Alessandra Giovannoni. In cammino

As painting continues to enjoy something of a comeback, Alessandra Giovannoni is not only one of a group of artists emerging in Rome today, whose favourite subject is the city, landscapes and the reality that surrounds us, she could also be described as its leader. Villa Borghese, via Nomentana, via Labicana and Piazzza Quirrinale commonly feature in the large oils she creates but also paints small watercolours of magical and mysterious places too. Her paintings are born of long and regular walks in the city’s gardens and streets amidst the monuments, trees and benches, sketching and noting what she sees and logging the time, day and month. The vistas are elongated and she often foreshortens the top part of her landscapes in order to capture distances and tones. Light and colour dazzle her canvasses and her brushstrokes break the space up and create a sense of activity and motion. She paints what she sees, the hottest part of the day, sunsets, dawns, and shadows. She likes to take the same walk time and time again and to paint the same bench, the same piazza or the same group of sculptures and behind this obsessive behaviour lays the secret to understating the laws that govern nature and history. The artist is a native Roman who graduated in sculpture under Emilio Greco. She has taken part in many collective exhibitions since the 1980 and her first “one-woman” show was held at Rome’s “Al Ferro di Cavallo” art gallery in 1986. Since 1991, she has taken part in all the major reviews mounted in Rome and elsewhere around Italy, mounted several important solo exhibitions and received numerous awards. Countless public an private collectors are buying her work. This exhibition brings together some of the artist’s most significant works for the first time and includes both large and small oil paintings as well as watercolours, cards and notebooks. The large triptych created by the artist especially for this show, featuring the large round basin opposite the Bilotti Museum, will also be on display.