesperson for an inner change that takes shape and style through a figurative language rich in note. Living an art experience through direct contact with a work by this artist means having the extraordinary opportunity to carry out a highly significant introspective work towards oneself. The precious and wonderful gift of a brilliant artist like JoAnne.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
JoAnne Ruggeri
Travaux de Maçonnerie
Johann Neumayer
As a designer, Joahnn Neumayer’s artistic production is influenced by different techniques belonging to different realities, which the artist makes complementary. Artist and designer coexist and create imaginary worlds, as can be seen in the “The Space and dream imaging machine” serie. The use of Rhino software allows the artist to create three-dimensional models that lend themselves to 3D printing.The main image is repeated and it is about the woman. Image number one seems to focus on the person, the representation of faces that do not look at each other is related to the inattention to the people who everyday we come across. The use of bright and contrasting colors refers to psychedelic art. Purple is a cold color and tends to suggest coolness. However, in image number two the determination is highlighted, the female figures are represented in such a way as to give a glimpse of concentration, intention and decision. It is perceived a perfectly straight posture, even if eyes are not represented you can feel the gaze fixed in front of you. The use of red demonstrates the intention to express movement, red means vital energy. Blue, on the other hand, has many different meanings and lends itself to as many interpretations, it has a widely recognized emotional power , just think of Picasso’s Blu Period. In the following images, other elements are inserted, there are background colors which can represent the world. The amount of colors frames the figures and makes them one with the rest of the images inserted. From image number three the attention is shifted from the upper bodies part to the lower one. In this image colors are multiplied, we have black which indicates power, elegance and mystery. The use of green, that kind of green can be interpreted as the metaphor of the world, but green can also signify acid, poison. Orange is the color of enthusiasm, excitement, heat. In the image number four figures multiply, but more importance is given to full bodies representation. Images are overlapped, multiplied, some of them are so linked that it is almost impossible distinguish them. This can become a human relations metaphor, some people are totally disconnected, others, closely linked. Purple and blue are the predominant colors.In the image number five, very similar to the third one, colors are changed and different elements are added, if in the third image the whole figure that is placed at the bottom left is disconnected from other elements, in the last image a very clear connection is shown. Where there was black now there is transparency, blue becomes a rainbow, red disappears and yellow, orange, light blue and light green are shown. In image number five it seems that Neumayer wants to methaporize with images the ideal relationships between human beings: transparent, positive, luminous. Think about relations, mental connections which can be established with others can be negative sometimes. Johann Neumayer seems to want to represent the world of human relations, sometimes disenchantment, sometimes the importance given to career distracts from what happens in the world around us, or again, at times human relationships can weigh on people individuality. Neumayer creativity allows you to get in touch yourself and ask questions, boundaries and imaginative limits are deleted by the artist expressive capacity who by doing so gives life to unique works.
Art Curator Martina Viesti
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 1
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 2
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 3
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 4
Johann Neumayer
The space and dream imaging machine - 5
Juliusz Kegel
The artist Juliusz Kegel presents five new and unpublished works at the M.A.D.S. gallery, bringing out his inner figuration that evokes magical fusions and luminous depths. He transforms objective nature and the surrounding reality into his personal poetics and acute artistic sensitivity. The thematic, coloristic, dynamic evolution of his paintings is manifested through the innate perspective relief, in the sharp vibrant color of light and vital energy, in the immediacy of visual perception and in the jubilation of the image. The relative objectivity coincides with the absolute subjectivity, highlighting the details and tones in a universal ethic of perceptive sensations and in an infinite range of chromatic gradations. Through this coloristic and compositional research, the artist, in fact, transmits messages of life that are sublimated by art. For example, in “Exit” Juliusz wants to invite the observer to go beyond that brick wall and enter the immensity of the art world. As in this work, even in “Running River” and “Sea View” the pivotal element revolves around a purely material concept of painting, emphasizing every detail of the canvas and bringing out the purity and vivacity of color. The viewer’s perception creates a link with these works and is able to capture organic forms. While in “None colour” and “The Starry Moon”, the artist gives free rein to movement, creating a dynamism that immediately captures and involves the viewer. In these chromatic frenzies, the viewer can follow every direction taken by numerous shades, joining the works and actively participating in the creative act. As in a dance, in an action not conceived and not planned in the modes of execution and in the final effects, the color strikes the canvas where the subconscious is aiming at: it is the unconscious part of the psyche that is indelibly imprinted on the work. Going beyond the mediation of the brush to preserve the immediacy of the creative impulse, Juliusz Kegel gives his works energetic brushstrokes and material textures, through a rhythmic movement that reveals the artist’s ego, and all vital tension is transferred from the canvas to the observer.
“Painting is not an aesthetic act: it is a form of magic intended as a work of mediation between this foreign world and us.” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Juliusz Kegel
None colour
Juliusz Kegel
Exit
Juliusz Kegel
Running River
Juliusz Kegel
Sea View
Juliusz Kegel
The Starry Moon
Junghee Lee (Maki) “It is Mâyâ, the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals, and makes them behold a world of which they cannot say either that it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it is like the sunshine on the sand which the traveller takes from afar for water.” (Arthur Schopenhauer) Art as a means to rise from everyday life. To uproot oneself from the world of reality in order to gently fall into the world of ideas and slowly savour new creative epiphanies that have been forgotten for too long. To look away from the incessant and repeated routine, from the dilemmas and choices to which we are constantly exposed, to go against a certain and guaranteed reality to embrace the trembling of the unknown. An unknown which, in reality, is the essence of all things. Art has the ability to make visible what is hidden and has the capacity to develop, through its multiple mediums, embryos of ideas that have been waiting too long to be generated and come to light. Space, time and causality, our knowledge of the world is purely illusory. What we see and perceive, our habits, manias and vices are nothing but a hard and almost impregnable shell that prevents us from reaching the truth, the authentic essence of the world. This barrier, a sneaky and constantly present veil of Maya, takes us away from the purest form of things, to embrace a reality that takes fictions and superficial elements as a glue and as its constitutive elements. Art produces a breach in the armour, it throws you into the unknown, into unexplored places which, although poorly illuminated, guard the true essence of the world, the noumenon. The passage from a sunny environment to a dark room requires a particular effort for the eye to get used to the sudden change of brightness and to adapt to darkness. Much like the human retina, the creative process produces in the individual an initial state of confusion, a situation of positive change that, once disintegrated the armor of reality is resolved in the discovery of the essence of the world. Maki decides to move away from the elements that subjugate everyday life, bypassing the working parenthesis that tacitly englobes you in a spiral of monotony and insistent solicitations. She decides to dissociate herself from the purely material world to find herself in another place, through new ways of expression. In this sense, Maki has embarked on the path of art, a path that for her is still studded with trials and experimentation, enlightening ideas and creative epiphanies that tear the suffocating veil of Maya that she has dragged on her shoulders all her life. Just as the pilgrim who, during his long journeys, discovers new places, tastes new foods and forges bonds with new souls, so Maki makes a journey in colours, in pictorial matter, in techniques and in the lives of those who, with a brush in hand, have preceded her. In Silence, which recalls Rothko’s large canvases, a thick layer of white spatulate paint covers a coloured surface that is difficult to identify. A veil of Maya that, dense, opaque and textured, hides underneath itself that world so complex and multiform that Maki has just found again.
Art Curator Lisa Galletti
Junghee Lee (Maki)
Purple feast
Junghee Lee (Maki)
Silence
Junghee Lee (Maki)
Time stopped
Kayla Branstetter “On the floor I’m at ease, so I feel closer to the painting, I can walk through it, I can approach it from all sides and literally I get into it.” (Jackson Pollock) At the exhibition “Fable”, the artist Kayla Branstetter presents an energetic and impressive work. “Life’s Dance” stands out from any pre-established form, where strong sensations are fully realized through lines and colors blended in freedom or combined outside of a rational order. The instinctive impulse prevails over the reason and its superstructures, catching in this way, the observer’s attention with all the dynamism that is generated inside the painting. This movement affects every part of the body, as well as every perceptive faculty of the observer. Through such an immediate and spontaneous technique, free from any scheme, a close bond is created between the artist, the painting and the spectator, to allow a close proximity with the pictorial material, where each element becomes part of it. As in Jackson Pollock’s works, in this painting one perceives a chaotic image, an interweaving of lines and nuances, the result of an impetuous and vital gesture. The abstract and geometric themes originate from the deepest parts of the mind, bring out what are the most unconscious motivations of the individual. The sketches of color of different liveliness are constantly assembled and mixed, while at the same time they emphasize an intense harmony. Expressing all this energy, Kayla gives rise to an explosion, both of chromatic nuances and contrasting feelings in the observer. Without the limit of the frame, but rather beyond that border. The dynamic action and the different moods generated in the canvas a powerful and expressive language, in which the observer is involved, letting himself be carried away by the impetuous atmosphere of the work.
“The big moment came when it was decided to paint... Just to Paint! The gesture on the canvas was an act of liberation.” (Harold Rosenberg)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Kayla Branstetter
Lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dance
Kiyomi Baird
The five artworks on the display “Fable” exhibition made by Kiyomi Baird, are the result of enhanced work using computers and a software. Drawing inspiration from her photographs or previously scanned objects, the artist wishes to evoke a meditative feeling from which images can shine in the viewer’s imagination. Through digital use, Kiyomi creates works that are completely different and original, both in terms of the way they are used and the greater psychosensory involvement of the viewer in them. In these digital collages there is the possibility to emphasize the technological spectacularism, facilitating the union between body and mind. These new spatial and creative dimensions emerge through our critical consciousness and can also take place outside the technological sphere, allowing art to become almost a dreamlike and mysterious metaphor. In Kiyomi the use of technology highlights its multimediality, versatility and transversality, allowing a greater dialogue with the observer, so that he is more active in the communication process. As if they were emerging from a canvas, different geometric and abstract shapes attract the observer’s objective and visual attention, making a perceptive-creative synthesis unforgettable. The artist manages to shift the observer’s interest towards all that is found before the figures themselves, their immediate and intuitive perception, their spatial relationship and their essence. In this way, it is possible to frame that “magical” moment, in which everything is coming together and changing from different directions, to flow into a point of convergence that collects artistic evolutions coming from a distant temporal and spatial dimension. Kiyomi Baird’s research best expresses the perceptive process of each individual, expanding itself to infinity. It connects numerous elements, such as form, movement, light, color and energy, communicating efficiently with the observer. In her visual language she extrapolates her own feelings with the aim of making them available to the entire world, in a way to capture a sensory and personal development within the observer. The artist offers the opportunity to the observer to immerse himself into a dimensional reality, by helping the observer to absorbe a new ideology of imagination.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Kiyomi Baird
Between words and things
Kiyomi Baird
Crossing path abound
Kiyomi Baird
Light opens windows
Kiyomi Baird
Listen to your heart 2
Kiyomi Baird
Midnight blankets light
Laila Kvalsund Solhaug
The first dancers painted by the young Degas appeared among the pastel colors of a canvas of 1868, entitled “The Opera Orchestra”. Here we can see, on the third floor, the heads-less bodies of the dancers, whose legs appear tapered, tanned in the dance, and the frivolous drunkenness of the pink and blue tutus, in contrast with the dark wood of the stage. A pictorial enchantment. This is how the entire work of the most realistic French painter among the impressionists could be defined. Or rather, the less impressionist French painter among the impressionists. That’s right, Degas was an impressionist sui generis. His adherence to the core principles of the pictorial movement at the end of the nineteenth century was not full and total. This, however, did not prevent his paintings from being exhibited alongside those of Renoir and Pisarro, in Nadar’s studio, in the spring of 1874, when those painters were called, for the first time, Impressionnistes. Initially, the study of the ballets and the young girls whirling were a way to reduce reality to a purely aesthetic moment but, at the end of the eighties, the painter’s investigation became deeper. His painting thus became an attempt to demean, to strip the miseries of the bodies, to give them matter. In an enveloping flow of a luminous space, where transparencies, contrasts, whites, graceful colors of organza immortalize the poses of Laila Kvalsund Solhaug, whose work “Dance away from sorrows” represents the gracious sweetness of a silent feminine world, built on taciturn tricks and gestures. The study, the analysis of the details and the pictorial imprint, are immediate and instantaneous and leave to the spectator the idea of a dreamy world, enchanted and magic.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Laila Kvalsund Solhaug
Dance away from sorrows
Leni Acosta Knight
Leni Acosta Knight’s style perfectly combines classical realism with abstract expressionism, preferring themes that reflect her passion for philosophy and poetry. On the occasion of this exhibition, through her three canvases Leni offers her own interpretation of the concept of Fable. In fact, without sacrificing attention to social issues, the artist evokes a fairytale atmosphere through the chromatic range and often-surrealistic scenarios. In On Earth as in The Heavens the artist paints two fantastic and related sceneries, that represent her personal conception of Heaven and Earth. In the higher part of the canvas a female face in a state of inner peace is floating in an unreal and delicate space. This atmosphere of magical serenity is also evoked and increased by the symbolic details of moonlight, bird flight and lush flowers, the latter, in Leni’s opinion, our link between Heaven and Earth. Nevertheless, the sensation of freedom expressed from this part of the composition is balanced by a more restless and expressive use of color in the lower part of the canvas. Here the painter, through a dense use of symbols, intends to represent the sufferings of people living on Earth and particularly of survivors and victims of abuse and violence, who inspired this painting. Religious icons, such as Muslim mosque, Christian cross and Buddhist temple, placed at the left corner of the painting, are introduced to symbolize a use of religion as a tool for prejudice and violence. Confusing figures, emerging from the deepest of the color, become expressions of human pain. In this part of the composition, Leni spreads colors through the help of her fingers, letting them drip onto the canvas like dark tears. Nevertheless, the title of the work, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry”, expresses Leni’s intent to propose a message of hope, represented on the canvas by the flight of the bird, that becomes an encouragement not to be afraid. Child Within proposes once again a feminine subject, a woman proudly holding her baby in her arms. Woman is, not by chance, a recurrent subject in Leni’s paintings that reflect her commitment in humanitarian projects, particularly against domestic and sexual violence. In fact, this painting is inspired by the psychology of either meeting, re-learning and healing. Through this painting the artist urges us to recover the child within all of us. Classical realism is perfectly balanced by the expressionist use of colors that pervade the whole canvas, not accurately describing tones of reality but representing the feelings of the painter. In Chaos: Seeds of Change, the composition, representing a woman spreading her arms as a sign of freedom, evokes typical elements of fable, expressed not only by the palette but especially by the absence of a realistic scenery, replaced with a fantastic and imaginary universe. Expressionist use of colors, becoming multicolor indistinct luminous trails in some places of the canvas, contributes to increase this fairytale atmosphere. Leni’s works consent the viewer to wonder and reflect about social issues, pushing him to desire to act in order to make the world he lives in better. But at the same time, her canvases propose a message of hope, helping us to fly away from our pain and sufferings just like her characters.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Leni Acosta Knight
Child Within
Leni Acosta Knight
Chaos: Seeds of Change
Leni Acosta Knight
On Earth as in The Heavens
Leticia Estévez “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.” (Pablo Picasso) Spanish artist Leticia Estévez loves to represent nature in all its splendor and uses color, blue as a favorite, to represent the landscapes of the island where she lives, Tenerife. Her canvases convey sensations of peace and serenity, the same that the artist feels while creating her works with a strong evocative power. In “Flores II” is painted a graceful little bird which, resting on the table, admires a colorful bouquet of flowers in a transparent vase through which it is possible to perceive the blue background. In the work, the subjects are depicted in a realistic way and in the smallest details. Daisies and many other colored flowers create a joyful and lively atmosphere, metaphor for Leticia’s sunny personality. In “Mi playa” the sea, artist’s faithful friend from whom she takes inspiration to give life to her magical creations, occupies almost the entire canvas. A small strip of the sandy beach is almost totally covered by the foam that caused the movement of the waves. The work allows the viewer to let one’s imagination wander and dreaming of being in a real fairytale landscape. In “Tesoro marino” the same subject of the previous work is taken up. The sea is represented in several works by the artist in different seasons and different weather conditions. The undisputed protagonist of the canvas is blue, the only color used in different shades and occasionally broken by some small yellow lines. The broad brushstrokes in different directions remind the movement of the waves of which, by concentrating and closing our eyes, we can hear the sound. Color represents everything for Leticia: it is the tool with which she expresses her precious inner world, it is the means she uses to paint every moment of her life to make it unique.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Leticia EstĂŠvez
Flores II
Leticia EstĂŠvez
Mi Playa
Leticia EstĂŠvez
Tesoro Marino
Leticia Herrera “I consider myself an expanding artist because we are always transforming. My work walks and changes with me.” (Leticia Herrera) Leticia Herrera is a Mexican artist interested in exploring the soul and subconscious of human beings: all this is indelibly marked in her works. One of the focal points of her personal style in paintings, is to capture the perspective inside them: three-dimensional shapes (the “Walkers”) emerge from the canvases, as if they were travelers and dreamers who create a connection between the earthly world and the fantasy one, in search of joy and peace. Just as in the work “United by Love”, the shadows of her Walkers describe a constant, unstoppable movement towards the fulcrum of human existence and emphasize a sense of vulnerability and hope. At the center of the canvas appears the soul of our planet, depicted in the shape of a heart. In fact, love is the pivotal element that guides each individual in his life choices, helping him not to give up in the face of difficulties and hoping for a global well-being. All these travelers head towards the world, filling it with color, vivacity and luminosity. United to create and succeed in improving the land on which they walk, regardless of religion, skin color, customs and habits: however, it still remains crucial the force of will and the and openness to change. Especially in this difficult period that has brought all countries to their knees, Leticia offers a beacon of hope, that warm and welcoming light at the end of that dark tunnel. Giving an image to thoughts and emotions helps to become aware of one’s own abilities, exorcising fear and remaining united in the fight against this invisible evil. The artist wants to be fraternally close to all humanity and wants to transport the observer into an enchanted world, in search of that love that gives the whole world serenity, emotions and positive feelings.
“The brotherhood among human beings. Imagine all people sharing the whole world. You can say that I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one. I hope that you too will join one day, and the world will become one.” (John Lennon)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Leticia Herrera
United by Love
Lika Ramati
From childhood they told fairytale stories to make us understand the world through a medium that is familiar: fantasy and imagination. Each work of the artist Lika Ramati embodies an entire story, a story that is just waiting to be told and, above all, heard. In the works presented here, in particular, the imagination plays a fundamental role. In fact, the protagonist of the work “Fortune Teller” reads the palm of our hand and projects us into our future, makes us imagine possible events and possible situations that can happen to us, in which we can find ourselves. The protagonist of the work “The Mad Hatter” is instead an ultra-feminine and contemporary representation of the homonymous character who par excellence represents the world of fantasy, the world of Alice in Wonderland. For the hatter, time has stopped and also the setting of the work and the choice of colors recreates an atmosphere of a moment that has stopped and has remained frozen and indissoluble. Initially. even the myths arose as stories told with the aim of giving an explanation to what man could not explain, over time they became a real literal and theatrical genre, that gave birth to incredible imaginative stories. One of the most famous is undoubtedly that of the sphinx and its riddle, which Lika represents in her work “The Sphynx riddle”. In the last two works, however, “Lyncoln Grand Hotel” and “Green Fantasy”, the protagonists accompany us to places that could be the background for stories and adventures worthy of the wildest imagination. In the first we find ourselves in a beautiful hotel ready to face a wonderful adventure in a distant and exotic place. Inside and outside merge, as if we were already thinking about what awaits us outside. In the second, however, the protagonist of the painting is about to accompany us into a fantastic world, worthy of the most beautiful and adventurous fairy tale.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Lika Ramati
The Mad Hatter
Lika Ramati
The Sphynx riddle
Lika Ramati
Fortune Teller
Lika Ramati
Lyncoln Grand hotel
Lika Ramati
Green Fantasy
Linda Stern “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” (Carl Gustav Jung)
The works of the Austrian artist Linda Stern tell much more than what appears to be possible to see: each piece that makes up her collages has a profound meaning and, when combined with the others, helps to create a story with a strong evocative power. “TO BE”: a short title, but full of contents, chosen to make the true essence of man fully understood. One person, many shades, different thoughts, personalities that sometimes mix up to get confused. Light skin, putted up hair, eyes that stare at the viewer as if to tell him something, perhaps every single part of herself. The face of the protagonist of the work, as required by the collage technique, presents the face broken up into several parts: of the largest silhouette on the background, we can see only the left part of her face, half torso and the right arm of which, the different hands split, support the other smaller faces superimposed on each other. From these you can see the features of the girl’s face: green and expressive eyes, a small straight nose, and fleshy lips. “TO BE”, therefore, does not only mean being aware of the different sides of we, but it also means accepting them all and liking oneself in front of a mirror. Turn your weaknesses into strengths, use our special abilities to change what we do not like. Linda’s works, free from any pre-established pattern and created with a process of which the imagination is the master. The collages allow those who look at them to immerse themselves in the world of the artist and identify themselves completely with the subject by reviewing a part of their own person and their life story.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Linda Stern
TO BE
Louise Pittam
“Everyday we wake up with a choice to stay in the known, to stick with our routine where it’s comfortable, and maybe even somewhat boring and uninspiring. But what if we took more risks?”. This is the premise of the work entitled “The Unknown” by Scottish artist Louise Pittam. With this work, the artist sends a message to her audience, inciting them to discover new things, to abandon the comforts dictated by monotony and to be carried away by what we do not know. The colors chosen by the artist are linked to the abstract work “Autumn Rhythms (n. 30)” by the artist Jackson Pollock: black meets gold, thus referring to a duality. Light and darkness, what we know and what is unknown. The darkness may frighten but it is perhaps the only way that we have left to find our youth and care free. Another element that brings back to lightheartedness are the brushstrokes and spatula given with immediacy, without a reflection, emphasizing even more the message of improvisation. This technique highlights the unevenness of the colors that invade the opposite side, suggesting that one is always part of the other, like “Ying and Yang”. This painting expresses the both sides of the inner part. Each side affects the other, nothing is simply defined, boundaries are never clear, so what we have left is to accept that there is always darkness in the light and light in the darkness. Not always what you do not know leads to something evil indeed, often can only bring change and excitement in your life.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Louise Pittam
The Unknown
Lucia Heumann
Lucia Heumann is a young German artist, she’s a photographer and painter. At MADS Milano art gallery she presents five paintings: four of them are coming from her collection “No eyes” and the other one is entitled “Flowers”. It’s immediately clear that she already has her own style, she uses oil and acrylic colours with which she creates her imaginary characters. “No eyes” collection is composed of a paintings series in which characters don’t have eyes: for the most part they are female figures without hair, thus focusing attention on their faces. This is the case of the painting number 12 in oil on canvas: she doesn’t have hair, her eyes are completely white, without iris, and small ivy branches can be seen on her face and body. This last particular is clearly visible on the woman’s face in painting number 7 and even more so in painting number 10 in which the woman’s skin takes on a bluish coloration and her face is inscribed in a cube. These three paintings acquire a dramatic aura, accentuated even more by the dark backgrounds that give gloom to the paintings, in which the main focus is undoubtedly the frightening totally white eyes. Different is the background in painting number 4, which sees a woman, this time with short blond hair, surrounded by a delicate pink background. Although the colors are brighter, the drama is still the protagonist, accentuated even more by the black lines that strew the woman’s face: the effect is that of a porcelain doll that is slowly falling apart. The reason why Heumann chooses not to paint eyes is probably the same as the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani: the eyes are the mirror of the soul and so until he really knew the souls of his subjects would not represent their eyes on canvas. In fact, the actor who plays Modigliani in his biographical film, “The colors of the soul”, says during a scene: “If I get lucky, one day I will paint your eyes”. This is an interesting point of view that can also be valid for Heumann, certainly what emerges from her paintings is a need to find out who these dramatic characters are. A need to know their history and their thoughts. The eyes are present in her last painting called “Flowers”. Contrary to the previous paintings, in which even if they are not present they become the focus, here the eyes become secondary: the attention is turned to the crown of the woman made by rapid brushstrokes of white, red and yellow. The latter recall a flowery field and it is as if the woman’s face emerged from this surface. Lucia Heumann proves her great sensitivity and artistic technique, presenting five women from another reality: from her imagination.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Lucia Heumann
No eyes no.12
Lucia Heumann
No eyes no. 7
Lucia Heumann
No eyes no. 10
Lucia Heumann
Flowers
Lucia Heumann
No eyes no. 4
Luisa Barba
Fairy tales are always populated with magical creatures and fantastic stories. But sometimes nature is able to give us real, but absolutely fantastic, creatures that seem just out of a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wildest imagination. One example among all is the white lion: such a unique and majestic creature. For hundreds of years, it was believed that they were only the protagonists of South African legends and their white mantle symbolized the goodness present in all creatures. The white lion is also the protagonist of the work of the artist Luisa Barba, who shows us all her beauty and her pride. The lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s white mantle is contrasted with a bright red, as if illuminated by the fiery light of a sunset in the savannah.
Luisa Barba
But also, myths and legends, in addition to magical stories, have always been part of the stories of our ancestors. Above all, the myths were a way to explain something that was sometimes too big to be understood by man, such as his relationship with the divine. Luisa in the work “Reunion” shows us precisely the mystical encounter, the reunion, of man with a greater entity, who holds out his hand and welcomes them with kindness. Luisa represents the meeting of bodies, but above all of souls.
“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphor. It has been rightly said that mythology is the penultimate truth - penultimate because the latter cannot be expressed in words. It is beyond words.” (Joseph Campbell)
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Luisa Barba
White Lion
Luisa Barba
Reunion
Luz Sanchez “The poet loves to play with the invisible: he takes the air around a butterfly and builds the smile of a child.” (Fabrizio Caramagna) Fairy tales like art tell stories. Art is a tale made up of shapes, light and color, just as fairy tales are a tale made up of imagination and fantasy. Here the artist Luz Sanchez wants to tell us the story and the adventures of this wonderful winged creature, through her works full of color and energy. In the work “La Busqueda”, we observe the creature that moves away from us, flies away, to enter uncontaminated nature, in search of we do not yet know what. The nature represented by Luz is as always full of life thanks to its bright, clear and brilliant colors. Luz shows us a lush landscape, full of colorful flowers and verdant plants. You can only glimpse in the distance the presence of man in this world that the wonder of nature makes magical. Looking at the second work entitled “Esperanza”, we understand where the creature was headed: towards the swarm of bees, which can also be seen in the first work, which was pollinating the flowers. The creature observes them with amazement, observes with admiration those who make the magic of pollination possible, which allows flowers to be always so luxuriant and nature to always be so alive. In this work, the creature shows itself in all its beauty: we can clearly observe its beautiful wings of a thousand colors, which with their flapping radiate light and color even in the surrounding air. Luz has just catapulted us into the magical world of nature. That world that man, unfortunately, is slowly destroying by being too invasive. Luz, in the work “Desolacion”, represents this situation of desolation perfectly and in a very immediate and shocking way. Man, with his passage, brings only destruction and drying up. With these works, Luz focus precisely on the dramatic phenomenon of the reduction of bee specimens, which are fundamental for the whole development of nature. Luz leads us to reflect deeply.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Luz Sanchez
DESOLACION
Luz Sanchez
ESPERANZA
Luz Sanchez
LA BUSQUEDA
Maddy Lane “Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and... stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?” (Vasilij Kandinskij)
Once upon a time Mr. Ghosty, a small ghost escaped from the wickedness of humans, in search of a serene corner of the world where the moon is black but never stops shining, and in which a castle - during the night - sounds if someone crosses it. Mr. Ghosty, lulled by music, finally finds himself in a world devoid of fear and anguish and, now free, dance happy in the night. Through her reticular lines Maddy Lane creates an enchanted world in which music is the protagonist. The pictorial trait of Maddy Lane is recognizable because unique, nature and artifice blend between the lines and the background. The artist translates the concept of the exhibition into painting, and focusing on the magical theme of the fable tale she abandons herself to the purest memories: the memory of childhood, the imaginary worlds that we have all built - in our minds - to continue to amaze us. It strikes the image of a black moon, well defined, which instead of darkening the canvas, illuminates it with a magical light. This time the abstract sign of the lines turns into an enchanted castle whose foundation is music, represented by the sign of the notes. Once again, in his canvases, we notice the conceptual and abstract aspect given in this case by the musical notes: interesting aspect that still recalls Kandinskjj and his pictorial-musical compositions. The shades of blue background create a game of magic and brilliance mixing with white and black. The canvas comes to life thanks to the material color, small but full-bodied pieces of pure color mixed with blue. If you totally immerse yourself in the magic of the painting, you can also see Mr. Ghosty, the white ghost with black eyes, dance in the halls of the castle... Look for him in the night, and you will find him.
Art Curator Giulia Calì
Maddy Lane
Mr. Ghostyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s night dancing
Maja Lakomy
Maja Lakomy is a Polish born and raised artist based in Los Angeles, California. A great admirer of the human form, she mainly focuses on exploring portraiture. Lakomy works with different mediums, including charcoal, acrylic and oil paint, as well as digital. Lakomy presents at MADS Milano art gallery three portraits realized in digital. All three portraits are made following the teachings of Impressionist masters: outlines are not defined and colors of the background invade the faces of women. The lightness of the lines and the shades recall the dancers’s ballet dresses of Degas, in particular in the 1878 work “L’Etoile” in which a solo dancer is depicted. The execution visually leads back to the French Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, who in her portraits made light games by combining different shades of the same color, without ever using black. The first work analyzed here is entitled “Andrea”, it best exemplifies Lakomy’s technique: a delicate blue background invades the face of the blonde girl, who looks straight into the eyes of the viewer. Background becomes one with the subject, the colors blend together and it is as if Lakomy had painted the face of the girl reflected in the water. In fact, a feeling of fleeting emerges, a moment before the image is visible and the next moment disappears. The following two works portray the same modality as “Andrea”. In “Fira” is represented a beautiful Asian woman on a delicate pink background and in “Kiana” a beautiful woman graces the composition with her electrifying dark curls. Both works establish a strong connection with viewers thanks to the magnetic power that the artist gives to the gaze of women.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Maja Lakomy
Andrea
Maja Lakomy
Fira
Maja Lakomy
Kiana
Makoto Kimura â&#x20AC;&#x153;One eye sees, the other feels.â&#x20AC;? (Paul Klee)
Makoto Kimura is a Japanese artist born in Kagawa in 1982 where he lives and works.Makotoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investigation is to explore fantasy, imagination and dreams through his eyes.Very rich and complex art: elements of primitivistic and expressionistic taste merge in it where his fantastic freedom reaches a sort of pictorial automatism parallel to surrealism, to an expression charged with romantic emotion, where humor and childish ecstasy are mixed together. Sensitive and refined artist, he leads us towards the deepening of the magical relationships that exist between shapes, ideas, places and colors with a new abstract and symbolic expressive language, giving the observer the atmosphere and sensations of a composition in which the objects and the figures appear immersed in dreamy and evocative places.
Makoto Kimura
His style denotes a significant mastery of artistic knowledge with an expressive charge in which the charm of his works is contained where the color gives life to harmonics and fairytale atmospheres.If we add this geometric proportions and the use of shades with a constructive function and a lyrical transfiguration of reality, we notice squares of surprising and enchanting beauty flow before our eyes.His works represent numerous windows to human consciousness, his use of drawing reveals his attempt to use art as an instrument of his philosophical conception, paintings whose purpose is not to represent reality but to investigate it in its most hidden processes; a very accurate analytical procedure aimed to perceive physical and psychological forms and sensations in which Makoto frees his imagination and materializes it with the creation of an image trying to express the underground world of the unconscious and the alphabet of the signs of existence.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Makoto Kimura
Departure from nothing
Makoto Kimura
The sea where pirates sink
Marcia Lorente Howell “I paint photographs I took from places I love. Reality isn’t real, I paint what it is beyond, what I see with my heart’s eye.” (Marcia Lorente Howell) Marcia Lorente Howell is a classically trained impressionist-expressionist painter. Raised in Madrid, she began painting the ocean since she was a child as a means to treasure her summers in Encinitas, Southern California, and Málaga, Spain. Once she moved to New York, Montauk and the beaches of Long Island have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Recalling the great works of artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, the artist observes the natural environment with her own eyes, taking some photographs to best impress all the nuances of that landscape. Afterwards, she paints the work: to replenish the static nature of that image, Marcia is inspired by the works of Marc Chagall, drawing inspiration from her own fantasy and imagination, in a very personal style with a strong poetic vein and involving the world of dreams. Following the beauty of nature and the magic of the oneiric, the artist takes a journey in her introspection, in her deep feelings, catching the attention of the observer in her sensorial vision. Everything she paints is a fantastic representation of reality, crossing all kinds of boundaries. In fact, in “Moonlight Beach” the artist depicts the Surfer Beach in the city of Encinitas. “I am a surfer, I paint the waves”: this is the key concept of this work, which best describes her artistic conception. The rapid brushstrokes, typical of the Impressionist style, fill the eyes of the observer, as if he were really admiring the Californian sunset. The viewer is widely involved in the work, and the artist invites him to dive into those magical waves, to perceive with his own skin the smell of salt and the scent of the sea in its wholeness. Letting yourself be rocked by the waves is one of the most beautiful sensations, and Marcia wants anyone who observes her work to be extremely immersed in the shades of the ocean. The sublime sensation of peace given by the bright and brilliant colors, the artist’s ability to capture the light fading into dreamlike visions, the light dynamism of the waves is able to warm and fill the observer’s heart, relaxing the senses and helping him to make a journey in his soul.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Marcia Lorente Howell
Moonlight Beach
Maria Burberry
“Dreams” and “Magic Factor” are the two works through which the artist Maria Burberry participates at the international exhibition of “Fable”. The use of bright and vivid colors emphasizes her desire to communicate happiness and optimism, exploring new, mysterious and magical universes. In “Dreams”, while a fairy sleeps in the sky a second moon rises, a sign of the presence of a parallel dimension. This aspect recalls Haruki Murakami’s book “1Q84”, when Aomame suspects being the only person able to cross the thin barrier that divides the two worlds. The young woman lets herself be lulled by the wings of imagination, with the intention of crossing that boundary and reaching the realm of fantasy. The task of the observer is to fantasize with the mind and hover with the fairy, in order to admire the universe from an upper perspective. Thanks to creativity it is possible to overcome the laws of physics, dancing in the air far from reality. The fairy-tale and surreal elements, halfway between dream and magic, are emphasized through the use of chromatic nuances able to underline the purity and harmony of the representation. All this dreamlike fantasy is accompanied by a graceful sense of movement that enchants the user, eager to let go and curious to visit the world that is not there, just like in Peter Pan’s fable.
Maria Burberry
The great sweetness and delicacy in the choice of the subject becomes the symbol of an escape from everyday life, and the flight and lightness belong to this happy and carefree freedom. While in “Magic Factor” the artist depicts a woman resting. The large dress, reminiscent of Belle’s in “Beauty and the Beast”, is in stark contrast with the background of the painting, with that fiery red that warms and emphasizes the entire work. Even in this case the theme of magic is vivid: in fact, the young woman seems to be suspended in the air and next to her there is a star, like a sparkle, which symbolizes the presence of the fantastic element. Every shade is skillfully considered in each detail, bringing out both the immensity of the dress and that vortex of color behind the fairy. The sinuous figure, elegance and elusive beauty is typical of a classy woman of the Belle Époque period: turning her gaze towards the spectator, the young woman appears proud and sure of her femininity. Starting from the Japanese literature, through fairy tales and magic, to fashion and art, the artist Maria Burberry manages to create a strong bond with every single aspect, immersing the observer in a fairytale and imaginary world.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Maria Burberry
Dreams
Maria Burberry
Magic Factor
Marie Demiz
Marie Demiz is a Russian artist based in Sweden. Once again, she presents at MADS Milano art gallery two works. They are titled respectively “Dreamsome” and “Roar (earth conscious)” and already from titles you can guess their diversity, despite both coming from the imaginary world of Marie. The first, “Dreamsome”, is made in oil on a circular support and represents in the center the face of a woman. It is now known that women are the favorite subject of Demiz who always portrays them in a mysterious way. Here, however, the artist inserts a variant: the colors are brighter, less gloomy than her previous works, the background that surrounds the woman is made in an abstract way with fast and fluid brushstrokes. The light dominates, creating strong contrast with the bright colors such as green and red. The combination of abstract and figurative becomes more and more intense in Demiz’s works, which seems to have moved towards a more in-depth study of Abstractionism. The same abstract elements can be found in the second work on display, “Roar (earth conscious)”. The subject itself, a cheetah portrayed in profile with the jaws wide open, is made through rapid and circular brushstrokes of white, blue and black. The work is made in mixed media and you can also notice the use of collage. In fact, two writings appear, probably taken from a newspaper, one is positioned on the top left “recycle” and the other on the bottom right “Milano”, where MADS art gallery is located. On the one hand there is definitely a tribute to the city that hosts her work and on the other a clear message of protest: encourage recycling. The inscription “recycle” is connected to the scream of the cheetah begging the man to stop. He begs mercy. Marie Demiz wants to open the eyes of a society indifferent to the world and its conditions.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Marie Demiz
Spirit of the forest
Marie Demiz
Roar (earth conscious)
Marie Demiz
Dreamsome
MarioVaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Hydrogena is the new digital painting by Italian artist MarioVaccaj <<mr WAVE>>. The artwork is accompanied by a futuristic and dystopian fable able to make the viewer digging into the artist’s insights and his correlated passion for physics, always present in his artistic expression. “Hydrogena” tells a story sets in 2050: humanity is now lost and humiliated because of its own greed and it’s about to be swept away from a ripple present in the ionosphere. Humanity is destined to pay its electro-mechanical faults, but thanks to a man with a futuristic insight and his quantum physics researches, where the speed of the gravitational wave’s propagation is faster than light (¥+¥+V^+H × M P N E (XYZ) = 0,01 m/s), “Hydrogena” was born: a futuristic woman machine able to activate and deactivate the matter, and to end consequently the human wickedness”. According to the artist, there’s no other interpretation of the artwork: it aims at criticising the human being’s attitude in its being avid, insatiable, always hungry of consuming and consequently guilty of destroying the precious planet we live in. Therefore, the nightmarish scenario where the world is destined to collapse because of the mankind’s evilness will only be saved by this feminine creature born by the artist’s mind: Hydrogena. A cyborg woman with the incredible power of prevent the mankind from the terrible fate will vert to, by dissolving and re-combing the matter. The artwork represents a head’s silhouette of the woman, with its visible and colourful anatomy within. The force of the robotic woman’s brain is the nerve centre of the painting, as the artist would like to points out that progress should evolve alongside a wise use of technology and science, while fighting hatred, inequality and avarice.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
MarioVaccaj <<mr WAVE>>
Hydrogena
Mark Noy “To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.” (Terry Tempest Williams)
The word “magician” originates from Old French “magicien” and from late Latin “magica”. The word “mago” (“magician” in Italian), find its originins in the Greek word, “magos”, meaning “wise”. In fact, this term was used to define Persian priests skilled in astrology, dream interpretation and arcane arts. During the Renaissance, after a long period of persecution against this figure, it is progressively re-evaluated and considered as something wonderful, capable of combining art, science and experimentation. It plays a fundamental role in fairy tales and stories, as well as becoming a source of inspiration for many artists. Mark Noy’s work, “Ancient Wisdom”, develops around this theme, guiding us in his vision of the world of magic. There is a young wizard, who decides to go into the forest in search of answers. After walking a long path, he comes across a huge tree, which sits in front of him, waiting to help him shed light on his doubts. The magician, symbol of wisdom, thus finds the source of his erudition in Nature. In the middle of the night, the forest becomes a place of peace and serenity, where you can find yourself and the answers you are looking for. Nature as a metaphor of antiquity and knowledge, a place from which we must not depart, but from which we can only learn.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Mark Noy
Ancient Wisdom
Masakazu Anai “A work of art expresses itself as a balance sheet pitting the spoken against the unspoke.” (Russel Sherman)
The expression of our soul through art is a peculiarity of the human being, the only animal species to carry out activities directed towards a search for creativity and aesthetic expression. It can be said that art in its broadest sense was born with the advent of man who, since the beginning, has expressed his feelings and his history. Under the protective wing of the arts we find music and painting, two primordial forms of artistic experience with which man wanted to express what is inside, what is buried in his being. Painting as a two-dimensional transposition through pigments of the parent idea; music as the organization of sounds, silences and noises in the course of time and space. Both are born from a precise necessity, from the will of externalization and subsequent manifestation of something born from the inspiration of the human being. We can consider both arts as two entities that develop through the use of two distinct languages, belonging to two different fields of action. The one that finds its raison d’être in the drawing up of pigments, the other that through rhythm is manifested and shaped. Painting and music are perceived by the individual through two different sensory channels. Sight has the intrinsic ability to perceive the chromatic diversity of the pigments, their thickness and their materialization in abstract forms or derived from reality; hearing perceives sounds, noises and variations in rhythm and intensity. Although characterized by different methods of use and language, music and painting have often in the history of mankind come together in creative dialogue.
Masakazu Anai
Masakazu Anai, artist and electronic musician by profession is with his art a meeting point between these two idioms, so different in their elaboration and fruition, so similar in expressing the unspeakable, the idea hidden behind the visible. Pigments crawled on the support, stains of color overlapping one on top of the other, a brilliant and striking color palette create Masakazuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art. The single element of color is here placed in constant communication with what it has around it. The pictorial material and its different shades are known and understood in a constantly moving dialogue. There is rhythm, there is a certain measure within these works. A time and a balanced harmony to be traced layer after layer, modification after modification. A strip of reddish pigment, imperturbable in its chromatic power and persuasion, dictates the rhythm of the composition giving meaning to the infinitesimal variations of colour to which the support is subjected. The defined and traceable, the strip of red pigment or a luminous swept circle are the cornerstones of the composition. Elements that subjugate the chromatic chaos and give definition and meaning to the many shades and layers of colour to which Masakazuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paintings are subjected. A chaotic and whirling world that finds its resolution and conclusion in those elements that, endowed with great chromatic power and sign, give measure to this colorful world.
Art Curator Lisa Galletti
Masakazu Anai
Custom
Masakazu Anai
Drop
Mauricio Siller Obregon “Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction.” (Diego Rivera) Mauricio Siller Obregón is a multidisciplinary Mexican artist: this meaning allows him to create interesting fusions between his colorful style and poetry. From his works emerge themes of a cosmological, fantastic and magical nature that dialogue with the natural and surrounding environment; everything blends perfectly with the key elements of Mexican artistic and social history. The artist emphasizes both classical and traditional forms, as well as a simple and linear avant-garde modernism, maintaining a creative, mythological and mysterious vein. All these aspects are clear in his work presented for the international exhibition “Fable”. Recalling the famous murals made by the artist Diego Riviera, in the painting “La Noche” Mauricio represents a woman hovering in the air showing her youth, her beauty, in a universe full of stars, bright colors and cosmic energies. A powerful monumentality emerges, a plasticity of forms and a dynamism of all the elements depicted. The observer is struck by the precisions on how details are depicted, and he is invited to take part of the work itself, as well as to take flight with the woman, becoming part of the realm of fantasy. A beauty that, with its sensuality and femininity, enters in synergy with the whole atmosphere of the colored background, almost as if it was a rich palette at times surreal, representing a perfect harmony between the softness of the lines and the warm tones. In each section of the work there is an action or movement in the opposite direction and a fixed interval between these alternating movements. Mauricio Siller’s woman embodies, through a communicative, lively and expressive painting, the conception of the universe as a vibration of creative and positive energy, a rhythmic vital impulse that runs through the entire cosmos, uniting the earthly and the otherworldly, the human and the sacred, the macrocosm and the microcosm, the real and the imagination. “Revolution is the harmony of form and color, and everything exists and moves under one law: life.” (Frida Kahlo)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Mauricio Siller Obregon
La noche
Maxwell Roath â&#x20AC;&#x153;Each artist dips the brush into his soul, and paints his own nature in his images.â&#x20AC;? (Henry Ward Beecher) The work proposed here is created by Maxwell Roath, an engraver from Colorado, and it conveys one of the most urgent issues related to environmental protection. More than a corner of paradise, the story told by the artist is more real than ever, and it carries a strong message that should touch the sensitive chords of all of us, so that we can partially reconstitute the marine flora and fauna. The work is a real window on the world, a world that we breathe every day and of which we should have more respect. At first glance, since it reflects a real question, the work seemed to me a realismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heir. This work is part of a series of paintings on which the presence of the stone monoliths was constant and intended as a sign of the time. A time suspended over our heads, a time independent of our will, a time that existed, that exists and that will exist beyond human history. It is the time of nature, of life, of the earth from which we were born, on which we live now, and for which, perhaps, future generations will live. Nature has always existed, regardless of human existence. The presence of essential elements in this fantastic story, such as the sea, the sky, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the celestial stone, the mass of plastics in the sea and the enigmatic reading that ensued, reminded me of the metaphysical art of De Chirico. Both artists praise stories of existing places through suggestive shades, which charge the atmosphere of the story with a magical and enigmatic light, reflected in the absolute silence of these vital windows. The realism proposed here is a magical realism, full of color and mystery of a vision that, as in many fairy tales, hopefully has a happy ending.
Art Curator Alessia di Martino
Maxwell Roath
Sighting #3: Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 38.0000° N, -145.0000° W
Maya Beck “My work should show joy and be full of love!” (Maya Beck)
This is how Maya Beck defines her works, a riot of love and joy. She was inspired from an early age by her feelings, by the most hidden and intimate emotions. For Maya, art is a form of communication and direct expression; the way she uses colors as a verb to express emotions combined with strong lines, is simple. For her it is a moment of freedom and connection with herself: art is love at 360 degrees. Self-taught artist, Maya began working with abstract art and then she decided to approach a more subjective and figurative art, primordial, more emotional and individualistic, that best represents her and distinguishes her from current artists. Drawing allows you to give space to the emotional world and the thoughts that are often difficult to communicate verbally. Maya think that art does not tell about life, but about the experience of life, which is much more tangled and complex; from her works you can perceive a sense of positivity and desire to live in harmony with everything that surrounds her: her motto is “LOVE IS FOR EVERYBODY”. In her portraits of real or invented characters made on sheets of paper with mixed media (usually acrylic, pen and watercolors) -, Maya represents moments of life that leave the viewer in front of a free interpretation of what the subject wants to express and communicate.
“I stay in the sun not so much to take portraits in bright light, but to warm up and observe. So, by dint of seeing the outside, I ended up noticing only the great harmonies without worrying about the small details that extinguish the sun instead of inflaming it.” (Pierre-Auguste Renoir)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Maya Beck
ALESSIA
Maya Beck
ALESSIO
Maya Beck
MARIONETTE
Maya Beck
SEAROSE
Maya Beck
TWENTIES
Monika Belinová “For me, art is make-believe. It’s enchantment. It’s a fable. I’m enjoying that and playing with it. Of course it’s serious, and art is serious, but I’m not going to rarefy it.” (Shea Hembrey)
Monika Belinová was born in Žilina, Slovakia in 1990.She studied propagation graphics at the Ružomberok School of Applied Art. Then the teaching and teaching of fine arts at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. She currently lives in Ružomberok and works as a teacher in a private art school.Art is her way of speaking, her voice. Through drawing and painting she communicates her inner world to others.Her works identify a search for a soul on a journey, looking for evolution where life provides joys and annoyances to deal with, answering one’s questions where nature, mother of inspiration for her, is the background.In “Space fox” the fox is not only a significant symbol in the fable, but also in Slavic mythology, and this is one of the reasons why it is important in her personal and individual iconography. The background of the painting is created in an expressive, spontaneous way and the choice of colors is very intuitive.
Monika Belinová
It represents chaos. The foxy’s shape represents her subconscious in an attempt to heal her inner turmoil and soothe the little girl in her.In the work “Betta - Warrior Fish” the image was created for the purpose of selftherapy. The background lines are created by ink and markers and are not visible in the image at first sight. As in many situations in life, a closer and longer look is required. The round segments evoke the lightness and spontaneity of the watercourse. It is a metaphor for his life at the time, but it is also the result of an effort to engage the mind, a form of meditation. A fish was added as a characteristic symbol, in which he used a different technique, as if the aquatic animal did not adapt to the environment, summarizing its situation. The fish is protected by a rough, thick line and a golden mask where it stands static with the irrepressible desire to move. Like a fairy tale, Monika’s tales are full of enchantment, full of extraordinary inner adventures that will lead us to a moment of introspection.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Monika Belinovรก
Space fox
Monika Belinovรก
Warrior fish
Motoo Saito “I take my camera everywhere I go. Having a new film to develop, gives me a good reason to wake up in the morning.” (Andy Warhol)
A dip in beauty. Browsing through the works of the Japanese artist Motoo Saito, immediately gives you the feeling of being catapulted into a distant yet so familiar world. The power of the colors that the artist uses is the protagonist of his masterpieces. Motoo Saito began to devote himself to the world of photography - and later, in adulthood, to digital painting - after leaving the company in which he worked.The fusion between the passion for traveling and the art of photography, gave rise to his art, something to be discovered that manages to trap the viewer in a whirlwind of emotion and unique sensations. He has gone on, year after year, to improve himself until being able to capture the essence of that “floating world” where every single detail composes the lines of a poem that aims to involve the viewer at 360 degrees. His works recall the most abstract cubism, the dreamlike images of Mirò and the “scribbles” of Kandinsky. The works are then reproduced on different supports giving life to the finished piece. Motoo Saito’s digital elaborations are placed in an abstract research field, starting from an objective reality, in which the iteration of lines and colors creates an energy of strong vitality. They are compositions where the visual symbol induces a free and pure expressiveness, in a harmony of evident lyrical sensitivity.
“To photograph is to recognize at the same instant and in a fraction of a second an event and the rigorous arrangement of the forms perceived with the gaze that express and signify this event. It is putting the mind, the eyes and the heart on the same line. It’s a way of life.” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
Art Curator Maria Cristina Bianchi
Motoo Saito
Fusion
Motoo Saito
Pleasure V.I.
Motoo Saito
Pleasure V.II.
Motoo Saito
Pleasure V.III.
Motoo Saito
Talk
Niko aka Dionyss “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” (Lao Tzu)
Niko is a young German artist and he began his work as a photographer in 2018 when he received a camera as a gift from his uncle, hence his growing interest for the manipulation of images through dedicated softwares: with regards to the subjects, the artist focuses his attention on the exploration of nature, landscapes and animals.In his photographic shots, the attention to details, the use of imaginary elements, the images taken from different backgrounds and the strong contrasting colours are all aspects to stimulate the observer’s curiosity in noticing the magic of those places that too often we do not necessarily contemplate and value.He didn’t seem to have that special curiosity that you still have as a child. He is sure that it is not just him that things are taken for granted in everyday life. Be it trees, water or animals. These things seem to lose their magic as you get older. You have seen them a thousand times and that’s why they become something natural/normal. But nothing that surrounds us can be taken for granted! The nature motifs are only an allegory. The intent to testify can also be applied to other things, such as friends and family. With his pictures he wants to rekindle the enthusiasm he was talking about.Enchanted by this splendid vision, Niko manages to put us in tune with nature and we understand that this wonder is totally free, at our disposal and we could use it to find new stimuli in our life.We should learn day by day to cultivate this appreciation and to feed daily the attention to this bond, within the world around us nothing is taken for granted, banal and obvious, as there is always something to learn, especially from science and nature that surrounds us. Through this nocturnal animal, the artist tries to create a path to his fairy tale, a magic in search of natural beauty where nothing but nothing can be taken for granted.
Art Curator Erika Gravante
Niko aka Dionyss
Bist du?
Nina Enger The artist Nina Enger is passionate and inspired by many elements of everyday life, but among all of them, the love for nature certainly stands out. Through her works, Nina succeeds in emphasizing both the environment and its surroundings as well as a mysterious and fantastic aspect, exclusively linked to the realm of imagination and enchantment. Her art creates a connection between the vital needs of each individual and the spiritual interiority of a human being overwhelmed by the need to unveil his soul. The freedom of imagination is vigorously unleashed in her paintings, showing how much this is part in one’s own soul. That disruptive creative force induces an act aimed at representing in various forms the sensations that are extrapolated directly from the subconscious. The artist allows the observer to get access to the depths of a parallel universe in a completely original way, without limits or constraints, bringing out his feelings, represented in different forms, and the mood of those who want to give the world his most remote emotions. As in the canvas “Anticipation”, a child, who could represent the future, observes the clouds in ecstasy as they branch out to make room for a beam of light. The surrounding atmosphere gives peace and serenity, while the contemplation of the little character remains so pure and delicate. While in “Awe”, a young woman appears on the edge of a promontory while screaming her freedom, waving a stole. She desires to get free into the sky and merge with all the atmosphere that place transmits, on the brink between land and infinity. Finally, in “Earth rising”, a mother and her son pass through the door of another dimension, undertaking a long journey to discover the realm of fantasy. All the sweetness and maternal love emerge from the picture, in a jubilation of magical situations and unknowns. The depth and atmosphere of light peep out from these three works, through dark clouds, filling the soul of the observer. The artist wishes to convey a key message: to be able to get access to one’s inner soul, beyond the darkness and those insurmountable boundaries, and reach that absolute peace without struggles and difficulties.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Nina Enger
Earth Rising
Nina Enger
Anticipation
Nina Enger
Awe
Oana-Teodora Iorga
Oana-Teodora Iorga paints a galaxy. “My work speaks about the beauty of the universe”, she says, adding that the painting is supposed to put the viewer in a contemplative state. Just like the mind loses itself following the greatness of space, so our eyes are sucked into the vortex of the piece. The nebulous colours create a soft, mysterious landscape, tender like a fairytale. Hidden within the nebula are mysteries waiting to be discovered, like fairies living behind a constant mist protecting their secrets. All stories began with the Universe. Before anything else, there was the emptiness of Space, the absolute Void, till something sparked and Life exploded. Without it, sans the first great explosion, there would not be a universe, nor Earth or humans; there would not be life and, above all, there would not be stories. We carry pieces of the universe inside us. We are made of stars, we have them in our blood and bones, and we host small galaxies in our minds. When we begin our stories, in our minds is the same explosion that pushed the Universe into motion. Fairytales always commence with a “Once upon a time” and we could say the very first-ever “Once upon a time” happened with the Big Bang. Given its intrinsic mystery, the Universe also feeds into humanity’s drive and need to create stories about their surrounding. Stories are born from questions. When they could not find an answer, men invented them. Questions like why there is the night and the day, why there are the stars and the Moon. The first fables are rooted in legends. Thus the moon can be a princess and the stars her maids, or a lock of hair can become a constellation, and the Milky Way a river between two star-crossed lovers.
Art Curator Guendalina Cilli
Oana-Teodora Iorga
Galaxy Signs
Octa Dwi Anggraini “I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.” (André Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism)
Surrealism is an avant-garde artistic movement that was born in Paris in the ‘20s of the twentieth century. Its main theorist is André Breton, who, influenced by Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, decides to give space to the unconscious and the dream, still so little analyzed in modern times. Since then, great artists have marked the history of art and are now a source of inspiration for young minds. In Tada’s work, the influence of Surrealism is evident. The figures are well described in details. The represented subject goes far beyond reality, examining aspects that can be traced back to a personal analysis of the unconscious. A relaxed female body with its back to us. A plant is growing on her left knee and under her feet two eyes look at us. In place of the head, a flower, which seems to be looking in the direction of a mirror. The reflected image is that of a young woman who, with a dagger stuck in her left shoulder, is collecting her blood inside a cup. As in a dream, nothing seems to follow a logic. There are many details that stimulate our gaze. The brain placed on the ground to the left, could suggest the abandonment of reason. This, on the other hand, was the goal of Surrealism. Dig inside yourself, in search of an unfiltered truth.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Octa Dwi Anggraini
Sappy Place
Odagawa Fumiya “Everyone has a fairy tale inside that he cannot read alone.” (Pablo Neruda)
Oneiric places, shapes with indefinite contours and backgrounds. Elements of reality poised between the world of reality and the world of dreams. A house, a horse, two girls. Ordinary elements, peculiar to our daily reality, acquire a magical halo in Fumiya’s paintings. The mysterious emerges from the visible and from the usual, giving the elements improbably liquefied contours, backgrounds with acid tones and deformed physiognomies, subjugated to a certain destiny of mutation. There is darkness in Fumiya’s paintings. Dark, impenetrable forests, with their harsh colours, plummet over man and any work he has built. Flints, centuries-old pines, oaks take over every visible element, flooding the visual field with a gloomy and gloomy presentiment. Although nature is taking over, human activity is always recognizable. It does not get stuck in front of the dark and indefinite, the vision of a place without light. It is there, present in the little houses identifiable among the vegetation, in that horse so tame that it is probably a friend of man; it is embodied in the figures of the two girls who, in spite of the length and uncomfortableness of their clothes, make space among the spreading vegetation to reach the muddy shore of the pond in the foreground. Yet the reflection of the girl on the surface of the water is not defined at all. The contours are lost, the face is erased and the reflected physiognomy is reduced to a few strokes of light colour.
Odagawa Fumiya
Does nature no longer recognise the human being as an integral part of it? Or is it the human being who has lost - by his will - the ancestral connection with his generating mother? The universe of Fumiya is fairy and dreamlike. Translated into lysergic tones it is constructed, layer after layer by liquefied and malleable forms. In its representation and conformation it wields the legacy of the narrative repertoire of short stories of western tradition. An infinite baggage of clues and clues that can be seen in the presence of elements that blatantly recall the fairytale world. The horse, the little house in the woods, the two girls entering the forest, the small pond that - it should - reflects the physiognomy of the person reflected in the mirror. And yet, Fumiya shapes this world with his hands, breaks it down and reconstructs it according to his intentions, deforms it and saturates it to the improbable to bring it closer to his inner sensitivity. Munch’s echo can be heard explicitly in the soft, almost loose, yielding but consistent contours and in the chromatic palette which, extremely strident in tone, also recalls the acid and abrupt colour of Bonnard’s and Nabis’ paintings. The fairytale world of Fumiya is a personal world which, while having explicit connections with the Western fairytale tradition, is resolved in an aesthetic of its own, in a sense of things that reverberates the artist’s soul and feeling.
Art Curator Lisa Galletti
Odagawa Fumiya
Waterside house
Odagawa Fumiya
Backyard
Paal Bugen Paal Bugen is a Norwegian artist, based in Oslo and Luxembourg. His art, strongly connected with his work as Head of Equities in a Norwegian Bank, after the crisis dictated by the emergency Covid-19 completely changes style. He is interested in showing people’s feelings, to bring on canvas mystery and tell stories. The series presented at the exhibition “Fable” organized by the MADS gallery, is entitled “Heaven and Hell”. This series of pictures express different types of feelings derived from this crisis. First of all, the work “The Abyss” shows a feeling common to all in this situation: bewilderment. It is as if the world we used to know is crumbling, the certainties become uncertainties and the ground below us begins to falter, until it collapses. The work in fact shows people plunging into the abyss, into the abyss of uncertainty and precariousness. The strong red background emphasizes even more the feeling of terror that many people are experiencing today. The loss of loved ones, the loss of work or the simple everyday life. The paintings titled “Ancestors” and “Marilyn” instead are connected in a special way with the crisis that we are living today: they change their appearance the further you get away. At a distance of one meter the picture will be different than if you look at it from 3 or 5 meters away. This is related to the social distancing that we are subjected to in order to prevent the spread of the virus. This aspect wants to give a message of hope to people: the distance is not always something that divides but on the contrary, can make us perceive the beauty of people, make us realize their importance and beauty, as it happens in admiring the paintings of Bugen. Both works, apparently abstract, hide, amongst the decided brushstrokes and human faces. The further you move, the more faces appear on the canvas. “Ancestors” and “Marilyn” are paintings that belong more to the “Heaven” sphere of the series. The first is in fact an introspective journey within ourselves and our origins. If we are here today it is thanks to all our ancestors, their lives and their experiences. The work expresses a message of union and brotherhood among men. We are all on the same earth and we all derive from a single progenitor. The same positive value is contained in the work “Marilyn” in which a sweet blue background, just as if it were paradise, welcomes all the greatest who left us at a young age. First of all, we see Marilyn Monroe in the middle with her red lips. But the further you go, the sharper the face represented in the center of the canvas becomes and that occupies almost the entire composition. This factor gives a great sense of mystery to the work. In fact it is as if the canvas held within itself countless ghosts, some visible and others of which you can barely see the presence. Therefore, Paal Bugen, through his apparently abstract art, wants to communicate important social messages, especially connected to the crisis that the whole world is going through today. The sensitivity and genius is clearly perceptible in the parallels between the imposition of governments, to maintain a social distance and the distance that his art involuntarily imposes on viewers.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Paal Bugen
Ancestors
Paal Bugen
Marilyn
Paal Bugen
The Abyss
Pamella Dickey
Pamella Dickey is an artist who loves all forms of art, appreciating all types of colors, textures and movement. Her source of inspiration comes from her travels, family and nature, expressing emotions and moods in the best possible way. Even if her works can be linked to the Abstractionism’s movement, a strong surrealist charge emerges, which strikes the observer and draws him inside the paintings, in that sensory vortex composed by chromatic nuances, pictorial density and mysterious atmosphere. Moreover, one can notice a close approach to Jackson Pollock’s typical artistic conception: in fact, even Pamella paints by standing above her canvases lying on the ground, using any kind of instrument to create new shades and numerous material consistencies. Crucial is the emancipation of the work from any transcendent bond, where the pivotal center of the painting is the plot, which emerges predominantly from the canvas. With her brushstrokes, Pamella creates contrasting lights and shapes: in this way, her style manifests herself through the intensity and dynamism of her traits. All this can be seen in the three works presented at the Fable exhibition. First of all, “Dancing in a New Place” appears as a lyrical composition in which each part of the painting is balanced both in signs and movements. There is a continuous dynamism, almost as if it was a dance. The canvas expresses the gradation and complexity of the relationship between the way the work itself is created and the viewer’s gaze. Therefore, this is a spontaneous and incisive painting, with a precise awareness of each brushstroke and of its positioning inside the painting. While in Star Lights Night the different use of the pictorial material allows the artist to express different moods and to construct a choreography of action that takes a clear role on the canvas. The energy that comes from it, brings out all the concentration and determination; this union takes the work into a subtle boundary between the figurative and the abstract. By succeeding in impressing her subconscious, Pamella seems to go back to the origin of the creation of the painting to emphasize a strong gestural and dynamic charge. Finally, “Starting Over” is an energetic and vital representation through which the artist blends the different colors randomly, generating different thicknesses over the painting. The material attracts the viewer, who becomes the protagonist in this internal overturning of the painting which itself overcomes its limit.
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Pamella Dickey
Dancing in a New Place
Pamella Dickey
Star Lights Night
Pamella Dickey
Starting Over
Paula Rocha
Paula Rocha is a Portuguese artist, she started painting when she was 18 years old, but especially during recent lockdown, she has the possibility to study Abstract art. She presents at MADS Milano art gallery three Abstract works through which she expresses her feelings. In her works there is a great emotional charge, as if all her strength were released within her canvases. Undoubtedly the artist refers to the teachings of Jackson Pollock, inspired by dripping technique in the realization of the work entitled “CHAOS”. The composition is apparently chaotic and messy, as indicated by the title, but at a second glance you can notice a pattern: a series of oblique lines converge in the center and a second layer is formed by vertical lines. The chaos is certainly determined also by the great variety of colours that the artist uses, but in which prevails blue, color of calm. This work therefore highlights a paradox, contrasts chaos and order in a single canvas. This means that no matter how messy, senseless things seem to us, everything happens for a reason, everything is ruled by a higher force. Similar is the composition of the work entitled “FUTURE” in which red and white splashes go bump in a black background. The canvas expresses a strong drama, probably dictated by the vision of the future that awaits us. The composition of the work entitled “STORM” is more gestural and material. Here the artist does not use dripping but small brush strokes of color. The colors overlap creating layers, resulting in relief. Once again Rocha chooses to use a wide range of colors, seeking harmony. The artist releases strong emotions through her gestures and the choice of colors that instinctively create a strong visual impact.
“I paint things the way I imagine, not the way I see them.” (Pablo Picasso)
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Paula Rocha
FUTURE
Paula Rocha
CHAOS
Paula Rocha
STORM
Philip Kanwischer “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” (John Muir)
The photographic research of Philip Kanwischer, Canadian artist, sees its focus on the relationship between man and nature. A theme developed by many artists, philosophers, poets, in the most disparate ways. In particular, his work focuses on the relationship of man with animals. What kind of relationship exists between us and animals belonging to wildlife? In a distant time, we were inextricably linked. Later, this world became a source of exploitation for selfish well-being, moving us away from our origins. His, is a very deep and personal investigation. In fact, many of his works are self-portraits. Thanks to a photomontage technique, which he calls “photo bonding”, he generates a relationship by placing his body in close proximity to wild animals. A relationship that, in reality, is often feared or problematic. In his photographs we meet foxes, wolves, bears, elk and many others. Philip places them, with nobility and delicacy, in close contact with himself, developing, in a visual realism, an almost surreal world. The physical presence of man in these settings is no longer annoying or dangerous, on the contrary, it becomes invisible and light. It is no longer intrusive, but it is about bond and similarity. This physical contact becomes communication and tells of a mutual understanding. Images that want to remind us how important it is not to forget who we are.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Philip Kanwischer
Beguiled
Philip Kanwischer
Clutch
Philip Kanwischer
Nurture
Rakhila Bernikova “It is the mainspring of life, courage. And courage has many faces.” (Oriana Fallaci) The works of Rakhila Bernikova introduce a thematic which is extremely important in nowadays society: the role of women which, fortunately, has changed significantly and for better. For the artist, indeed, they are the epitome of strength, love, sensuality and sacrifice. According to Rakhila Bernikova, her art has an important goal: to show the femmine power in a way that it expresses not only beauty but, mostly, courage. In the present days, indeed, although we live in the 21st century, sometimes, it takes a lot of bravery for women to claim their own rights. Women victims of violence, for instance, are sometimes reticent to talk about their situation out of shame, for fear that their partner will find out, for fear of not being believed or because they think it is their fault. The artist wishes to deliver the message that it is important that women feel comfortable and safe in opening up, that they encounter a non-judgmental attitude on the other side. For this reason, Rakhila Bernikova, in her artwork “Phantasia”, depicts two women that do not fear being naked and showing themselves and their body to the viewer. Nevertheless, they wear a mask not revealing their own identity. The mask symbolizes an hidden world, the deepest part of ourselves that cannot be seen by anyone except by us. The artist wants to claim that, behind an apparently perfect and sensual body of a women, there is so much more to discover. It can hide so much of fragility and at the same time a lot of strength and courage. As regards the style of the artwork, the artist uses acrylic paint and pallet knife as tools to create her strong, wild femmine and expressive women. The woman’s body as an aesthetic simulacrum, as the center of media attention, as exposure and demand for certain aesthetic canons, is central in our current communities, and this perhaps increases aesthetic concerns and the desire to resemble ideal models. The artist, instead, through her artwork “Phantasia”, wishes to rebel against the system, representing two perfect bodies but letting it be understood that the true nature of a woman is hidden behind a mask, in the interior of their being.
“Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.” (Egon Schiele)
Art Curator Lorenza Traina
Rakhila Bernikova
Phantasia
Rand Masa’deh “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.” (Paul Klee)
The Jordanian mixed media and abstract artist with “Hot-Blooded” presents a work whose deep meaning makes you fully understand Rand’s strong personality. A volcano, fascinating but dangerous at the same time, after being observed in silence for a long time, revives and changes everything around it forever. Symbol of greatness and destruction, of charm and evil power. The young artist’s story is told by the work through a metaphor: a prosperous, bewitching but at the same time unpredictable woman perfectly embodies one of the most enchanting natural elements: a volcano. The body of the subject is sky blue and both the arms and the face are turned upwards as a sign of liberation. The colors of the work are bright and contrasting, but at the same time create a perfect chromatic balance. The volcano’s lava envelops the body from the torso down in a vortex that, passing invisibly inside the body, comes out of the mouth in all its impetuousness. The movement of the “hot blooded” is created by the succession of circular strokes of different colors: yellow, red, white, and sometimes blue, as if the body had given up some part of itself. Colors have great significance for Rand: blue, symbol of serenity and balance contrast with the red of passion and the yellow of madness. The black background makes it seem that the figure comes out of the canvas going towards the viewer and taking him part in what is happening around. The work is the mirror of a story that tells of a strong feeling that, when it deeply touches our soul, gives life to an encounter between ungovernable passion and the inspiration that brings great things into the world. Rand, a talented artist with great creativity, transforms her inspirations into works that, through colors and shapes, communicate her magical and precious inner world.
Art Curator Camilla Gilardi
Rand Masaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;deh
Hot-blooded
Rick Gillihan “The river taught me to listen, and you too will learn from him. He knows everything, the river, everything can be learned from him. You see, you have already learned this from the water, that it is good to descend, to stretch down, look for the deep.” (Herman Hesse) When we meet Rick’s artistic work, surely, we give a lot of importance to observation, we try to capture the details in detail, in fact he cuts out a small portion of nature and gives it to us. From his shots you can hear the sound of running water, and if you pay particular attention, you can smell the damp earth. Therefore, if on the one hand we are called to open our eyes well and look at the image, in the same way it is natural for us to open the doors of all our senses and savor the work to the full. The viewer’s imagination is added to the observation, Rick leaves us, with his works, a thousand worlds to discover, infinite stories to tell, his work frees itself from any scheme to leave full freedom of interpretation. The waters immortalized by Rick are transformed into secret passages for enchanted worlds, fantastic and magical places. Rick teaches us to look deeply, never to dwell on the surface of things, beyond what we see there is more, only attentive and sensitive eyes can cross the threshold of reality and enjoy unique panoramas. We have always listened to fairy tales set in places in direct contact with nature, contemporary people finds benefit in it and imagining stories and characters who live in it, makes us rediscover the enthusiasm of when we were children. Fantasy and detachment from everyday life plays an important role in the life of modern man, getting lost in Rick’s works is certainly a great gift. “Once the beings of the water were in contact, they advised us, they talked to us about the future [...]” this is how the film “Lady in the water” begins, it would be nice to have the wisdom of fairy tales and worlds that creates. Rick’s photographs are the bridges that lead us to the aquatic worlds, where maybe we could meet a Narf as happens in the Shyamalan film.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Rick Gillihan
Secret Fairyworld Passageway
Rick Gillihan
Summer Circles
Rick Gillihan
A Persistent Purple Rain
Rick Gillihan
Magical Greenery
Rick Gillihan
Lost Triangle
Ruth Taylor â&#x20AC;&#x153;I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.â&#x20AC;? (Raquel Cepeda)
Mother Nature, also known as Mother Earth, is a timeless and very common subject in art. The female figure as a generator of life and nourishment for her children, has been associated with nature from the earliest times. The connection with the goddesses venerated in prehistoric times is immediate, due to fertility and agricultural abundance, such as the Egyptian goddess Isis or the deities of the classical period such as Demeter and Hera. Usually represented as a timeless woman, she is the essence of all things and the absolute creator. Ruth makes this knowledge the main source for her artistic research. In her paintings, Mother Nature shows herself as a beautiful woman, ruler of seas, rivers and mountains. Her body emerges proudly from the waters and the turf descends, rich in sap, along her back. From her eyes the stars are born, while on her head, a thick vegetation grows. Her determined gaze makes her a strong woman, but at the same time a giver of love and peace. An ancient personification that has remained over time, which makes us understand how important and strong the connection between Man and Nature is.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Ruth Taylor
Humboldt Girl II
Ruth Taylor
Humboldt Girl IV
Ruth Taylor
Humboldt Girl
Sarah Jones “Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” (Orson Welles)
“Communicate”, from the Latin “communicare”, means “to share”, involving others in something. This is what Sarah Jones does. Her art accompanies us within her story and her vision of the world. Her paintings are not unrelated to each other, they seem to be part of a long storytelling that embraces and studies human sentiment, in relation to the world and to oneself. Starting from an inner analysis, Sarah lets the color slide on the canvas, giving life to real characters that show themselves overwhelmed by their emotions. Each of them seeks comfort in a second presence, someone who can help them, but who is not always there. Loneliness is an important theme in Sarah’s art and is analyzed from several points of view: love and its disappointments and the insecurity this can cause, the fear of being alone in the search for one’s own path. She tells us these stories through a style with clear references to the artistic current of the Expressionism. The forms do not follow a real proportion, but develop in space without precise rules. Almost asexual figures with intense colors, hugging and writhing in their worries. The choice of color and its arrangement on the canvas also convey instability and anguish. The large backgrounds alternate with bands, where the pigments mix together creating unexpected shades. One of the greatest goals of art and the artist, is to be able to transmit new visions and expand the boundaries of the mind. It seems strange that an artwork could tell so much. How it can convey such different sensations and emotions in a small space. This is what Sarah does. She communicates herself through art.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Sarah Jones
A little piece of heaven
Sarah Jones
Learning to fly
Sarah Jones
You promised me a rose garden
Sarah Rashidi
Natural elements, bones, tree branches and a skull make Sarah Rashidi’s work a masterpiece with multiple sensations. An intrinsic mystery that triggers in an occult world of energies. The art of using bones, here understood in a general sense, as creative material, has a very ancient ancestral origin that we find in all cultures; we think of pre-Columbian, Indian and Christian art, all linked to the mystery and the cult of death. We are not only talking about the skulls, which are still very much present in our culture at an iconographic level, but also about the fractionation of the skeletal apparatus and its recomposition in forms that surpass the idea of disintegration. This is an ancient custom, which survives among the non-civilized populations and which has had a great development from prehistory to our Baroque, period in which the triumph of life and death led to the decorative transformation of human remains or animal carcasses. Japanese artist Hideki Tokushige, known worldwide as Honebana, makes flowers using the bones of small rodents. Flowers, he explains, since ancient times, honored the deceased and at the same time constituted an eternal action. The idea of using the bones of an animal to make small floral triumphs came to the artist one evening, returning home, when he came across the carcass of a raccoon. Cervantes, in the XXXVIII chapter of the second part of Don Quijote writes these verses where the head appears, covered by a helmet, of a “smiling skeleton”. He describes the pleasure of death, understood as reactivation of the senses, in the paradoxical culmination of the pain of the loss of life, which seems to be able to bring the subject back to the center of it. In the work of the Iranian artist Sarah Rashidi, as in an admirable game of missing mirrors, the different forms of the sublime converge, coexist and are proposed in the range of their shades. Here the artist brings together the social and artistic dimension of the origins, which it draws for use and symbolic representations. A work with a very powerful meaning, a unique piece with a story and a soul.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Sarah Rashidi
Transmutation
Sea Choi
The artistic production of the artist Sea Choi tells life in all its nuances. Through her art, he enters the deepest and most intimate nature of something special and unique that unites all of us: Love and Hope, but above all the freedom to be and to exist as people free from any form of conditioning. A painting that prefers the use of acrylic colors to create simple compositions with a great visual impact and in which every moment is contemplated as something unique on which to stop, reflect and meditate. Thus, Love is told through the good and simple manners of a kind man who takes care of himself through a simple gesture, of great charm and beauty. Love for oneself is the basis of everything. The art of Sea Choi underlines the importance of “Being” instead of “Existing” through the extreme elegance of the pictorial gesture through colored backgrounds on pictorial canvases that reveal a deep and sensitive soul attentive to discovery and knowledge of the beauty that surrounds us, full of magic, poetry, expectation, hope and celebrated through the most intimate enhancement of one’s inner self. An Art, that of Sea Choi that nourishes life and its many aspects. Suspended moments, color, simplicity tell the story of the young emerging artist with a unique and precious talent. Simple images taken from everyday life embellished by a chromatic language with a strong communicative impact. Painting beauty, enhancing it, narrating it brings with it something very important, the role of an artist as a spokesperson for a narrative sensitivity of the world to which she belongs and which thanks to her art gives us a testimony of an iconographic story visible to all . A moment that concerns only us, no one excluded, a story that unites us and helps us to observe everything that surrounds us in a different way. With the hope of always being ourselves, with the strength to preserve our real authenticity, with the awareness that through the art of Sea Choi we can take on a new and wonderful outlook on the world.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
Sea Choi
Untitled
Sea Choi
Untitled
Sea Choi
Gentle Man
Snježana Boyd - Žana “A painting for me is a surface covered with representations of objects, animals, human forms, in a certain area where logic and illustration have no importance. Perhaps, there is a mysterious fourth or fifth dimension which, intuitively, creates a balance of plastic and psychic contrasts by striking the eye of the viewer through new and unusual conceptions.” (Marc Chagall)
For the exhibition “Fable” at the M.A.D.S. gallery, Snježana Boyd - Žana presents a new and unpublished work: in “Playground of Dreams” the artist was completely inspired by the concept of the event. Going beyond appearances and keeping enthusiasm alive, through this painting art becomes the medium between reality and fantasy. The painting is loaded with imaginary elements that take shape in a surreal world, as if it was a plunge into the artist’s subconscious. Looking into the depths of the soul and of the human mind, Žana evokes the completeness of creation based on opposites: light and darkness, good and evil, bright colors and a black background. The alchemy of opposites helps to compose a multidimensional space, where every aspect blend to create a universe that involves the user, opening the doors to the realm of fantasy. By creating perceptive and sensory images, the imaginary world of Žana is open to anyone who wants to fantasize and travel in their dreams, immersing themselves in a compelling and intriguing story that gives free rein to desires and fantasies. The observation of this work generates amazement, and the observer is eft enchanted: at this moment the playful aspect typical of childhood and has now been lost with the maturity ages. Suddenly, between wonder and illusion, you can see a magical creature, like the dragon, playing with a princess. The animal watches over and imprisons our dreams in a remote castle, but the maiden helps him to forget his malice and invites him to have fun. There is no gravity, no negative thought, no pain that is not softened and erased, to leave room at imagination and carefreeness. Through the choice of bright and brilliant colors the artist communicates happiness and optimism, to the point of evoking life, dynamism and satisfaction. The perception of humanity is evident: a universal, intimate and delicate message, a poetic essential to live and admire the beauty of art and the fairytale world. The observer has the opportunity to fly over the wings of fantasy and to undertake a path of positive emotions and fun.
“Knowledge is limited, imagination embraces the world.” (Albert Einstein)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Snježana Boyd - Žana
Playground of dreams
Snjezana Cirkovic
In her paintings Snježana Ćirković explores her inner self and her feelings through the use of color, in an exciting journey into the hidden corners of her soul. Despite the difference between the two styles, the leading role attributed to colors brings her artistic vision closer to the one of Marc Chagall. In the artworks of the Belorussian born French painter the lively use of color highlights the emotional resonances and symbolism of the depicted scenes. Color pervades the whole canvas not respecting the boundaries of figures; the palette does not accurately describe tones of reality but represents the mood of the painter. Similarly, in Snježana’s works the absence of dividing lines between the colors, which are fused together on the canvas meticulously respecting chromatic accords, conveys the artist’s outlook on life and her feelings. In Enchanted Forest, her pictorial style wears the chromatic tones of fable, accurately selected by the artist to interpret the concept of this exhibition. The viewer is therefore called to go through this mysterious forest, a metaphor used by Snježana to describe the magical universe of our mind. He makes his way through the unknown meanders of one’s self, symbolized by the dark tone of purple.
Snjezana Cirkovic
However, when the darkness seems to take possession of him, the power of imagination, represented on the canvas by yellow color, is what allows him to find his way inside the enchanted forest. My Mind is My Wonderland, with its evocative title, proposes again a comparison between the artist’s mind and a mysterious and magic wonderland. A fantastic universe where the painter’s thoughts come to life and chase themselves making a colorful harmony comparable to a kind of joyful dance. The use of color, sometimes spread with large and scratched strokes, other times through rapid touches, immerges the viewer in a fairytale atmosphere, evoked not only by tones but also by presence of elements like the vortexes. Often associated with passages in time, they are recurrent elements in fable, but, in this painting, they become also a symbol, a metaphorical connection between the different but intertwined layers of the artist’s mind. With her canvas Snježana gives us the possibility to immerse ourselves in her fantastic mental universe and be involved by its magical atmospheres.
Art Curator Marta Graziano
Snjezana Cirkovic
Enchanted Forest
Snjezana Cirkovic
My Mind is My Wonderland
Soni Miekkavaara “Without the lived experience of opposites, there can be no experience of totality.” (Ernst Jung). Since the dawn of philosophical thought, both in Greece and in countries further east, attention has been focused on the importance of the opposites that become necessary to ensure that there is balance and harmony. Good and evil, life and death, for example, exist in function of each other, as well as light and darkness, Soni’s work is the union of contrasts and opposites, a glimpse of light on a black background, a line that runs along a winding road, made of ups and downs, of curves, ups and downs. After all, life is just that, a long journey where joys and pains, feelings and emotions follow one another in a continuous succession. Encountering Soni’s work means coming into contact with everything, not only with the balance that springs from opposites but also the energy that binds us to the universe, the artist paints taking inspiration and strength from the bond that unites us with the rest. In a poetic vision of physics, such as the one that Lawrence Maxwell Krauss gave us, who states that we are all made of exploded stardust, in the same way Soni’s work is itself the result of this dust and it is concentrated in it all the energy of the universe. The work “Life lines” is an expression of an important emotional charge, the viewer is overwhelmed by the colors and strength that the traced signs emanate. Her work reminds me of the genius of Pollock who created intense works through dripping, letting himself be inspired by the gesture of his hands, without filters he moved in space, so Soni creates her works, following the instinct and inner strength that translates into “utomatic writing” and extreme freedom of expression. Soni puts her great ability to free himself and be guided, not only by instinct, but also by the forces that live in harmony in the infinite universe, at the spectator’s service. The artist allows us to become part of this great magic, puts us directly in contact with the vital energy that surrounds us, follow the lines she traces with our eyes, immerse ourselves in this vortex of emotions and vitality, this it is the gift that Soni gives us with his art.
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Soni Miekkavaara
Life lines – Elämänlangat
Stefan Pašara “If you are able to understand my art, you are able to understand me.” (Stefan Pašara)
This is the aim that the Croatian artist wants to catch on with the users of his art. As a self-thaugh artist, Stefan realizes pieces of great dimensions that instill energy to the viewers thanks to the colors he loves playing with. Blue, red, yellow and their hues are, in fact, the predominant colors used to create the three acrylic paintings displayed for “FABLE” Exhibtion at MADS Milano. Being coherent with the theme of the exhibition “Collision”; “The Infinity and Beyond” and “Wings of Destiny” represent the artist’s thoughts in the form of art with which he can express himself and his behaviour. “The Infinity and Beyond” allows to be half-seen common interests and techniques used by italian futurist artists such as Luigi Russolo; Umberto Boccioni and Giacomo Balla. With their same dynamism the Croatian artist exalts the speed that strikes the observer in an aggressive way to the eye but that rouses his energy. In the same way, the larger “Collision” seems to show the same scene, creates on two panels that crashes at the center of the work giving a sense of vividness to it. Howhever the stripe at the center of the scene seems to alleviate this sensation with his sober and cold colors, made up by nuances of grey and soft black. While these two pieces show an abstract subject that is free of any interpretation, the last “Wings of Destiny” reveals the ability of the artist to bring the viewer in another dimension in which is the unpredictable fate who commands. The wings, the main character of the scene are driven by geometric spiral shape figures that seem to hypnotize at the view. The artist aim is to reflect his soul and his nature through his art, just like fables do with their stories.
Art Curator Martina Stagi
Stefan PaĹĄara
Collision
Stefan PaĹĄara
Infinity and beyond
Stefan PaĹĄara
Wings of Destiny
Stephanie Limberg
A collage of different elements take shape in the precious art of the emerging artist Stephanie Limberg: acrylic paint, photographic paper, plastic flakes, applied jewels and cardboard film blend in the enchanting work of “Lucky Seven”. Observing the work Stephanie’s eye is immediately struck by a reference or perhaps a tribute by the artist to the “luck” represented by this enchanting woman placed in the center of the image. A presence that observes us, supports us and that in a certain way is linked to the wealth given by well-being, but also by the love represented by this heart placed by the artist in front of her and which strikes the attentive gaze of the observer. Inner wealth and elegance, love and luck are the elements on which Stephanie Limberg’s work of art focuses. Her artistic production is developed on the creation of collages with particular attention and care to the compositional elements, in this case represented by the use of this technique. Thus a contamination between different aspects worthy of note is born. Love at the center of the image and the extraordinary beauty of this woman, luck, observes us, scrutinizes us, supports us in life and leads us to face obstacles. A delicate work with an important meaning, rich in sensitivity and charm and which takes shape from the extraordinary skills of a multifaceted artist like Stephanie Limberg. A composition that generates life from the artist’s attentive gaze through a selection and very careful care of her materials, creating collages with her subjects that are real introspective masterpieces. Knowing the art of Stephanie Limberg means delving into the depths of the human soul and becoming the spokesperson for an art that is constantly inner research, emotions and sensitivity attentive to the choice of materials, to which she gives voice within her works. A meticulous care, an attention to detail, a rare and profound sensitivity towards the female figure as the spokesperson for a spiritual and interior change.
Art Curator Giulia Zanesi
Stephanie Limberg
Lucky Seven
Sylvain Boisjoly
Canadian artist Sylvain Boisjoly uses art as a means of venting his deepest emotions, he himself courageously affirms: “I paint to free myself away from my dark ideas that sometimes haunt the corners of my mind”. Impulse is the key to his art: he creates works without premeditation in which gestures are dominant. In this sense the artist approaches the Informal artists of the second post-war period. The same energy charge of Boisjoly is found in that of the American artist Franz Kline, that makes gestuality the fundamental act of his art. Boisjoly has the ability to capture on canvas the energetic charge of his gestures that convey a feeling of liberation. The outburst that emerges from his works is dictated not only by personal disturbances but also by social embarrassment, a theme very important to Boisjoly. The work exhibited at the MADS Milano art gallery is entitled “Sirocco”, this title immediately establishing in the mind of the observers the force of the wind. This feeling is confirmed by the execution of the work: it is as if a strong gust of wind has shifted the colors of the canvas, making them mix with each other and thus creating sudden shades. Darkness is undoubtedly evident in Boisjoly’s work, which emanates feelings of anger and pain, probably generated by society. However, on the other hand, light colors make their way and stand out on darker colors (such as purple and black): white tries to dominate the composition, alluding to a message of hope and redemption. Yellow, however, a colour that in the human psyche is connected to illness and anxiety, refers to the wickedness that is always ready to undermine itself in each of us.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Sylvain Boisjoly
Sirocco
Taija Mäntylä
Taija Mantyla is a Finnish artist who defines herself as a medium between colors and art. She says: “The painting is the boss and I am just a worker”. The artist works mainly in watercolor, the main means by which colors speak to her. Mantyla allows the colors to move and to show her the way. Imagination is the key to her art. The colors come together with each other, until she can imagine faces and animals. The work entitled “Forest Princess” is the perfect example of how, from her abstract art, emerge images, figures and faces. The dominant color of the work is certainly the violet, which imposes its coldness on the rest of the canvas. It comes close to gold and white, which create a brilliant contrast. An air of magic is expressed by this canvas. The eye travels and creates a story. The focus is definitely at the center of the painting, in which a human figure is distinguishable between the patches of color. Immediately after, the eye is attracted by a figure on the right: it has a yellow body and red horns, this figure thickens the mystery of the work. The lower part of the painting is dotted with human faces, the eyes and mouths of the characters are recognizable. In particular, the figure of a little girl dressed in white is clear, behind which a disturbing character stares at her. Taija Mantyla’s works encourage viewers to stimulate their imagination. They teach you to look beyond first appearances and look for connections. The artist therefore uses Abstractionism and watercolor as a means to channel the imagination, the only thing that can allow us to dream and to alienate ourselves from reality.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Taija Mäntylä
Forest Princess
Tatiana Altmann
Tatiana Altmann is a Russian artist, based in Germany. She is a graphic designer and she started painting recently. Nevertheless, her works show a great pictorial maturity and a graphic footprint dictated by her work. Altmann presents at MADS Milano art gallery a work in acrylic, entitled “Young woman in blue headscarf”. Colors are the fundamental element of the work: blue and ochre dominate the composition, creating a strong visual contrast. The flat ochre background accentuates even more blue elements of the composition: lips, headscarf and the dress that slips from the woman’s shoulders. Outlines are well defined, although the artist does not use black contour lines but the figure seems to have been cut out and glued to the background. Flat backgrounds and her compositions recall the style of the French painter Paul Gauguin, in particular the choice of colors in “Young woman in blue headscarf” clearly refer to Gauguin’s work entitled “Woman with a mango” (1892). Altmann is also inspired by Steve Mccurry’s photographs, author of the famous shot of a young Afghan girl with wonderful green eyes, published by National Geographic in 1985. Mccurry takes up the color of the girl’s eyes in the background and other details, the same pattern is used by Altmann who inserts touches of blue in the eyes and around them. Tatiana Altmann creates works in which the female figure stands out through a clever combination of colors and a unique graphical style.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Tatiana Altmann
Young woman in blue headscarf
Tero Porthan “Imagination creates reality.” (Richard Wagner)
Fairy tales have great power. Suffice it to say that they have remained in our cultures for thousands of years and, even before the invention of writing, they were handed down orally from generation to generation. Man has always made its imagination a source of inspiration, continually creating new worlds. This allows us to imagine anything, to break through the wall of reality and be able to make the impossible real. Art is one of the greatest fruits created by our mind. Wanting to convey to others one’s inner vision of the world. This is what Tero does through his art. He accompanies us into a world where the elements of nature take on human features and interact with each other. Where a simple stream becomes a young woman, sitting on the edge of a small lake. Where the stormy sea is an angry goddess, waiting for an offer to appease her anger. Where a bear sitting in the middle of a forest will finally be able to wear its claws, that a tree is holding out to him. Imagination is a gift, thanks to which we can conceive alternative realities to the present. Thanks to which, we can allow ourselves to overcome our limits, reaching where it had projected us and, thus, succeeding in making our dreams come true.
Art Curator Francesca Brunello
Tero Porthan
Bear Gets Its Claws
Tero Porthan
Maiden of the Pond
Tero Porthan
Vellamo Water Goddess
Tina Lundberg
The feminine beauty has been enhanced, reinterpreted and represented in works of intense and refined suggestion. They exalt at the same time the aesthetic canons, dreams, aspirations, the psychological, unconscious and dreamlike dimension of women, so as to document their evolution. Painted and sculpted, female images have accompanied all the phases of our civilization as protective gods. Above all the constancy and richness of their presence identifies the complexity of Western thought on the front of the representation of “feminine”. However, in the very invention of the “abstract and symbolic” forms of femininity, art reveals and implicitly recognizes the very power of woman. In fact, it enhances its mysterious harmony with the natural rhythms and with the regeneration of life itself. Modigliani, with the long and disproportionate necks and the irregular faces, the twisted and folded bodies of Schiele that with the body and the face had the objective of expressing a psychological discomfort. Naked bodies of powerful women, master of their bodies and of themselves, selfportraits deformed by psychotic disorders and physical mutilations and couples united in an eternal embrace without love. “Power” by Tina Lundberg is a work of intense representation of an ideal of pure and eternal beauty. In this work the subject is the female power expressed through the sinuous and refined body curves. The work is characterized by impressive chromatic pomp, which through the use of intense blue and ethereal white underline the aspects of seduction exerted by the female body, converging towards a perspective capable of expressing its overwhelming and in some respects subversive force. Tina Lundberg, Swedish artist, through her art tries to inspire the interlocutor to find concrete tools in various ways that promote the puzzle of life and personal growth.
Art Curator Federica D’Avanzo
Tina Lundberg
Power
Tjeerd Doosje
In every era, fairy tales were invented to tell children: now they have become a symbol of the innocence and sweetness of children, just like the faces depicted in the shots of photographer Tjeerd Doosje. So, among the faces of Tjeerd we find Fay, in the shot entitled “Fay (0114), who like a contemporary Alice wondering what could be on the other side of the mirror. Alice manages to get past him, and Fay? She will learn to look beyond that mirror, to look beyond the external image of herself, to be able to look inside and discover herself every day. Then we find Merlin, in “Merlin (0107)”, a modern Little red riding hood, who looks at us intently, transmitting the sweetness and purity of every child, who tends her gaze to those around her and seeks comfort in him. Then we see Emily, who in the shot “Emily (0201)”, Tjeerd depicts her lost but happy in a forest, a place par excellence where you get lost but only to find yourself better than before. Emily is also the protagonist of the shot “Emily (0207)” in which we can only make out her silhouette, but she seems to face the dark with confidence. Finally, Rona, in the shot “Rona (0304)”, listens to the waves of the sea by approaching a large shell to her ear, thinking of a distant place that makes her dream. Tjeerd has the ability to reveal, through the expressions of the faces and the pose that the models take, their personality, their way of being in some ways still little girls, living in the world of fairy tales, but for others already projected towards the world of reality.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Tjeerd Doosje
Emily (0201)
Tjeerd Doosje
Emily (0207)
Tjeerd Doosje
Merlin (0107)
Tjeerd Doosje
Rona (0304)
Tjeerd Doosje
Fay (0114)
Torhild Frøydis Eid
Torhild Frøydis Eid was born in 1961 in Kristiansand, currently living in Son, Norway. Torhild Frøydis is a passionate painter and she loves to experiment with colors and techniques. Sources of inspiration for her work are nature, sea, sky, light and music, in which she finds great joy, happiness and mindfulness. Her aim is to awaken and to remind the observer of all the beauty in life. In this sense her purpose is very close to that of the exhibition organized by MADS Milano art gallery, entitled “Fable”. The exhibition encourages artists and their audience to continue to dream and to always stimulate their imagination. Frøydis Eid proposes three abstract works in which the power of emotions prevails. The work entitled “Dreams” is an example of how her artistic research starts from colors: pink is dominant, contrasted by colder colors that make the work more striking. The inspiration probably starts from the sweet colors of dawn, where darkness and light meet in the sky, heralding a new beginning. Dreams disappear and reality begins. However, it is a work that wants to teach us not to abandon dreams, generating positivity in the viewer. With darker tones is the work entitled “Mysterious”: blue and gold prevail in the composition, almost clashing with each other and trying to prevail. The ocean is undoubtedly the inspiration of the artist, who creates a work in which the feeling of vastness is dominant. The feeling is to fly over the ocean that meets an island, represented by the gold spot in the center. The same shade of color is found in the work “The Blue Swan” although the execution differs from previous works. In contrast to the other two abstract works, here the artist experiences a different composition: the approach to Italian Futurist artists is evident. The composition recalls the work “Pessimism and optimism” by the artist Giacomo Balla, made in 1923. The geometries and lines that create dynamism are taken from Frøydis Eid, thus creating a dynamic work in which the subject is evident. A blue swan is recognizable in the lower part of the composition: the lines of the beak and the neck merge between the figures that compose the painting, as if it were at the mercy of a storm but, in spite of that, it remains calm and impassive. The sensation, accentuated by the blue of the canvas, is in fact that of calm. The artist has the ability to create works that create positive emotions in the observer, through the right choice of colors and her delicate traits.
Art Curator Giorgia Massari
Torhild Frøydis Eid
Dreams
Torhild Frøydis Eid
Mysterious
Torhild Frøydis Eid
The Blue Swan
Tori Fossum Sorgendal “It isn’t enough to pick a path, you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn’t possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at least you will have, as we like to say, explored the neighbourhood. The key point here is that even if you decide you’re in the wrong place, there is still time to head toward the right place.” (Ed Catmull)
Tori Fossum Sorgendal is a self-taught painter based in Norway. ‘The Pathway’ is an abstract painting whose dominant colour is a brownish/yellowish palette. The oneiric atmosphere of the piece evokes a sense of infinity as the artwork’s shapes and contours seem to be almost intangible and extremely soft. The meaning and reflection coming from the piece’s fruition is that the represented pathway could be any ‘way’ the one has to or would like to go through in the broadest sense. It could symbolise an hard decision to make, a fear to challenge and experience the unknown or an excitement to see what the uncontrollable future is reserving to us. ‘Pathway’ can be adapt to the prism of the individual’s inner reality that, in experiencing it, can fantasise about his own path, thanks to the piece’s multiple layers of interpretation.
Art Curator Cecilia Terenzoni
Tori Fossum Sorgendal
The Pathway
Varda Levy
If we think about it, many fairy tales begin with the protagonist entering a wood or a forest. In this sense, the fairy tales of Hansel and Gretel, Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood are emblematic. Or, however, the forest is the place where fundamental events take place for the continuation of history. Let’s think, for example, even just of Snow-White or Rumple. The forest is therefore a fundamental element for the development of many fairy tales and stories of the cultural tradition of almost all countries in the world. In fairy tales, however, the forest almost always refers to a dark place, in which to be afraid. Instead, the artist Varda Levy represents truly fairytale woods and landscapes in her works, which convey a sense of peace and tranquility, as if we were already in the “happily ever after”. The fantasy of imagining magical and fairytale places guided the artist in the creation of these works, just as the title of the work “Fantasy” tells us. Colors are the undisputed protagonists of all the works, spread with large brushstrokes shaded in the various shades of the woodland vegetation. In “Fantasy” we find ourselves at the entrance to a forest, where the light makes its way through the leaves, we are about to enter, walking on a path of red ground. In “Purple”, on the other hand, a clearing of purple flowers suddenly opened before our eyes: a spot of intense color between the branches of brown trees. Finally, in “Pink” we are faced with a beautiful hill covered with beautiful pink flowers and it really seems to be in a magical world, almost fairy.
Art Curator Silvia Grassi
Varda Levy
Fantasy
Varda Levy
Purple
Varda Levy
Pink
Yewon Cho “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.” (Aristotele)
With this phrase from the philosopher Aristoteles, Yewon Cho a Korean artist wants to express her consideration of art. The artwork shown through the screens of M.A.D.S. gallery for ‘FABLE’ exhibition called: ‘Awake’ - an oil pastel picture - is the result of an inspiration that Yewon had one day at dawn when, the first thing she saw was the blue color of her room’s walls. The young artist, expressing her vision, has let herself be inspired by “The little mermaid” (1989) animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Features Animation and Walt Disney Pictures. The sensation each of us feel at dawn, the moment in which a new day starts, recalls the mermaid’s world that is here perceived as a boundary between two different ways of living. The different zones the artist wants to represent are expressed by means of the high horizon that separates, through a line, the marine world from which the siren, as a woman, comes out breaking the sea as a glass and reaching the human world. According to the moment of her inspiration, the artist aim is to spread the consideration that we are all born mermaids who, after having broken the invisible walls of our own, had come to life. The bad and the ‘crystal’ bubble positioned on the sea bottom are the objects that are in connection with the artist’s real life.
Art Curator Martina Stagi
Yewon Cho
Awake
Yuika Asoi “I can’t bear to lose something as precious as the autumn sun by staying indoors. So I spent most of the hours of daylight in the open sky.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The autumn season brings with it something mystical and mysterious, nature takes on a new aspect, a sort of change of clothes so fascinating that one cannot help but look. Yuika’s photos represent a succession of enchanted stories, trapped in this magic, where the colors of autumn stop time, quiet the din of everyday life to make room for the sweet sounds of fantasy. Glimpses and landscapes of Nagatoro show themselves to the artist’s eyes as surreal scenarios, which offer different and changing perspectives and emotions, because they change with the changing of the sunlight. The artist offers us a different vision, postcards of a landscape reflected on a body of water, where the rippling of small waves makes the works full of vitality. Yuika’s work is never static, the elements photographed are not immobile, on the contrary there is a continuous movement, we perceive the wind shaking the leaves and the rustle they produce, letting ourselves be carried away by these movements we arrive there, in a dimension fairy. The artist gives us the gift of the freedom to fantasize through her shots. The natural elements and the colors connected to them shorten the distance between us and our unconscious, our feelings and our most intimate memories. Yuika’s works open the doors to our desire to get in touch with nature, to immerse ourselves in it and benefit from it. As in a fairytale, we become travelers to unspoiled places that refresh the spirit. Making the meeting of Yuika’s works is always a show for the soul, the great sensitivity of the artist makes her work unique, emotionally captivating, the viewer feels almost enveloped by sensations of peace and harmony. In her photographs there is always something magical and fantastic, they tell not only places but great stories, different at every glance.
“The gracious people of the woods welcome me warmly, the streams laugh louder when I arrive.” (Emily Dickinson)
Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Yuika Asoi
Traveler
Yuika Asoi
Sparkle
Yuika Asoi
Flow-eternal
Yuika Asoi
Seahorse
Yuika Asoi
Autumn leaves
Yuliya Latysheva (Yula)
Yuliya Latysheva is a multimedia artist who loves to try out as much as possible new digital means in her works. Her artistic conception reflects her interest in human psychology, with special focus on the way people interact with each other and within a given context. She focuses her work on the revelation of expressive elements, transmitted among colors, light and matter. Recalling the abstract art of Vasilij Kandinskij, Yuliya expresses an “introspective landscape”: the impressions received from the outside are linked to those arising from her inner world. Her paintings are the result of a combination of geometric and symbolic signs that communicate with the viewer and invite him to participate in the creative act of the work. As in “Happy Day”, Yuliya’s artistic practice emerges clearly through the emotional properties of different shades, lines and shapes. Being inspired by the Post-Impressionism and Expressionism’s movements, the artist deepens a research on free color. She does not represent the reality that surrounds her, but she tries to represent her feelings through shapes and shades, making them emerge from the canvas and involving the observer in a whirlwind of emotions. Two main points can be underlined from this work: in the upper part there is a delicate center, with pink’s shades, as if they were slightly blurred; these colors seem to predominate also in the lower section, where the different shades turn into blue and azure. All these nuances are accompanied by tiny and wavy lines that make evident the life of the work itself and confirm a slight movement perception within the canvas. Also “In a Dream”, the artist places color and its dynamic function as the work’s center of gravity. The numerous color spots float in the air, completely enveloping the entire painting. The inner perception of the whole painting is determined by this main center and the small forms of painting produce a very wide effect of vitality, allowing the observer to experience new emotions coming from the image. In this work also appears a “dark side”, given by the presence of black in the background: the irrationality and unpredictability of human nature, which translates into a great gestural and chromatic energy. Finally, in “Night Violet” Yuliya elaborates fast brushstrokes, both subtle and full-bodied, rendering the work in constant movement with her extraordinary skill. The fluid and rhythmic signs are characterized by changes of direction and dynamism. As in a dance, the artist moves in every corner of the painting, without necessarily preferring one: in this way, she manages to give wide space to her creativity, which blends with the overall harmony of the canvas.
“The modern artist works to express an inner world. In other words: he expresses movement, energy and all the other inner forces.” (Jackson Pollock)
Art Curator Alessia Perone
Yuliya Latysheva (Yula)
Happy day
Yuliya Latysheva (Yula)
In a Dream
Yuliya Latysheva (Yula)
Night violet
Yuriko Sasaki “The universe is beginning to look more like a great thought than a great machine.” (Sir James Jeans)
A palette of bright, laughing colors. An ethereal and almost incorporeal color rendering. Yuriko exhibits pigments on paper that smell of freedom, of independence from any constraint of form and subject. In her paper-based transposition, the pigments are applied by brush through a mode of representation that is extremely free from any hypothetical representation of reality and the elements that inhabit it. The color is often fluid, so transparent as to seem almost imperceptible, other times it is declined in denser backgrounds which, however, even in the points of maximum concreteness maintain their harmonic delicacy. Yuriko’s universe is made up of fresh, sweet forms that are freed up in a space marked by an evident motion of acceleration. What is represented are not firm and static figures, forms that end in themselves, safe and immovable, but elements with a faint physiognomy, interchangeable and subject to the laws of a universe - that of the canvas - in continuous expansion. Like a drop of enamel that, falling into a glass full of water, dilates and disperses in the transparent fluid, Yuriko’s ethereal shapes move through space, conquering it and saturating it with color, traveling in all directions with a perpetual motion of expansion. A Redshift on paper that involves all the elements of the composition in a movement of estrangement and dilation. And yet, in these ethereal compositions we find a blocking element, something that tries to stop this motion, an entity that dares to contain within a perimeter the colored physiognomies expressed on the canvas.
Yuriko Sasaki
The graphite line, that almost invisible thread that is a constant and necessary presence in Yurikoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paintings. Flickering filaments, at times almost imperceptible, at other times distinguished by a pigment overwhelmingly pressed onto the canvas. The pencil lines, threads of containment and union between the parts, suitably compensate the perpetual movement of the chromatic masses and hold them on the canvas, forcing them to immobility and fossilizing them in that fraction of the universe that ends in the edges of the paper support. The representation is dominated by fantastic shapes, which owe so much to the world of the oneiric and fantasy. These stains, keeping intact some reminiscences of reality - those yellowish circles lead back to the shape of the coins mentioned in the title of the painting - acquire a personal expressive autonomy, their physiognomy and a new relationship with space. An undefined morphology that, like a dream or a fantastic tale, leads the viewer to discover new realities and unknown epiphanic perspectives. A dreamlike journey that, through the wise positioning of the elements in space, induces us to create associations and mental procedures, encouraging the formation of extraordinary and innovative intuitions.
Art Curator Lisa Galletti
Yuriko Sasaki
Money
Yuriko Sasaki
Sick
Yuta Tamura “Man is the being that has its meaning - its light - in itself.” (Martin Heidegger) Understated colours, undefined contours and flat backgrounds. Diluted touches of colour stand out against neutral and evanescent backgrounds, moulding into a saturnine painting that smells of sweet and calm melancholy. Yuta Tamura’s mood is a state of mind that does not have its roots in a past now distant and no longer recognizable, golden times that are remembered with a faint and sometimes bitter smile on the lips. It is an existential melancholy, in some ways atavistic and dictated by the inexorable flow of time, a hypothetical dimension in which the passing of events is conceived and measured. Ages, centuries, eras are inflexible condemnations, destined to every atom of organic or inorganic matter that is, revealing to us the ineluctable destiny to which everything is given by lot. The arrow of time envelops us, dominates us. It is imperious and impossible to evade. Yet peculiar is its imperceptibility, we do not detect with our senses its impetuous and unidirectional running. Our perception leads us to believe that every moment is still in itself and ends in the manifestation of the “here and now”. The time that hovers in Yuta’s works is a “suspended” time that escapes the grids of measurability. A time that is a-temporal; not the time of clocks, not a “flow” that “flows” linearly, but a round that follows, like a shadow, “the being of man”. The chromatic palette - reduced to the minimum terms - is resolved in a lean and arid pictorial material, where the neutral and calm tones of grey dominate. Friendly and supportive of touches of colour, the cinerine gradations light up the latter by infusing them with vital energy, giving them their own autonomy and manifest rigour. The floral stems and petals, incorporeal in their evanescent fragility, are distinguished by a skillful balance of colours. Dilute blue that stands out, uncertain, on a backdrop of greyish, antique pink, diaphanous and rarefied tones that do not desire a defined outline. They go to create extra-corporeal and dreamy forms that many times, in a legacy of animist worship, recall the sinuosity of a female body in its anthropomorphic form. Portraits of women with elusive contours and impenetrable gaze. Women gently stuck in their instant of time, in their most tangible and concrete form. Botanical elements and feminine bodies, refined and ethereal in their own personal temporality, are figures without līmĕs, resolved in their personal intimate space and time, whether fantastic or real. Witnesses of an immobile moment, fallen out of the calculable instant, resolve in their own intimate, immanent ancestral doubts.
Art Curator Lisa Galletti
Yuta Tamura
Smoke
Yuta Tamura
Doze
Yuta Tamura
Déjà-vu
Yuta Tamura
Come back again