Paola Angelini, Le forme del tempo / The shapes of time

This project, to be formalized in a solo show, is the result of two research phases initiated when I was invited to interact with the Palazzo Pretorio Museum Collection in Prato (Italy). In the first phase, I could use the museum as a studio, to gain an overall view of the collection. Starting from sketches on paper and then with paintings of different sizes I realized a single body of works that functions as a filtered image of the collection through the language of painting. The images made from life in the museum were not chosen or developed individually, but became components of a visual collage, projected on canvas without preconceived structure. A direct relation with contemporary painting in Flanders helped me to develop an idea of painterly composition without hierarchies, not centred on subjects, the drawing is not an underneath structure that creates a project on the canvas. I lost the centrality and the shiny matter of oil to work in several layers on unprepared canvas as if it was an object that evokes the collection and is able to present a visual presence. The new body of works has to be considered as a single visual tale, one work made up of several canvases, graphics and objects. It is a single image, where painting and space are in dialogue, a single virtual artist book.